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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography, by 
+George William Erskine 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: Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography
+
+Author: George William Erskine Russell
+
+Release Date: May 27, 2007 [EBook #21624]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIFTEEN CHAPTERS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Martin Pettit and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+FIFTEEN CHAPTERS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+                     _UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME._
+
+
+THE GREAT BOER WAR.                              _Arthur Conan Doyle._
+
+COLLECTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS.                     _G. W. E. Russell._
+
+FROM THE CAPE TO CAIRO.                                _E. S. Grogan._
+
+SPURGEON'S SERMONS.                   _Sir W. Robertson Nicoll, LL.D._
+
+SIR FRANK LOCKWOOD.                    _Augustine Birrell, K.C., M.P._
+
+THE MAKING OF A FRONTIER.                            _Colonel Durand._
+
+LIFE OF RICHARD COBDEN.                                 _Lord Morley._
+
+LIFE OF PARNELL.                                   _R. Barry O'Brien._
+
+MEMORIES GRAVE AND GAY.                               _Dr. John Kerr._
+
+A BOOK ABOUT ROSES.                                _S. Reynolds Hole._
+
+RANDOM REMINISCENCES.                            _Charles Brookfield._
+
+AT THE WORKS.                                             _Lady Bell._
+
+MEXICO AS I SAW IT.                               _Mrs. Alec Tweedie._
+
+PARIS TO NEW YORK BY LAND.                           _Harry de Windt._
+
+LIFE OF LEWIS CARROLL.                   _Stuart Dodgson Collingwood._
+
+THE MANTLE OF THE EAST.                              _Edmund Candler._
+
+LETTERS OF DR. JOHN BROWN.
+
+JUBILEE BOOK OF CRICKET.                        _Prince Ranjitsinhji._
+
+BY DESERT WAYS TO BAGHDAD.                              _Louisa Jebb._
+
+SOME OLD LOVE STORIES.                               _T. P. O'Connor._
+
+FIELDS, FACTORIES, & WORKSHOPS.                    _Prince Kropotkin._
+
+PROBLEMS OF POVERTY.                                   _Dr. Chalmers._
+
+THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS.                             _M. E. Durham._
+
+LIFE AND LETTERS OF LORD MACAULAY.--I. & II.            _Sir George O.
+                                                     Trevelyan, Bart._
+
+WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA.                           _Hon. Maurice Baring._
+
+WILD ENGLAND OF TO-DAY.                               _C. J. Cornish._
+
+THROUGH FINLAND IN CARTS.                         _Mrs. Alec Tweedie._
+
+THE VOYAGE OF THE "DISCOVERY."--I. & II.              _Captain Scott._
+
+FELICITY IN FRANCE.                               _Constance E. Maud._
+
+MY CLIMBS IN THE ALPS AND CAUCASUS.                   _A. F. Mummery._
+
+JOHN BRIGHT.                                       _R. Barry O'Brien._
+
+POVERTY.                                        _B. Seebohm Rowntree._
+
+SEA WOLVES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN.  _Commander E. Hamilton Currey, R.N._
+
+FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES.                        _A. Hilliard Atteridge._
+
+THE CRUISE OF THE "FALCON."                            _E. F. Knight._
+
+A.K.H.B. (A Volume of Selections).
+
+THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS.                                _Jack London._
+
+GRAIN OR CHAFF?                                 _A. Chichele Plowden._
+
+LIFE AT THE ZOO.                                      _C. J. Cornish._
+
+THE FOUR MEN.                                        _Hilaire Belloc._
+
+CRUISE OF THE "ALERTE."                                _E. F. Knight._
+
+FOUR FRENCH ADVENTURERS.                             _Stoddard Dewey._
+
+A REAPING.                                             _E. F. Benson._
+
+                             _Etc., etc._
+
+                          _Others to follow._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography
+
+BY THE RIGHT HON. GEORGE W. E. RUSSELL
+
+[Illustration: Publisher's logo]
+
+THOMAS NELSON AND SONS
+LONDON, EDINBURGH, DUBLIN
+AND NEW YORK
+
+
+_NOTE._
+
+_This book was originally published under the title of "One Look Back."_
+
+
+TO
+
+HENRY SCOTT HOLLAND
+
+IN HONOUR OF THE BEST GIFT WHICH OXFORD GAVE ME
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+   I. BEGINNINGS            9
+
+  II. HARROW               35
+
+ III. HARROVIANA           56
+
+  IV. OXFORD               82
+
+   V. OXONIANA            102
+
+  VI. HOME                125
+
+ VII. LONDON              143
+
+VIII. HOSPITALITY         171
+
+  IX. ELECTIONEERING      195
+
+   X. PARLIAMENT          222
+
+  XI. POLITICS            246
+
+ XII. ORATORY             283
+
+XIII. LITERATURE          309
+
+ XIV. SERVICE             338
+
+  XV. ECCLESIASTICA       365
+
+
+
+
+FIFTEEN CHAPTERS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+BEGINNINGS
+
+
+     One look back--as we hurry o'er the plain,
+         Man's years speeding us along--
+     One look back! From the hollow past again,
+         Youth, come flooding into song!
+     Tell how once, in the breath of summer air,
+         Winds blew fresher than they blow;
+     Times long hid, with their triumph and their care,
+         Yesterday--many years ago!
+                                       E. E. BOWEN.
+
+
+The wayfarer who crosses Lincoln's Inn Fields perceives in the midst of
+them a kind of wooden temple, and passes by it unmoved. But, if his
+curiosity tempts him to enter it, he sees, through an aperture in the
+boarded floor, a slab of stone bearing this inscription:
+
+
+        "On this spot was beheaded
+           William Lord Russell,
+     A lover of constitutional liberty,
+         21st July, A.D. 1683."[1]
+
+
+Of the martyr thus temperately eulogized I am the
+great-great-great-great-grandson, and I agree with The Antiquary, that
+"it's a shame to the English language that we have not a less clumsy way
+of expressing a relationship of which we have occasion to think and
+speak so frequently."
+
+Before we part company with my ill-fated ancestor, let me tell a story
+bearing on his historical position. When my father was a cornet in the
+Blues, he invited a brother-officer to spend some of his leave at Woburn
+Abbey. One day, when the weather was too bad for any kind of sport, the
+visitor was induced to have a look at the pictures. The Rembrandts, and
+Cuyps, and Van Dykes and Sir Joshuas bored him to extremity, but
+accidentally his eye lit on Hayter's famous picture of Lord Russell's
+trial, and, with a sudden gleam of intelligence, he exclaimed, "Hullo!
+What's this? It looks like a trial." My father answered, with modest
+pride--"It is a trial--the trial of my ancestor, William, Lord Russell."
+"Good heavens! my dear fellow--an ancestor of yours tried? What a
+shocking thing! _I hope he got off._"
+
+So much for our Family Martyr.
+
+In analysing one's nationality, it is natural to regard one's four
+grand-parents as one's component parts. Tried by this test, I am half an
+Englishman, one quarter a Highlander, and one quarter a Welshman, for my
+father's father was wholly English; my father's mother wholly Scotch; my
+mother's father wholly Welsh; and my mother's mother wholly English. My
+grandfather, the sixth Duke of Bedford, was born in 1766 and died in
+1839. He married, as his second wife, Lady Georgiana Gordon, sister of
+the last Duke of Gordon, and herself "the last of the Gordons" of the
+senior line. She died just after I was born, and from her and the "gay
+Gordons" who preceded her, I derive my name of George. It has always
+been a comfort to me, when rebuked for ritualistic tendencies, to recall
+that I am great-great-nephew of that undeniable Protestant, Lord George
+Gordon, whose icon I daily revere. My grandmother had a numerous family,
+of whom my father was the third. He was born in Dublin Castle, his
+father being then Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in the Ministry of "All the
+Talents." My grandfather had been a political and personal friend of
+Charles James Fox, and Fox had promised to be godfather to his next
+child. But Fox died on the 13th of September, 1806, and my father did
+not appear till the 10th of February, 1807. Fox's nephew, Henry Lord
+Holland, took over the sponsorship, and bestowed the names of "Charles
+James Fox" on the infant Whig, who, as became his father's viceregal
+state, was christened by the Archbishop of Dublin, with water from a
+golden bowl.
+
+The life so impressively auspicated lasted till the 29th of June, 1894.
+So my father, who remembered an old Highlander who had been out with
+Prince Charlie in '45, lived to see the close of Mr. Gladstone's fourth
+Premiership. He was educated at Rottingdean, at Westminster, where my
+family had fagged and fought for many generations, and at the University
+of Edinburgh, where he boarded with that "paltry Pillans," who,
+according to Byron, "traduced his friend." From Edinburgh he passed
+into the Blues, then commanded by Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, and thence
+into the 52nd Regiment. In 1832 he was returned to the first Reformed
+Parliament as Whig Member for Bedfordshire. He finally retired in 1847,
+and from that date till 1875 was Sergeant-at-Arms attending the House of
+Commons. He married in 1834, and had six children, of whom I was the
+youngest by eight years, being born on the 3rd of February, 1853.[2]
+
+My birthplace (not yet marked with a blue and white medallion) was 16,
+Mansfield Street; but very soon afterwards the official residences at
+the Palace of Westminster were finished, and my father took possession
+of the excellent but rather gloomy house in the Speaker's Court, now
+(1913) occupied by Sir David Erskine.
+
+Here my clear memories begin. I have indeed some vague impressions of a
+visit to the widow of my mother's grandfather--Lady Robert Seymour--who
+died in her ninety-first year when I was two years old; though, as those
+impressions are chiefly connected with a jam-cupboard, I fancy that they
+must pertain less to Lady Robert than to her housekeeper. But two
+memories of my fourth year are perfectly defined. The first is the fire
+which destroyed Covent Garden Theatre on the 5th of March, 1856. "During
+the operatic recess, Mr. Gye, the lessee of the Theatre, had sub-let it
+to one Anderson, a performer of sleight-of-hand feats, and so-called
+'Professor.' He brought his short season to a close by an entertainment
+described as a 'Grand Carnival Complimentary Benefit and Dramatic Gala,
+to commence on Monday morning, and terminate with a _bal masqué_ on
+Tuesday night.' At 3 on the Wednesday morning, the Professor thought it
+time to close the orgies. At this moment the gasfitter discovered the
+fire issuing from the cracks of the ceiling, and, amid the wildest
+shrieking and confusion, the drunken, panic-stricken masquers rushed to
+the street. The flames burst through the roof, sending high up into the
+air columns of fire, which threw into bright reflection every tower and
+spire within the circuit of the metropolis, brilliantly illuminating the
+whole fabric of St. Paul's, and throwing a flood of light across
+Waterloo Bridge, which set out in bold relief the dark outline of the
+Surrey hills." That "flood of light" was beheld by me, held up in my
+nurse's arms at a window under "Big Ben," which looks on Westminster
+Bridge. When in later years I have occasionally stated in a mixed
+company that I could remember the burning of Covent Garden Theatre, I
+have noticed a general expression of surprised interest, and have been
+told, in a tone meant to be kind and complimentary, that my hearers
+would hardly have thought that my memory went back so far. The
+explanation has been that these good people had some vague notions of
+_Rejected Addresses_ floating through their minds, and confounded the
+burning of Covent Garden Theatre in 1856 with that of Drury Lane Theatre
+in 1809. Most people have no chronological sense.
+
+Our home was at Woburn, in a house belonging to the Duke of Bedford,
+but given by my grandfather to my parents for their joint and several
+lives. My father's duties at the House of Commons kept him in London
+during the Parliamentary Session, but my mother, who detested London and
+worshipped her garden, used to return with her family to Woburn, in time
+to superintend the "bedding-out." My first memory is connected with my
+home in London; my second with my home in the country, and the
+rejoicings for the termination of the Crimean War.
+
+Under the date of May 29, 1856, we read in _Annals of Our Time_,
+"Throughout the Kingdom, the day was marked by a cessation from work,
+and, during the night, illuminations and fireworks were all but
+universal." The banners and bands of the triumphal procession which
+paraded the streets of our little town--scarcely more than a village in
+dimensions--made as strong an impression on my mind as the conflagration
+which had startled all London in the previous March.
+
+People who have only known me as a double-dyed Londoner always seem to
+find a difficulty in believing that I once was a countryman; yet, for
+the first twenty-five years of my life, I lived almost entirely in the
+country. "We could never have loved the earth so well, if we had had no
+childhood in it--if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up
+again every spring, that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as we
+sat lisping to ourselves on the grass--the same hips and haws on the
+autumn hedgerows.... One's delight in an elderberry bush overhanging the
+confused leafage of a hedgerow bank, as a more gladdening sight than the
+finest cistus or fuchsia spreading itself on the softest undulating
+turf, is an entirely unjustifiable preference to a Nursery-Gardener. And
+there is no better reason for preferring this elderberry bush than that
+it stirs an early memory--that it is no novelty in my life, speaking to
+me merely through my present sensibilities to form and colour, but the
+long companion of my existence, that wove itself into my joys when joys
+were vivid."
+
+I had the unspeakable advantage of being reared in close contact with
+Nature, in an aspect beautiful and wild. My father's house was
+remarkable for its pretty garden, laid out with the old-fashioned
+intricacy of pattern, and blazing, even into autumn, with varied colour.
+In the midst of it, a large and absolutely symmetrical cedar "spread its
+dark green layers of shade," and supplied us in summer with a kind of
+_al fresco_ sitting-room. The background of the garden was formed by the
+towering trees of Woburn Park; and close by there were great tracts of
+woodland, which stretch far into Buckinghamshire, and have the character
+and effect of virgin forest.
+
+Having no boy-companions (for my only brother was ten years older than
+myself), of course I played no games, except croquet. I was brought up
+in a sporting home, my father being an enthusiastic fox-hunter and a
+good all-round sportsman. I abhorred shooting, and was badly bored by
+coursing and fishing. Indeed, I believe I can say with literal truth
+that I have never killed anything larger than a wasp, and that only in
+self-defence. But Woburn is an ideal country for riding, and I spent a
+good deal of my time on an excellent pony, or more strictly, galloway.
+An hour or two with the hounds was the reward of virtue in the
+schoolroom; and cub-hunting in a woodland country at 7 o'clock on a
+September morning still remains my most cherished memory of physical
+enjoyment.
+
+"That things are not as ill with you and me as they might have been is
+half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and now
+rest in unvisited tombs." Most true: and among that faithful number I
+must remember our governess,--Catherine Emily Runciman--who devoted
+forty years of her life, in one capacity or another, to us and to our
+parents. She was what boys call "jolly out of school," but rather
+despotic in it; and, after a few trials of strength, I was emancipated
+from her control when I was eight. When we were in London for the
+Session of Parliament, I attended a Day School, kept by two sisters of
+John Leech, in a curious little cottage, since destroyed, at the bottom
+of Lower Belgrave Street. Just at the age when, in the ordinary course,
+I should have gone to a boarding-school, it was discovered that I was
+physically unfit for the experiment; and then I had a series of tutors
+at home. To one of these tutors my father wrote--"I must warn you of
+your pupil's powers of conversation, and tact in leading his teachers
+into it."
+
+But I was to a great extent self-taught. We had an excellent, though
+old-fashioned, library, and I spent a great deal of my time in
+miscellaneous reading. The Waverley Novels gave me my first taste of
+literary enjoyment, and _Pickwick_ (in the original green covers) came
+soon after. Shakespeare and _Don Quixote_ were imposed by paternal
+authority. Jeremy Taylor, Fielding, Smollett, Swift, Dryden, Pope,
+Byron, Moore, Macaulay, Miss Edgeworth, Bulwer-Lytton, were among my
+earliest friends, and I had an insatiable thirst for dictionaries and
+encyclopædias. Tennyson was the first poet whom I really loved, but I
+also was fond of Scott's poetry, the _Lays of Ancient Rome_, the _Lays
+of the Scottish Cavaliers_, and _The Golden Treasury_. Milton, Shelley,
+Wordsworth, and Matthew Arnold came later, but while I was still a boy.
+George Eliot, Thackeray, Ruskin, and Trollope came when I was at Oxford;
+and I am not sure that Browning ever came. On the whole, I owe my chief
+enjoyment to Scott, Dickens, Wordsworth, and Tennyson, and to _Pickwick_
+more than to any single book. But I think the keenest thrill of
+intellectual pleasure which I ever felt passed through me when, as a boy
+at Harrow, I first read Wordsworth's "Daffodils."
+
+Our home, in its outward aspects, was extremely bright and cheerful. We
+had, as a family, a keen sense of fun, much contempt for convention, and
+great fluency of speech; and our material surroundings were such as to
+make life enjoyable. Even as a child, I used to say to myself, when
+cantering among Scotch firs and rhododendrons, "The lines are fallen
+unto me in pleasant places." A graver element was supplied by a good
+deal of ill-health, by bereavements, and, in some sense, by our way of
+religion. My home was intensely Evangelical, and I lived from my
+earliest days in an atmosphere where the salvation of the individual
+soul was the supreme and constant concern of life. No form of
+worldliness entered into it, but it was full of good works, of social
+service, and of practical labour for the poor. All life was lived, down
+to its minutest detail, "as ever in the great task-Master's eye." From
+our very earliest years we were taught the Bible, at first orally; and
+later on were encouraged to read it, by gifts of handsomely bound
+copies. I remember that our aids to study were Adam Clarke's Commentary,
+Nicholl's _Help to Reading the Bible_, and a book called _Light in the
+Dwelling_. Hymns played a great part in our training. As soon as we
+could speak, we learned "When rising from the bed of death," and
+"Beautiful Zion, built above." "Rock of Ages" and "Jesu, Lover of my
+soul" were soon added. The Church Catechism we were never taught. I was
+confirmed without learning it. It was said to be too difficult; it
+really was too sacramental. By way of an easier exercise, I was
+constrained to learn "The Shorter Catechism of the General Assembly of
+Divines at Westminster." We had Family Prayers twice every day. My
+father read a chapter, very much as the fancy took him, or where the
+Bible opened of itself; and he read without note or comment. I recall a
+very distinct impression on my infant mind that the passages of the Old
+Testament which were read at prayers had no meaning, and that the public
+reading of the words, without reference to sense, was an act of piety.
+After the chapter, my father read one of Henry Thornton's Family
+Prayers, replaced in later years by those of Ashton Oxenden.
+
+While we were still very young children, we were carefully incited to
+acts of practical charity. We began by carrying dinners to the sick and
+aged poor; then we went on to reading hymns and bits of Bible to the
+blind and unlettered. As soon as we were old enough, we became teachers
+in Sunday schools, and conducted classes and cottage-meetings. From the
+very beginning we were taught to save up our money for good causes. Each
+of us had a "missionary box," and I remember another box, in the
+counterfeit presentment of a Gothic church, which received contributions
+for the Church Pastoral Aid Society. When, on an occasion of rare
+dissipation, I won some shillings at "The Race-Game," they were
+impounded for the service of the C.M.S., and an aunt of mine, making her
+sole excursion into melody, wrote for the benefit of her young friends:
+
+
+     "Would you like to be told the best use for a penny?
+     I can tell you a use which is better than any--
+     Not on toys or on fruit or on sweetmeats to spend it,
+     But over the seas to the heathen to send it."
+
+
+I learned my religion from my mother, the sweetest, brightest, and most
+persuasive of teachers, and what she taught I received as gospel.
+
+
+     "Oh that those lips had language! Life has past
+     With me but roughly since I heard thee last."
+
+
+_Sit anima mea cum Sanctis._ May my lot be with those Evangelical saints
+from whom I first learned that, in the supreme work of salvation, no
+human being and no created thing can interpose between the soul and the
+Creator. Happy is the man whose religious life has been built on the
+impregnable rock of that belief.
+
+So much for the foundation. The superstructure was rather accidental
+than designed.
+
+From my very earliest days I had a natural love of pomp and pageantry;
+and, though I never saw them, I used to read of them with delight in
+books of continental travel, and try to depict them in my sketch-books,
+and even enact them with my toys. Then came Sir Walter Scott, who
+inspired me, as he inspired so many greater men, with the love of
+ecclesiastical splendour, and so turned my vague love of ceremony into a
+definite channel. Another contribution to the same end was made, all
+unwittingly, by my dear and deeply Protestant father. He was an
+enthusiast for Gothic architecture, and it was natural to enquire the
+uses of such things as piscinas and sedilia in fabrics which he taught
+me to admire. And then came the opportune discovery (in an idle moment
+under a dull sermon) of the Occasional Offices of the Prayer Book. If
+language meant anything, those Offices meant the sacramental system of
+the Catholic Church; and the impression derived from the Prayer Book was
+confirmed by Jeremy Taylor and _The Christian Year_. I was always
+impatient of the attempt, even when made by the most respectable people,
+to pervert plain English, and I felt perfect confidence in building the
+Catholic superstructure on my Evangelical foundation.
+
+As soon as I had turned fourteen, I was confirmed by the Bishop of Ely
+(Harold Browne), and made my first Communion in Woburn Church on Easter
+Day, April 21, 1867.
+
+After the Easter Recess, I went with my parents to London, then seething
+with excitement over the Tory Reform Bill, which created Household
+Suffrage in towns. My father, being Sergeant-at-Arms, could give me a
+seat under the Gallery whenever he chose, and I heard some of the most
+memorable debates in that great controversy. In the previous year my
+uncle, Lord Russell, with Mr. Gladstone as Leader of the House of
+Commons, had been beaten in an attempt to lower the franchise; but the
+contest had left me cold. The debates of 1867 awoke quite a fresh
+interest in me. I began to understand the Democratic, as against the
+Whig, ideal; and I was tremendously impressed by Disraeli, who seemed to
+tower by a head and shoulders above everyone in the House. Gladstone
+played a secondary and ambiguous part; and, if I heard him speak, which
+I doubt, the speech left no dint in my memory.
+
+At this point of the narrative it is necessary to make a passing
+allusion to Doctors, who, far more than Premiers or Priests or any other
+class of men, have determined the course and condition of my life. I
+believe that I know, by personal experience, more about Doctors and
+Doctoring than any other man of my age in England. I am, in my own
+person, a monument of medical practice, and have not only seen, but
+felt, the rise and fall of several systems of physic and surgery. To
+have experienced the art is also to have known the artist; and the
+portraits of all the practitioners with whom at one time or another I
+have been brought into intimate relations would fill the largest album,
+and go some way towards furnishing a modest Picture-Gallery. Broadly
+speaking, the Doctors of the 'fifties and 'sixties were as Dickens drew
+them. The famous consultant, Dr. Parker Peps; the fashionable physician,
+Sir Tumley Snuffim; the General Practitioner, Mr. Pilkins; and the
+Medical Officer of the Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life
+Insurance Company, Dr. Jobling; are in the highest degree representative
+and typical; but perhaps the Doctor--his name, unfortunately, has
+perished--who was called to the bedside of little Nell, and came with "a
+great bunch of seals dangling below a waistcoat of ribbed black satin,"
+is the most carefully finished portrait. Such, exactly, were the Family
+Physicians of my youth. They always dressed in shiny black,--trousers,
+neckcloth, and all; they were invariably bald, and had shaved upper lips
+and chins, and carefully-trimmed whiskers. They said "Hah!" and "Hum!"
+in tones of omniscience which would have converted a Christian
+Scientist; and, when feeling one's pulse, they produced the largest and
+most audibly-ticking gold watches producible by the horologist's art.
+They had what were called "the courtly manners of the old school"; were
+diffuse in style, and abounded in periphrasis. Thus they spoke of "the
+gastric organ" where their successors talk of the stomach, and referred
+to brandy as "the domestic stimulant." When attending families where
+religion was held in honour, they were apt to say to the lady of the
+house, "We are fearfully and wonderfully made"; and, where classical
+culture prevailed, they not infrequently remarked--
+
+
+     Crescit indulgens sibi dirus hydrops.
+
+
+By the way, my reference to "the domestic stimulant" reminds me that on
+stimulants, domestic and other, this school of Physicians relied with an
+unalterable confidence. For a delicate child, a glass of port wine at
+11 was the inevitable prescription, and a tea-spoonful of bark was often
+added to this generous tonic. In all forms of languor and debility and
+enfeebled circulation, brandy-and-water was "exhibited," as the phrase
+went; and, if the dose was not immediately successful, the brandy was
+increased. I myself, when a sickly boy of twelve, was ordered by a
+well-known practitioner, called F. C. Skey, to drink mulled claret at
+bedtime; and my recollection is that, as a nightcap, it beat bromide and
+sulphonal hollow. In the light of more recent science, I suppose that
+all this alcoholic treatment was what Milton calls "the sweet poyson of
+misuséd wine," and wrought havoc with one's nerves, digestion, and
+circulation. It certainly had this single advantage, that when one grew
+to man's estate, and passed from "that poor creature, small beer," to
+the loaded port and fiery sherry of a "Wine" at the University, it was
+impossible to make one drunk. And thereby hangs a tale. I was once
+writing the same sentiment in the same words for a medical journal, and
+the compositor substituted "disadvantage" for "advantage," apparently
+thinking that my early regimen had deprived me of a real happiness in
+after-life.
+
+Such were the Doctors of my youth. By no sudden wrench, no violent
+transition, but gently, gradually, imperceptibly, the type has
+transformed itself into that which we behold to-day. No doubt an inward
+continuity has been maintained, but the visible phenomena are so
+radically altered as to suggest to the superficial observer the idea of
+a new creation; and even we, who, as Matthew Arnold said, "stand by the
+Sea of Time, and listen to the solemn and rhythmical beat of its waves,"
+even we can scarcely point with confidence to the date of each
+successive change. First, as to personal appearance. When did doctors
+abandon black cloth, and betake themselves (like Newman, when he seceded
+to the Church of Rome) to grey trousers? Not, I feel pretty sure, till
+the 'seventies were well advanced. Quite certainly the first time that I
+ever fell into the hands of a moustached Doctor was in 1877. Everyone
+condemned the hirsute appendage as highly unprofessional, and when, soon
+after, the poor man found his way into a Lunatic Asylum, the
+neighbouring Doctors of the older school said that they were not
+surprised; that "there was a bad family history"; and that he himself
+had shown marked signs of eccentricity. That meant the moustache, and
+nothing else. Then, again, when was it first recognized as possible to
+take a pulse without the assistance of a gold chronometer? History is
+silent; but I am inclined to assign that discovery to the same date as
+the clinical thermometer, a toy unknown to the Doctors of my youth, who,
+indeed, were disposed to regard even the stethoscope as new-fangled.
+Then "the courtly manners of the old school"--when did they go out? I do
+not mean to cast the slightest aspersion on the manners of my present
+doctor, who is as polite and gentlemanlike a young fellow as one could
+wish to meet. But his manners are not "courtly," nor the least "of the
+old school." He does not bow when he enters my room, but shakes hands
+and says it's an A1 day and I had better get out in the motor. Whatever
+the symptoms presented to his observation, he never says "Hah!" or
+"Hum!" and he has never once quoted the Bible or Horace, though I have
+reason to believe that he has read both. Then, again, as a mere matter
+of style, when did Doctors abandon the majestic "We," which formerly
+they shared with Kings and Editors? "We shall be all the better when we
+have had our luncheon and a glass of sherry," said Sir Tumley Snuffim.
+"We will continue the bark and linseed," murmured Dr. Parker Peps, as
+he bowed himself out. My Doctor says, "Do you feel as if you could
+manage a chop? It would do you pounds of good"; and "I know the peroxide
+dressing is rather beastly, but I'd stick it another day or two, if I
+were you." Medical conversation, too, is an art which has greatly
+changed. In old days it was thought an excellent method of lubricating
+the first interview for the Doctor to ask where one's home was, and to
+state, quite irrespective of the fact, that he was born in the same
+neighbourhood; having ascertained that one was, say, a Yorkshireman, to
+remark that he would have known it from one's accent; to enlarge on his
+own connexions, especially if of the territorial caste; to describe his
+early travels in the South of Europe or the United States; and to
+discourse on water-colour drawing or the flute. "We doctors, too, have
+our hobbies; though, alas! the demands of a profession in which _Ne
+otium quidem otiosum est_ leave us little time to enjoy them."
+
+Quite different is the conversation of the modern doctor. He does not
+lubricate the interview, but goes straight to business--enquires,
+examines, pronounces, prescribes--and then, if any time is left for
+light discourse, discusses the rival merits of "Rugger" and "Soccer,"
+speculates on the result of the Hospital Cup Tie, or observes that the
+British Thoroughbred is not deteriorating when he can win with so much
+on his back; pronounces that the Opera last night was ripping, or that
+some much-praised play is undiluted rot. Not thus did Dr. Parker Peps
+regale Mrs. Dombey, or Sir Tumley Snuffim soothe the shattered nerves of
+Mrs. Wititterly. The reaction against alcoholic treatment can, I
+believe, be definitely dated from the 10th of January, 1872, when the
+heads of the medical profession published their opinion that "alcohol,
+in whatever form, should be prescribed with as much care as any powerful
+drug, and the directions for its use should be so framed as not to be
+interpreted as a sanction for excess." This was a heavy blow and deep
+discouragement to the school of Snuffim and Pilkins, and the system of
+port at 11, and "the domestic stimulant" between whiles, died hard.
+
+But this is a long digression. I return to the Family Physician who
+prescribed for my youth. He was Dr. T. Somerset Snuffim, son of the
+celebrated Sir Tumley, and successor to his lucrative practice. His
+patients believed in him with an unquestioning and even passionate
+faith, and his lightest word was law. It was he who in 1862 pronounced
+me physically unfit for a Private School, but held out hopes that, if I
+could be kept alive till I was fourteen, I might then be fit for a
+Public School. Four years passed, and nothing particular happened. Then
+the time arrived when the decision had to be made between Public School
+and Private Tutor. After a vast amount of stethoscoping and
+pulse-feeling, Snuffim decided peremptorily against a Public School. My
+parents had a strong and just detestation of "private study" and its
+products, and they revolved a great many schemes for avoiding it.
+Suddenly my mother, who was not only the kindest but also the wisest of
+mothers, bethought herself of making me a Home-boarder at Harrow. She
+was one of those persons who, when once they are persuaded that a
+certain course is right, do not let the grass grow under their feet, but
+act at once. We did not desert our old home in Bedfordshire, and my
+father had still his official residence in Speaker's Court; but my
+parents took a house at Harrow, at the top of Sudbury Hill, and there we
+established ourselves in September, 1867.
+
+On the 4th of November in that year, Matthew Arnold, who was
+contemplating a similar move, wrote to Lady de Rothschild:--"What you
+tell me is very important and interesting. I think Lady Charles Russell
+has a boy who, like my eldest boy, is an invalid, and I dare say you
+will some time or other be kind enough to ascertain from her whether the
+school life is at all trying for him, or whether she has any difficulty
+in getting him excused fagging or violent exercises."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] The L.C.C., which placed this slab, made a topographical error.
+James Wright, in his _Compendious View of the late Tumults and Troubles
+in this Kingdom_ (1683), says: "The Lord Russel ... was on the day
+following, viz. Saturday the 21st of July, Beheaded in Lincoln's Inn
+Fields. For which purpose a Scaffold was erected that Morning on that
+side of the Fields next to the Arch going into Duke Street, in the
+middle between the said Arch and the corner turning into Queen Street."
+
+[2]
+
+    To the Editor of _The Times_.
+
+    SIR--As Links with the Past seem just now to be in fashion, permit
+    me to supply two which concern my near relations.
+
+    1. My uncle, Lord Russell (1792-1878) visited Napoleon at Elba in
+    December, 1814, and had a long conversation with him, which is
+    reported in Spencer Walpole's "Life of Lord John Russell." There
+    must be plenty of people now alive who conversed with my uncle, so
+    this Link cannot be a very rare one.
+
+    2. My second Link is more remarkable. My father (1807-1894)
+    remembered an old Highlander who had been "out" with Prince Charles
+    Edward in 1745. Of course, this "linking" took place at the extremes
+    of age, my father being a little boy and the Highlander a very old
+    man. My grandfather, the sixth Duke of Bedford, was one of the first
+    Englishmen who took a shooting in the Highlands (on the Spey), and
+    the first time that my father accompanied him to the north, Prince
+    Charlie's follower was still living near the place which my
+    grandfather rented.
+                                   Your obedient servant,
+    _Sept. 6, 1910._                       GEORGE W. E. RUSSELL.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+HARROW
+
+
+     Not to River nor Royal Keep,
+       Low Meads nor level Close,
+     Up to the sturdy wind-worn steep,
+       _Levavi oculos_;
+     To four red walls on a skyward climb,
+     Towering over the fields and Time.
+                                E. MILNER-WHITE.
+
+
+When Dr. Vaughan re-created Harrow School, after its long decadence
+under Longley and Wordsworth, he wished that the number should never
+exceed five hundred. Of late years the school has been greatly enlarged,
+but in my time we were always just about the number which, in Vaughan's
+judgment, was the largest that a Head-master could properly supervise.
+That number is embalmed in Edward Howson's touching song:--
+
+
+     "Five hundred faces, and all so strange!
+       Life in front of me, Home behind--
+       I felt like a waif before the wind,
+     Tossed on an ocean of shock and change."
+
+
+Some of those faces I shall presently describe; but, in reviewing my
+life at Harrow, my first tribute must be paid to my Head-master--for
+forty-five years the kindest, most generous, and most faithful of
+friends. Henry Montagu Butler, youngest son of Dr. George Butler, Dean
+of Peterborough and sometime Head-master of Harrow, was born in 1833,
+and educated at Harrow. He was Head of the School, made the cock-score
+in the Eton match at Lords, was Scholar and Fellow of Trinity, and
+Senior Classic in 1855. He was elected to the Head-mastership of Harrow,
+in succession to Dr. Vaughan, when he was only a few months over 26, and
+entered on his reign in January, 1860. It is not easy to describe what a
+graceful and brilliant creature he seemed to my boyish eyes, when I
+first saw him in 1867, nor how unlike what one had imagined a
+Head-master to be. He was then just thirty-four and looked much younger
+than he was. Gracefulness is the idea which I specially connect with
+him. He was graceful in shape, gesture, and carriage; graceful in
+manners and ways, graceful in scholarship, graceful in writing,
+pre-eminently graceful in speech. It was his custom from time to time,
+if any peculiar enormity displayed itself in the school, to call us all
+together in the Speech-Room, and give us what we called a "Pi-jaw." One
+of these discourses I remember as well as if I had heard it yesterday.
+It was directed against Lying, as not only un-Christian but
+ungentlemanlike. As he stood on the dais, one hand grasping his gown
+behind his back and the other marking his points, I felt that, perhaps
+for the first time, I was listening to pure and unstudied eloquence,
+suffused with just as much scorn against base wrongdoing as makes speech
+pungent without making it abusive. It should be recorded to Butler's
+credit that he was thoroughly feared. A Head-master who is not feared
+should be at once dismissed from his post. And, besides being feared, he
+was profoundly detested by bad boys. The worse the boy's moral
+character, the more he hated Butler. But boys who were, in any sense or
+degree, on the right side; who were striving, however imperfectly, after
+what is pure and lovely and of good report, felt instinctively that
+Butler was their friend. His preaching in the School Chapel (though
+perhaps a little impeded by certain mannerisms) was direct, interesting,
+and uplifting in no common degree. Many of his sermons made a lifelong
+impression on me. His written English was always beautifully pellucid,
+and often adorned by some memorable anecdote or quotation, or by some
+telling phrase. But once, when, owing to a broken arm, he could not
+write his sermons, but preached to us extempore three Sundays in
+succession, he fairly fascinated us. As we rose in the School and came
+into close contact with him, we found ever more and more to admire. It
+would be impertinent for me to praise the attainments of a Senior
+Classic, but no one could fail to see that Butler's scholarship was
+unusually graceful and literary. Indeed, he was literary through and
+through. All fine literature appealed to him with compelling force, and
+he was peculiarly fond of English oratory. Chatham, Burke, Canning,
+Sheil, and Bright are some of the great orators to whom he introduced
+us, and he was never so happy as when he could quote them to illustrate
+some fine passage in Cicero or Demosthenes. One other introduction which
+I owe to him I must by no means forget--Lord Beaconsfield's novels. I
+had read _Lothair_ when it came out, but I was then too inexperienced to
+discern the deep truths which underlie its glittering satire. Butler
+introduced me to _Sybil_, and thereby opened up to me a new world of
+interest and amusement. When Butler entertained boys at breakfast or
+dinner, he was a most delightful host, and threw off all magisterial
+awfulness as easily as his gown. His conversation was full of fun and
+sprightliness, and he could talk "Cricket-shop," ancient and modern,
+like Lillywhite or R. H. Lyttelton. In time of illness or failure or
+conscience-stricken remorse, he showed an Arthur-like simplicity of
+religion which no one could ignore or gainsay.
+
+Next to Dr. Butler, in my list of Harrow masters, must be placed Farrar,
+afterwards Dean of Canterbury, to whom I owed more in the way of
+intellectual stimulus and encouragement than to any other teacher. I
+had, I believe, by nature, some sense of beauty; and Farrar stimulated
+and encouraged this sense to the top of its bent. Himself inspired by
+Ruskin, he taught us to admire rich colours and graceful
+forms--illuminated missals, and Fra Angelico's blue angels on gold
+grounds--and to see the exquisite beauty of common things, such as
+sunsets, and spring grass, and autumn leaves; the waters of a shoaling
+sea, and the transparent amber of a mountain stream. In literature his
+range was extremely wide. Nothing worth reading seemed to have escaped
+him, and he loved poetry as much as Butler loved oratory. When he
+preached in Chapel his gorgeous rhetoric, as yet not overwrought or
+over-coloured, held us spellbound; and though, or perhaps because, he
+was inclined to spoil the boys who responded to his appeals, and to rate
+them higher than they deserved, we loved and admired him as, I should
+think, few schoolmasters have been loved and admired.
+
+When I speak of masters who were also friends, I should be ungrateful
+indeed if I omitted Arthur George Watson, in whose House I was placed as
+soon as the doctors were satisfied that the experiment could be tried
+without undue risks. Mr. Watson was a Fellow of All Souls, and was in
+all respects what we should have expected a member of that Society
+(elected the same day as the late Lord Salisbury) to be. It was said of
+C. P. Golightly at Oxford that, when he was asked his opinion of Dr.
+Hawkins, Provost of Oriel, he replied: "Well, if I were forced to choose
+the epithet which should be least descriptive of the dear Provost, I
+should choose _gushing_." Exactly the same might be said of Mr. Watson;
+but he was the most high-minded and conscientious of men, a thorough
+gentleman, inflexibly just, and a perfect House-Master. The days which
+I spent under his roof must always be reckoned among the happiest of my
+life.
+
+Among masters who were also friends I must assign a high place to the
+Rev. William Done Bushell, who vainly endeavoured to teach me
+mathematics, but found me more at home in the sphere (which he also
+loved) of Ecclesiology. And not even the most thoughtless or
+ill-conditioned boy who was at Harrow between 1854 and 1882 could ever
+forget the Rev. John Smith, who, through a life-time overshadowed by
+impending calamity, was an Apostle to boys, if ever there was one, and
+the Guardian Angel of youthful innocence. Dr. Vaughan, no lover of
+exaggerated phrases, called him, in a memorial sermon, "the Christ of
+Harrow;" and there must be many a man now living who, as he looks back,
+feels that he owed the salvation of his soul to that Christ-like
+character.
+
+During my first two years at Harrow, Dr. Westcott, afterwards Bishop of
+Durham, was one of the masters, and it has always been a matter of deep
+regret to me that I had no opportunity of getting to know him. He was
+hardly visible in the common life of the School. He lived remote, aloof,
+apart, alone. It must be presumed that the boys who boarded in his
+House knew something of him, but with the School in general he never
+came in contact. His special work was to supervise the composition,
+English and classical, of the Sixth Form, and on this task he lavished
+all his minute and scrupulous scholarship, all his genuine enthusiasm
+for literary beauty. But, until we were in the Sixth, we saw Westcott
+only on public occasions, and one of these occasions was the calling
+over of names on half-holidays, styled at Eton "Absence," and at Harrow
+"Bill." To see Westcott performing this function made one, even in those
+puerile days, feel that the beautifully delicate instrument was
+eminently unfitted for the rough work of mere routine on which it was
+employed. We had sense enough to know that Westcott was a man of
+learning and distinction altogether outside the beaten track of
+schoolmasters' accomplishments; and that he had performed achievements
+in scholarship and divinity which great men recognized as great.
+"Calling Bill" was an occupation well enough suited for his
+colleagues--for Huggins or Buggins or Brown or Green--but it was
+actually pathetic to see this frail embodiment of culture and piety
+contending with the clamour and tumult of five hundred obstreperous
+boys.
+
+It was not only as a great scholar that we revered Westcott. We knew,
+by that mysterious process by which school-boys get to know something of
+the real, as distinct from the official, characters of their masters,
+that he was a saint. There were strange stories in the School about his
+ascetic way of living. We were told that he wrote his sermons on his
+knees. We heard that he never went into local society, and that he read
+no newspaper except _The Guardian_. Thus when Liddon, at the height of
+his fame as the author of the great Bampton Lectures, came to Harrow to
+preach on Founder's Day, it was reported that Westcott would not dine
+with the Head-master to meet him. He could not spare three hours from
+prayer and study; but he came in for an hour's conversation after
+dinner.
+
+All that we saw and heard in Chapel confirmed what we were told. We saw
+the bowed form, the clasped hands, the rapt gaze, as of a man who in
+worship was really _solus cum Solo_, and not, as the manner of some of
+his colleagues was, sleeping the sleep of the just, or watching for the
+devotional delinquencies of the Human Boy. His sermons were rare events;
+but some of us looked forward to them as to something quite out of the
+common groove. There were none of the accessories which generally
+attract boyish admiration--no rhetoric, no purple patches, no
+declamation, no pretence of spontaneity. His anxious forehead crowned a
+puny body, and his voice was so faint as to be almost inaudible. The
+language was totally unadorned; the sentences were closely packed with
+meaning; and the meaning was not always easy. But the charm lay in
+distinction, aloofness from common ways of thinking and speaking, a wide
+outlook on events and movements in the Church, and a fiery enthusiasm
+all the more telling because sedulously restrained. I remember as if I
+heard it yesterday a reference in December, 1869, to "that august
+assemblage which gathers to-morrow under the dome of St. Peter's," and I
+remember feeling pretty sure at the moment that there was no other
+schoolmaster in England who would preach to his boys about the Vatican
+Council. But by far the most momentous of Westcott's sermons at Harrow
+was that which he preached on the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity, 1868.
+The text was Ephesians v. 15: "See then that ye walk circumspectly." The
+sermon was an earnest plea for the revival of the ascetic life, and the
+preacher endeavoured to show "what new blessings God has in store for
+absolute self-sacrifice" by telling his hearers about the great
+victories of asceticism in history. He took first the instance of St.
+Anthony, as the type of personal asceticism; then that of St. Benedict,
+as the author of the Common Life of equality and brotherhood; and then
+that of St. Francis, who, "in the midst of a Church endowed with all
+that art and learning and wealth and power could give, reasserted the
+love of God to the poorest, the meanest, the most repulsive of His
+children, and placed again the simple Cross above all the treasures of
+the world." Even "the unparalleled achievements, the matchless energy,
+of the Jesuits" were duly recognized as triumphs of faith and
+discipline; and the sermon ended with a passionate appeal to the Harrow
+boys to follow the example of young Antony or the still younger
+Benedict, and prepare themselves to take their part in reviving the
+ascetic life of the English Church.
+
+"It is to a congregation like this that the call comes with the most
+stirring and the most cheering voice. The young alone have the fresh
+enthusiasm which in former times God has been pleased to consecrate to
+like services.... And if, as I do believe most deeply, a work at
+present awaits England, and our English Church, greater than the world
+has yet seen, I cannot but pray everyone who hears me to listen humbly
+for the promptings of God's Spirit, if so be that He is even now calling
+him to take a foremost part in it. It is for us, perhaps, first to hear
+the call, but it is for you to interpret it and fulfil it. Our work is
+already sealed by the past: yours is still rich in boundless
+possibilities."
+
+It may readily be believed that this discourse did not please either the
+British Parent or the Common Schoolmaster. A rumour went abroad that Mr.
+Westcott was going to turn all the boys into monks, and loud was the
+clamour of ignorance and superstition. Westcott made the only dignified
+reply. He printed (without publishing) the peccant sermon, under the
+title "Disciplined Life," and gave a copy to every boy in the School,
+expressing the hope that "God, in His great love, will even thus, by
+words most unworthily spoken, lead some one among us to think on one
+peculiar work of the English Church, and in due time to offer himself
+for the fulfilment of it as His Spirit shall teach." Those who remember
+that Charles Gore was one of the boys who heard the sermon may think
+that the preacher's prayer was answered.
+
+With the masters generally I was on the best of terms. Indeed, I can
+only remember two whom I actively disliked, and of these two one was the
+absolute reproduction of Mr. Creakle, only armed with "thirty Greek
+lines" instead of the cane. Some of the staff were not particularly
+friends, but notable as curiosities; and at the head of these must be
+placed the Rev. Thomas Henry Steel. This truly remarkable man was born
+in 1806. He was Second Classic and Twentieth Wrangler, and Fellow of
+Trinity College, Cambridge. He became a master at Harrow under Dr.
+Wordsworth in 1836; left the School in 1843, to take a country living;
+returned to Harrow, under Dr. Vaughan, in 1849, and in 1855 became (for
+the second time) master of The Grove, one of the largest boarding-houses
+in Harrow, where he remained till 1881. He was a keen, alert, and active
+old gentleman, with a rosy face and long white beard, like Father
+Christmas: and he carried, in season and out of season, a bright blue
+umbrella. His degree sufficiently proves that he was a ripe scholar,
+but, as George Eliot says, "to all ripeness under the sun there comes a
+further stage of development which is less esteemed in the market";
+and, when I was in his Form, it was chiefly characterized by an
+agreeable laxity of discipline. As regards his boarding-house of forty
+boys, it was currently reported that he had never been seen in the boys'
+side of it. Perhaps he went round it when they were asleep. But it was
+on his preaching that his fame chiefly rested. His sermons were written
+in a most exuberant style of old-fashioned rhetoric, and abounded in
+phrases, allusions, and illustrations, so quaint that, once heard, they
+could never be forgotten. I believe that he kept a small stock of these
+sermons, and seldom added to it; but knowing, I suppose, that if
+preached twice they must inevitably be recognized, he never preached a
+sermon a second time as long as there was even one boy in the School who
+had heard it on its first delivery. This was a very sensible precaution;
+but he little knew that some of his most elaborate passages had, by
+their sheer oddity, imprinted themselves indelibly on the memories of
+the hearers, and were handed down by oral tradition. One such
+especially, about a lady who used to visit the hospitals in the American
+War, and left a bun or a rose on the pillow of the wounded according as
+she thought that they would recover or die, had an established place in
+our annals; and it is not easy to describe the rapture of hearing a
+passage which, as repeated by one's schoolfellows, had seemed too absurd
+for credence, delivered from the School-pulpit, in a kind of solemn
+stage-whisper. However, "Tommy Steel" was a kind-hearted old gentleman,
+who believed in letting boys alone, and by a hundred eccentricities of
+speech and manner, added daily to the gaiety of our life. For one great
+boon I am eternally his debtor. He set me on reading Wordsworth, and
+chose his favourite bits with skill and judgment. I had been reared in
+the school that derided--
+
+
+     "A drowsy, frowsy poem called _The Excursion_,
+     Writ in a manner which is my aversion,"
+
+
+and "Tommy Steel" opened my eyes to a new world of beauty. By the way,
+he had known Wordsworth, and had entertained him at Harrow; and he told
+us that the Poet always said "housen," where we say houses.
+
+Another of our curiosities was Mr. Jacob Francis Marillier, a genial old
+gentleman without a degree, who had been supposed to teach writing and
+Mathematics, but long before my time had dropped the writing--I suppose
+as hopeless--and only played a mathematical barrel-organ. He had joined
+the staff at Harrow in 1819, and, as from my earliest days I had a love
+of Links with the Past, I learned from Mr. Marillier a vast amount about
+the ancient traditions of the School, which, even in 1869 (when he
+resigned), were becoming faint and forgotten.
+
+Yet a third oddity must be commemorated; but in this case it is
+desirable to use a pseudonym. I think I remember in one of
+Bulwer-Lytton's novels a family called Sticktoright,[3] and that name
+will do as well as another. The Rev. Samuel Sticktoright was essentially
+what is called a "Master of the old school." He was born in 1808, came
+to Harrow in 1845, and had a large House for thirty years. I have just
+been contemplating his photograph in my Harrow album, and he certainly
+looks "the old school" all over, with his carefully-trimmed whiskers,
+double-breasted waistcoat, and large white "choker," neatly tied. By the
+boys generally he was regarded as an implacable tyrant, and I have heard
+(though this was before my time) that a special victim of his
+passionless severity was a pink-faced youth with blue eyes called
+Randall Thomas Davidson. Personally, I rather liked him; partly, no
+doubt, on the principle on which Homer called the Æthiopians
+blameless--namely, that he had nothing to do with them. But there was a
+sly twinkle in the corner of Mr. Sticktoright's eye which bespoke a
+lurking sense of humour, and in the very few words which he ever
+bestowed on me there generally was a suggestion of dry--very dry--fun.
+He was, of course, the most uncompromising of Tories, and every form of
+change, in Church or State or School, was equally abhorrent to him. In
+local society he played a considerable part, both giving and receiving
+hospitality; and it was the traditional pleasantry to chaff him as an
+inveterate bachelor, at whom all the young ladies of the place were
+setting their virginal caps. These jests he received very much as Tim
+Linkinwater received the allusions of Mr. Cheeryble to the "uncommonly
+handsome spinster," rather encouraging them as tributes to the fact
+that, though now advanced in years, he was well preserved, and, as most
+people surmised, well off.
+
+These facetious passages were, of course, confined to the society in
+which the masters moved, and we boys knew them only by hearsay. But what
+we saw with our own eyes was that the only human being who ever dared to
+"cheek" Mr. Sticktoright, or to interfere with his arrangements, or to
+disregard his orders, was his butler, whom we will call Boniface.
+Everyone who knows school-boys knows that they have a trick of saying
+things about those in authority over them, which really they do not the
+least believe but which they make a bold pretence of believing. So in
+the case of "Sticky" and Boniface. They were of much the same age, and
+rather similar in appearance; wherefore we said that they were brothers;
+that they had risen from a lowly station in the world, and had tossed up
+which should be master and which butler; that "Sticky" had won the toss,
+and that the disappointed Boniface held his brother in subjection by a
+veiled threat that, if he were offended, he would reveal the whole story
+to the world. This tradition seemed to present some elements of
+unlikelihood, and yet it survived from generation to generation; for not
+otherwise could we account for the palpable fact that the iron severity
+which held all boy-flesh in awe melted into impotence when Boniface was
+the offender.
+
+The solution of the mystery was romantic. Dr. Butler, contrary to his
+usual practice, was spending the Christmas holidays of 1876-7 at Harrow.
+One day a stranger was announced, and opened the conversation by
+saying--"I regret to tell you that your colleague, Mr. Sticktoright, is
+dead. He died suddenly at Brighton, where he was spending the holidays.
+I am his brother-in-law and executor, and, in compliance with his
+instructions, I have to ask you to accompany me to his house." Those who
+know the present Master of Trinity can picture the genuine grief with
+which he received this notification. Mr. Sticktoright had been a master
+when he was a boy at school, and a highly-respected colleague ever since
+he became Head-master. That the bearer of the sad news should be
+Sticktoright's brother-in-law seemed quite natural, for he must have
+married a Miss Sticktoright; and the Head-master and the executor went
+together to the dead man's house. There, after some unlocking of drawers
+and opening of cabinets, they came upon a document to this effect: "In
+case of my dying away from Harrow, this is to certify that on a certain
+day, in a certain place, I married Mary Smith, sometime a housemaid in
+my service, by whom I leave a family."
+
+So there had really been much more foundation for our tradition than we
+had ever dreamed, and Boniface had probably known the romantic history
+of his master's life. The extraordinary part of the matter was that old
+Sticktoright had always spent the Easter, Summer, and Christmas holidays
+in the bosom of his family at Brighton, and that no one connected with
+Harrow had ever chanced to see him basking in their smiles. [N.B.--the
+names, personal and local, are fictitious.] In the north aisle of Harrow
+School Chapel, where departed masters are commemorated, you may search
+in vain for any memorial to the Rev. Samuel Sticktoright.
+
+Yet one more curiosity must be named, this time not a Harrow master.
+"Polly Arnold" kept a stationer's shop, and, as a child, helping her
+grand-mother in the same shop, had sold pens--some added cribs--to Byron
+when a boy in the school. Here was a Link of the Past which exactly
+suited me, and, if only Polly could have understood the allusion, I
+should have said to her--"Ah, did you once see Byron plain?" I happened
+to have a sister who, though exceptionally clever and lively, had
+absolutely no chronological sense. I took her to see Polly Arnold one
+day, when this conversation ensued--"Well, Miss Arnold, I am very glad
+to make your acquaintance. I have often heard of you from my brother. He
+tells me you remember John Lyon. How very interesting!" [N.B.--John Lyon
+founded Harrow School in 1571.] To this tribute Polly replied with much
+asperity--"I know I'm getting on in life, Miss, but I'm not quite three
+hundred years old yet"--while my sister murmured in my ear--"Who _is_ it
+she remembers? I know it's someone who lived a long time ago."
+
+But the name of Arnold, when connected with Harrow, suggests quite
+another train of thought. At Easter, 1868, Matthew Arnold came to live
+at Harrow, with a view of placing his three boys in the School. The
+eldest of the three was the invalid to whom his father referred in a
+letter quoted in my first chapter: I was able to show him some little
+kindnesses, and thus arose an intimacy with the parents, brothers, and
+sisters which I have always regarded as--
+
+
+     "Part of my life's unalterable good."
+
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[3] "The wood belonged to the Hazeldeans, the furze-land to the
+Sticktorights--an old Saxon family if ever there was one." _My Novel_.
+Book I.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+HARROVIANA
+
+
+     "I may have failed, my School may fail;
+       I tremble, but thus much I dare;
+     I love her. Let the critics rail,
+       My brethren and my home are there."
+                                      W. CORY.
+
+
+Everyone who travels by the North Western, or the Great Central, or the
+Midland Railway, must be conversant with the appearance of that
+"Pinnacle perched on a Precipice," which was Charles II.'s idea of the
+Visible Church on Earth--the Parish Church of Harrow on the Hill. Anselm
+consecrated it, Becket said Mass in it, and John Lyon, the Founder of
+Harrow School, lies buried in it. When I was a Harrow boy, the
+Celebrations of the Holy Communion in the School Chapel were rare, and
+generally late; so some of us were accustomed to communicate every
+Sunday at the 8 o'clock service in the Parish Church. But even in holy
+places, and amid sacred associations, the ludicrous is apt to assert
+itself; and I could never sufficiently admire a tablet in the North
+aisle, commemorating a gentleman who died of the first Reform Bill.
+
+
+                         "JOHN HENRY NORTH,
+
+                 Judge of the Admiralty in Ireland.
+         Without an equal at the University, a rival at the Bar,
+      Or a superior in chaste and classic eloquence in Parliament.
+            Honoured, Revered, Admired, Beloved, Deplored,
+             By the Irish Bar, the Senate and his country,
+           He sunk beneath the efforts of a mind too great for
+                          His earthly frame,
+      In opposing the Revolutionary Invasion of the Religion and
+                        Constitution of England,
+     On the 29th of September, 1831, in the 44th year of his age."
+
+
+Alas! poor Mr. North. What would he have felt if he had lived to see the
+Reform Bills of 1867 and 1885? Clearly he was taken away from the evil
+to come.
+
+Until the Metropolitan Railway joined Harrow to Baker Street, the Hill
+stood in the midst of genuine and unspoilt country, separated by five
+miles of grass from the nearest point of London, and encompassed by
+isolated dwellings, ranging in rank and scale from villas to country
+houses. Most of these have fallen victims to the Speculative Builder,
+and have been cut up into alleys of brick and stucco, though one or two
+still remain among their hay-fields and rhododendrons. When I first
+ascended Harrow Hill, I drove there from London with my mother; and,
+from Harlesden onwards, our road lay between grass meadows, and was
+shaded by hedgerow timber. Harrow was then a much prettier place than it
+is now. The far-seen elms under which Byron dreamed[4] were still in
+their unlopped glory, and the whole effect of the Hill was wooded. So an
+Eton man and Harrow master[5] wrote:--
+
+
+     "Collis incola frondei
+     Nympha, sive lubentius
+     Nostra Pieris audies,
+     Lux adest; ades O tuis
+           Herga[6] mater, alumnis!"
+
+     "Goddess of the leafy Hill,
+     Nymph, or Muse, or what you will,
+     With the light begins the lay,--
+     Herga, be our guest to-day."
+
+
+The site now covered by the externally hideous Speech-room--a cross
+between a swimming-bath and a tennis-court--was then a garden. In truth,
+it only grew strawberries and cabbages, but to the imaginative eye, it
+was as beautiful as the hanging pleasaunces of Semiramis.
+
+Dr. Butler, with a hundred gifts and accomplishments, had no æsthetic or
+artistic sense; and, under his rule, the whole place was over-run by
+terrible combinations of red and black brick; and the beautiful view
+from the School-Yard, stretching away across the Uxbridge plain, was
+obstructed by some kind of play-shed, with a little spout atop--the very
+impertinence of ugliness.
+
+Of the various buildings at Harrow, by far the most interesting is what
+is now called "The Fourth Form Room," in the West wing of the Old
+School. It is the original room which John Lyon designed--"A large and
+convenient school-house with a chimney in it,"--and in its appearance
+and arrangements it exactly bespeaks the village Day School that Harrow
+originally was. Its stout brick walls have faced the western breezes of
+three hundred years, and in their mellow richness of tint remind one of
+Hatfield House and Hampton Court. This single room has been the nucleus
+round which all subsequent buildings--Chapel and Library and
+School-Rooms and Boarding-Houses--have gathered; and, as long as it
+exists, Harrow will be visibly and tangibly connected with its Founder's
+prescient care.
+
+John Lyon knew nothing of Conscience Clauses. He ordained that all his
+school-boys should attend the Parish Church; and so they did, stowed
+away in galleries where hearing was difficult and kneeling impossible.
+In 1836 Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, was
+elected Head-master of Harrow, in succession to the genial but too
+gentle Longley. Seeing that Worship was practically impossible for the
+boys under existing conditions, he set to work to build a Chapel. It
+occupied the same site as the present Chapel, but only one fragment of
+it remains, embedded in the West wall of Sir Gilbert Scott's more
+graceful structure. The Chapel was consecrated by the Visitor,
+Archbishop Howley, in 1839. Dr. Wordsworth, justly proud of his
+handiwork, invited his brother-master, Dr. Hawtrey of Eton, to view it.
+Much to Wordsworth's surprise, Hawtrey did not take off his hat on
+entering the Chapel; but, when he neared the altar, started back in
+confusion, and exclaimed, in hasty apology, "I assure you, my dear
+friend, I had no notion that we were already inside the Sacred Edifice."
+
+So much for the æsthetics of Harrow Chapel as originally constructed,
+but time and piety have completely changed it. In 1855, Dr. Vaughan
+added a Chancel with an apsidal end, designed by Sir Gilbert Scott.
+Next, the central passage of the Chapel became a Nave, with pillars and
+a North Aisle. Then the South Aisle was added, and decorated with glass
+before which one shudders, as a Memorial to Harrow men who fell in the
+Crimea. So the Chapel remained till 1903, when two curious additions,
+something between transepts and side-chapels, were added in memory of
+Harrow men who fell in South Africa. The total result of these
+successive changes is a building of remarkably irregular shape, but
+richly decorated, and sanctified by innumerable memories of friends long
+since loved and lost. A tablet, near which as a new boy I used to sit,
+bears this inscription--
+
+
+                         In mournful and
+                    affectionate remembrance of
+                        JOHN HYDE D'ARCY,
+                Scholar of Balliol College, Oxford,
+                 and formerly Head of this School.
+                 He passed through the Strait Gate
+                  of Humility, Toil, and Patience,
+           into the clear light and true knowledge of Him
+                         Who is our Peace.
+
+     "If any man will do His Will, he shall know of the doctrine."
+
+
+Few sermons have ever impressed me so powerfully as this significant
+memorial of a life which lasted only nineteen years.
+
+The morning and evening services in the Chapel were what is called
+"bright and cheerful"--in other words, extremely noisy and not very
+harmonious or reverent. We had two sermons every Sunday. The Head-master
+preached in the evening; the Assistant-masters in the morning.
+Occasionally, we had a stranger of repute. Dr. Butler's preaching I have
+already described, and also that of Farrar and Westcott. Mr. Steel's
+traditional discourses were in a class by themselves. But other
+preachers we had, not less remarkable. I distinctly remember a sermon by
+Mr. Sticktoright, who told us that we did not know in what way the world
+would be destroyed--it might be by fire, or it might be by water
+(though this latter alternative seems precluded by Genesis ix. 11). The
+Rev. James Robertson, afterwards Head-master of Haileybury, compared the
+difference between a dull boy and a clever boy to that between an ox and
+a dog. "To the ox, the universe comprises only the impassive blue above,
+and the edible green beneath; while the dog finds a world of excitement
+in hunting, and a demi-god in man." Dean Stanley, preaching on Trinity
+Sunday, 1868, thus explained away the doctrine of the Trinity--"God the
+Father is God in Nature. God the Son is God in History. God the Holy
+Ghost is God in the Conscience." And Thring of Uppingham bellowed an
+exposition of Psalm lxxviii. 70 with such surprising vigour that he
+acquired among us the affectionate nickname of "Old Sheepfolds." It is a
+pleasure to place in contrast with these absurdities the truly pastoral
+and moving sermons of Mr. John Smith, whose apostolic work at Harrow I
+have already commemorated. His paraphrase of 1. St. Peter iv. 7-8 still
+lingers in my ear--"Be watchful, be prayerful, be very kind." He is thus
+described on a Memorial Tablet in the Chapel:
+
+
+                To the Young a Father,
+          To friends in joy or grief a Brother,
+      To the poor, the suffering, and the tempted,
+           A minister of Hope and Strength.
+          Tried by more than common sorrows,
+        And upborne by more than common faith,
+          His holy life interpreted to many
+         The Mind which was in Christ Jesus,
+            The Promise of the Comforter,
+     And the Vision granted to the Pure in Heart.
+
+
+It may seem odd that one should remember so much about sermons preached
+so long ago, but Bishop Welldon's testimony illustrates the point. "When
+I came to Harrow, I was greatly struck by the feeling of the boys for
+the weekly Sermon; they looked for it as an element in their lives, they
+attended to it, and passed judgment upon it." (I may remark in passing
+that Dr. Welldon promptly and wisely reduced the Sunday Sermons from two
+to one.)
+
+But the day of days in Harrow Chapel was Founder's Day, October 10th,
+1868, when the preacher at the Commemoration Service was Liddon, who had
+lately become famous by the Bampton Lectures of 1866. The scene and the
+sermon can never be forgotten. Prayers and hymns and thanksgivings for
+Founder and Benefactors had been duly performed, and we had listened
+with becoming solemnity to that droll chapter about "Such as found out
+musical tunes, and recited verses in writing." When the preacher entered
+the pulpit, his appearance instantly attracted attention. We had heard
+vaguely of him as "the great Oxford swell," but now that we saw him we
+felt a livelier interest. "He looks like a monk," one boy whispers to
+his neighbour; and indeed it is a better description than the speaker
+knows. The Oxford M.A. gown, worn over a cassock, is the Benedictine
+habit modified by time and place; the spare, thin figure suggests
+asceticism; the beautifully chiselled, sharply-pointed features, the
+close-shaved face, the tawny skin, the jet-black hair, remind us vaguely
+of something by Velasquez or Murillo, or of Ary Scheffer's picture of
+St. Augustine. And the interest aroused by sight is intensified by
+sound. The vibrant voice strikes like an electric shock. The exquisite,
+almost over-refined, articulation seems the very note of culture. The
+restrained passion which thrills through the disciplined utterance warns
+even the most heedless that something quite unlike the ordinary stuff of
+school-sermons is coming. "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy
+youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou
+shalt say, I have no pleasure in them." The speaker speaks of the
+blessedness and glory of boyhood; the splendid inheritance of a Public
+School built on Christian lines; the unequalled opportunities of
+learning while the faculties are still fresh and the mind is still
+receptive; the worthlessness of all merely secular attainment, however
+desirable, however necessary, when weighed in the balance against "the
+one thing needful." The congregation still are boys, but soon they will
+be men. Dark days will come, as Ecclesiastes warned--dark in various
+ways and senses, darkest when, at the University or elsewhere, we first
+are bidden to cast faith aside and to believe nothing but what can be
+demonstrated by "an appeal, in the last resort, to the organs of sense."
+Now is the time, and this is the place, so to "remember our Creator"
+that, come what may, we shall never be able to forget Him, or doubt His
+love, or question His revelation. The preacher leans far out from the
+pulpit, spreading himself, as it were, over the congregation, in an act
+of benediction. "From this place may Christ ever be preached, in the
+fulness of His creative, redemptive, and sacramental work. Here may you
+learn to remember Him in the days of your youth, and, in the last and
+most awful day of all, may He remember you."
+
+Five minutes afterwards we are in the open air. Boys stare and gasp;
+masters hurry past, excited and loquacious. Notes are compared, and
+watches consulted. Liddon has preached for an hour, and the school must
+go without its dinner.
+
+Enough has now been said about the Chapel and its memories. I must now
+turn to lighter themes. I remember once hearing Mrs. Procter, who was
+born in 1799 and died in 1888, say casually at a London dinner-party,
+when someone mentioned Harrow Speech-Day--"Ah! that used to be a
+pleasant day. The last time I was there I drove down with Lord Byron and
+Doctor Parr, who had been breakfasting with my step-father, Basil
+Montagu." This reminiscence seemed to carry one back some way, but I
+entirely agreed with Mrs. Procter. Speech-Day at Harrow has been for
+more than forty years one of my favourite holidays. In my time the
+present Speech-Room did not exist. The old Speech-Room, added to John
+Lyon's original building in 1819, was a well-proportioned hall, with
+panelled walls and large windows. Tiers of seats rose on three sides of
+the room; on the fourth was the platform, and just opposite the
+platform sat the Head-master, flanked right and left by distinguished
+visitors. There was a triumphal arch of evergreens over the gate, and
+the presence of the Beadle of the Parish Church, sumptuous in purple and
+gold, pointed to the historic but obsolescent connexion between the
+Parish and the School. The material of the "Speeches," so-called, was
+much the same as that provided at other schools--Shakespeare, Sheridan,
+Chatham, Aristophanes, Plautus, Molière, Schiller. An age-long desire to
+play the Trial in _Pickwick_ was only attained, under the liberal rule
+of Dr. Wood, in 1909. At the Speeches, one caught one's first glimpse of
+celebrities whom one was destined to see at closer quarters in the years
+to come; and I never can forget the radiant beauty of "Spencer's Faery
+Queen,"[7] as I saw her at the Speeches of 1869.
+
+While I am speaking of Celebrities, I must make a short digression from
+Speech-Day to Holidays. Dr. Vaughan, some time Head-master of Harrow and
+afterwards Dean of Llandaff, was in 1868 Vicar of Doncaster. My only
+brother was one of his curates; the Vaughans asked my mother to stay
+with them at the Vicarage, in order that she might see her son, then
+newly ordained, at his work; and, the visit falling in the Harrow
+holidays, they good-naturedly said that she might bring me with her. Dr.
+Vaughan was always exceedingly kind to boys, and one morning, on our way
+back from the daily service, he said to me--"Sir Grosvenor Le
+Draughte[8] has proposed to break his journey here, on his return from
+Scotland. Do you know him? No? Well--observe Sir Grosvenor. He is well
+worthy of observation. He is exactly what the hymn-book calls 'a
+worldling.'" The day advanced, and no Sir Grosvenor appeared. The Doctor
+came into the drawing-room repeatedly, asking if "that tiresome old
+gentleman had arrived," and Mrs. Vaughan plied him with topics of
+consolation--"Perhaps he has missed his train. Perhaps there has been an
+accident. Perhaps he has been taken ill on the journey"--but the Doctor
+shook his head and refused to be comforted. After dinner, we sat in an
+awe-struck silence, while the Vaughans, knowing the hour at which the
+last train from Scotland came in, and the length of time which it took
+to drive from the station, listened with ears erect. Presently the
+wheels of a fly came rumbling up, and Dr. Vaughan, exclaiming, "Our
+worst anticipations are realized!" hurried to the front door. Then,
+welcoming the aged traveller with open arms, he said in his blandest
+tones--"Now, my dear Sir Grosvenor, I know you must be dreadfully tired.
+You shall go to bed at once." Sir Grosvenor, who longed to sit up till
+midnight, telling anecdotes and drinking brandy-and-water, feebly
+remonstrated; but the remorseless Doctor led his unwilling captive
+upstairs. It was a triumph of the _Suaviter in modo_, and gave me an
+impressive lesson on the welcome which awaits self-invited guests, even
+when they are celebrities. But all this is a parenthesis.
+
+I should be shamefully ungrateful to a place of peculiar enjoyment if I
+forbore to mention the Library at Harrow. It was opened in 1863, as a
+Memorial of Dr. Vaughan's Head-mastership, and its delicious bow-window,
+looking towards Hampstead, was my favourite resort. On whole-holidays,
+when others were playing cricket, I used to read there for hours at a
+stretch; and gratified my insatiable thirst for Biographies, Memoirs,
+and Encyclopædias. The Library was also the home of the Debating
+Society, and there I moved, forty-two years ago, that a Hereditary
+Legislative Body is incompatible with free institutions; and supported
+the present Bishop of Oxford in declaring that a Republic is the best
+form of Government. The mention of the Debating Society leads me to the
+subject of Politics. I have said in a former chapter that the
+Conservative Reform Bill of 1867 was the first political event which
+interested me. It was a stirring time all over the world, in France, in
+Italy, and in Mexico. There were rebellions and rumours of rebellion.
+Monarchical institutions were threatened. Secret Societies were in full
+activity. The whole social order seemed to be passing through a crisis,
+and I, like the Abbé Siéyes, fell to framing constitutions; my favourite
+scheme being a Republic, with a President elected for life, and a
+Legislature chosen by universal suffrage. But all these dreams were
+dispelled by the realities of my new life at Harrow, and, for a while, I
+perforce thought more of Imperial than of Papal Rome, of Greek than of
+English Republics. But in the summer of 1868, Mr. Gladstone's first
+attack on the Irish Church caused such an excitement as I had never
+before known. It was a pitched battle between the two great Parties of
+the State, and I was an enthusiastic follower of the Gladstonian
+standard. In November 1868 came the General Election which was to decide
+the issue. Of course Harrow, like all other schools, was Tory as the sea
+is salt. Out of five hundred boys, I can only recall five who showed the
+Liberal colour. These were the present Lord Grey; Walter Leaf, the
+Homeric Scholar; W. A. Meek, now Recorder of York; M. G. Dauglish, who
+edited the "Harrow Register," and myself. On the polling day I received
+my "Baptism of Fire," or rather of mud, being rolled over and over in
+the attempt to tear my colours from me. The Tory colour was red; the
+Liberal was blue; and my mother, chancing to drive through Harrow with
+the light blue carriage-wheels which my family have always used, was
+playfully but loudly hissed by wearers of the red rosette. Among the
+masters, political opinion was divided. Mr. Young, whom I quoted just
+now, was a Liberal, and a Tory boy called Freddy Bennet (brother of the
+present Lord Tankerville) covered himself with glory by pinning a red
+streamer to the back of Young's gown while he was calling "Bill."
+
+In the following year our Politics found a fresh vent through the
+establishment of _The Harrovian_. I had dabbled in composition ever
+since I was ten, and had printed both prose and verse before I entered
+Harrow School. So here was a heaven-sent contributor, and one morning,
+in the autumn of 1869, as I was coming out of First School, one[9] of
+the Editors overtook me and said--
+
+"We want you to contribute to _The Harrovian_. We are only going to
+employ fellows who can write English--not such stuff as 'The following
+boys _were given prizes_.'" Purism indeed!
+
+Here began my journalistic career. For three years I wrote a
+considerable part of the paper, and I was an Editor during my last year,
+in conjunction with my friends Dumbar Barton and Walter Sichel.
+
+Harrow is sometimes said to be the most musical of Public Schools; and
+certainly our School Songs have attained a wide popularity. I believe
+that "Forty Years on" is sung all over the world. But, when I went to
+Harrow, we were confined to the traditional English songs and ballads,
+and to some Latin ditties by Bradby and Westcott, which we bellowed
+lustily but could not always construe. E. E. Bowen's stirring, though
+often bizarre, compositions (admirably set to music by John Farmer)
+began soon after I entered the school, and E. W. Howson's really
+touching and melodious verses succeeded Bowens' some ten years after I
+had left. Other song-writers, of greater or less merit, we have had; but
+from first to last, the thrilling spell of a Harrow concert has been an
+experience quite apart from all other musical enjoyments. "The singing
+is the thing. When you hear the great body of fresh voices leap up like
+a lark from the ground, and rise and swell and swell and rise till the
+rafters seem to crack and shiver, then you seem to have discovered all
+the sources of feeling." This was the tribute of a stranger, and an
+Harrovian has recorded the same emotion:--"John was singing like a lark,
+with a lark's spontaneous delight in singing; with an ease and
+self-abandonment which charmed eye almost as much as ear. Higher and
+higher rose the clear, sexless notes, till two of them met and mingled
+in a triumphant trill. To Desmond, that trill was the answer to the
+quavering, troubled cadences of the first verse; the vindication of the
+spirit soaring upwards unfettered by the flesh--the pure spirit, not
+released from the human clay without a fierce struggle. At that moment
+Desmond loved the singer--the singer who called to him out of heaven,
+who summoned his friend to join him, to see what he saw--'the vision
+splendid.'"[10]
+
+I am conscious that, so far, I have treated the Moloch of Athletics with
+such scant respect that his worshippers may doubt if I ever was really a
+boy. Certainly my physical inability to play games was rendered less
+bitter by the fact that I did not care about them. I well remember the
+astonishment of my tutor, when he kindly asked me to luncheon on his
+carriage at my first Eton and Harrow match, and I replied that I should
+not be there.
+
+"Not be at Lord's, my boy? How very strange! Why?"
+
+"Because there are three things which I particularly dislike--heat, and
+crowds, and cricket." It certainly was a rather priggish answer, but let
+me say in self-defence that before I left the school I had become as
+keen on "Lord's," as the best of my compeers.
+
+That, in spite of his reprehensible attitude towards our national game,
+I was still, as Mr. Chadband said, "a human boy," is proved by the
+intense interest with which I beheld the one and only "Mill" which ever
+took place while I was at Harrow.[11] It was fought on the 25th of
+February, 1868, with much form and ceremony. The "Milling-ground," now
+perverted to all sorts of base uses, is immediately below the
+School-Yard. The ground slopes rapidly, so that the wall of the Yard
+forms the gallery of the Milling-Ground. The moment that "Bill" was
+over, I rushed to the wall and secured an excellent place, leaning my
+elbows on the wall, while a friend, who was a moment later, sat on my
+shoulders and looked over my bowed head. It would be indiscreet to
+mention the names of the combatants, though I remember them perfectly.
+One was a red-headed giant; the other short, dark, and bow-legged.
+Neither had at all a pleasant countenance, and I must admit that I
+enjoyed seeing them pound each other into pulp. I felt that two beasts
+were getting their deserts. To-day such a sight would kill me; but this
+is the degeneracy of old age.
+
+Now that I am talking about school-fellows, several names call for
+special mention. As I disliked athletics, it follows that I did not
+adore athletes. I can safely say that I never admired a boy because of
+his athletic skill, though I have admired many in spite of it. Probably
+Sidney Pelham, Archdeacon of Norfolk, who was in the Harrow Eleven in
+1867 and 1868, and the Oxford Eleven in 1871, will never see this book;
+so I may safely say that I have seldom envied anyone as keenly as I
+envied him, when Dr. Butler, bidding him farewell before the whole
+school, thanked him for "having set an example which all might be proud
+to follow--unfailing sweetness of temper, and perfect purity of life."
+In one respect, the most conspicuous of my school-fellows was H.R.H.
+Prince Thomas of Savoy, Duke of Genoa, nephew of Victor Emmanuel, and
+now an Admiral in the Italian Navy. He came to Harrow in 1869, and lived
+with Mr. and Mrs. Matthew Arnold. He was elected King of Spain by a vote
+of the Cortes on the 3rd of October 1869. He was quite a popular boy,
+and no one had the slightest grudge against him; but, for all that,
+everyone made a point of kicking him, in the hope of being able to say
+in after-life that they had kicked the King of Spain. Unfortunately
+Victor Emmanuel, fearing dynastic complications, forbade him to accept
+the Crown; so he got all the Harrow kicks and none of the Spanish
+half-pence. When I entered Harrow, the winner of all the classical
+prizes was Andrew Graham Murray, now Lord Dunedin and Lord President of
+the Court of Session; a most graceful scholar, and also a considerable
+mathematician. Just below him was Walter Leaf, to whom no form of
+learning came amiss; who was as likely to be Senior Wrangler as Senior
+Classic, and whose performances in Physical Science won the warm praise
+of Huxley. Of the same standing as these were Arthur Evans, the
+Numismatist, Frank Balfour, the Physiologist, and Gerald Rendall,
+Head-master of Charterhouse. Among my contemporaries the most
+distinguished was Charles Gore, whose subsequent career has only
+fulfilled what all foresaw; and just after him came (to call them by
+their present names) Lord Crewe, Lord Ribblesdale, Lord Spencer, Mr.
+Justice Barton of the Irish Bench, and Mr. Walter Long, in whom Harrow
+may find her next Prime Minister. Walter Sichel was at seventeen the
+cleverest school-boy whom I have ever known. Sir Henry McKinnon obtained
+his Commission in the Guards while he was still in the Fifth Form.
+Pakenham Beatty was the Swinburnian of the school, then, as now, a true
+Poet of Liberty. Ion Keith-Falconer, Orientalist and missionary, was a
+saint in boyhood as in manhood. Edward Eyre seemed foreordained to be
+what in London and in Northumberland he has been--the model
+Parish-Priest; and my closest friend of all was Charles Baldwyn
+Childe-Pemberton, who, as Major Childe, fell at the battle of Spion Kop,
+on a spot now called, in honour of his memory, "Childe's Hill." _De
+minimis non curat Respublica_; which, being interpreted, signifies--_The
+Commonwealth_ will not care to know the names of the urchins who fagged
+for me.[12] But I cherish an ebony match-box carved and given to me by
+one of these ministering spirits, as a proof that, though my laziness
+may have made me exacting, my exactions were not brutal.
+
+
+On the 15th of June, 1871, Harrow School celebrated the three-hundredth
+anniversary of its foundation. Harrovians came from every corner of the
+globe to take part in this Tercentenary Festival. The arrangements were
+elaborated with the most anxious care. The Duke of Abercorn,
+affectionately and appropriately nicknamed "Old Splendid," presided
+over a banquet in the School-Yard; and the programme of the day's
+proceedings had announced, rather to the terror of intending visitors,
+that after luncheon there would be "speeches, interspersed with songs,
+from three hundred and fifty of the boys." The abolition of the second
+comma dispelled the dreadful vision of three-hundred-and-fifty
+school-boy-speeches, and all went merry as a marriage-bell--all, except
+the weather. It seemed as if the accumulated rain of three centuries
+were discharged on the devoted Hill. It was raining when we went to the
+early celebration in the Chapel; it was raining harder when we came out.
+At the culminating moment of the day's proceedings, when Dr. Vaughan was
+proposing "Prosperity to Harrow," the downpour and the thunder drowned
+the speaker's voice; and, when evening fell on the sodden
+cricket-ground, the rain extinguished the fireworks.
+
+On that same cricket-ground nine days later, in the golden afternoon of
+Midsummer Day, George Clement Cottrell, a boy beautiful alike in face
+and in character, was killed in an instant by a blow from a ball, which
+struck him behind the ear when he was umpiring in the Sixth Form game.
+On the 29th of June his five hundred school-fellows followed him to his
+resting-place in the Churchyard on the Hill, and I believe we
+unanimously felt that he whom we had lost was the one, of all our
+number, of whom we could say, with the surest confidence, that he was
+fit to pass, without a moment's warning, into the invisible World.
+_Beati mundo corde_.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[4] Writing to John Murray in 1832, Byron said--"There is a spot in the
+Churchyard, near the footpath, on the brow of the Hill looking towards
+Windsor, and a tomb under a large tree (bearing the name of Peachie, or
+Peachey), where I used to sit for hours and hours as a boy: this was my
+favourite spot."
+
+[5] The Rev. E. M. Young.
+
+[6] Herga is the Anglo-Saxon name of Harrow.
+
+[7] Charlotte Seymour, Countess Spencer, died 1903.
+
+[8] The name is borrowed from "Sybil." The bearer of it was an ancient
+physician, who had doctored all the famous people of his time, beginning
+with "Pamela."
+
+[9] Mr. R. de C. Welch.
+
+[10] _The Hill._ Chapter vi.
+
+[11] Some authorities say that it was the last on record.
+
+[12] This paper appeared in _The Commonwealth_.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+OXFORD
+
+
+     "For place, for grace, and for sweet companee,
+     Oxford is Heaven, if Heaven on Earth there be."
+                                     SIR JOHN DAVIES.
+
+
+The faithful student of "Verdant Green" will not have forgotten that
+Charlie Larkyns, when introducing his Freshman-friend to the sights of
+Oxford, called his attention to a mystic inscription on a wall in Oriel
+Lane. "You see that? Well, that's one of the plates they put up to
+record the Vice's height. F.P.--7 feet, you see: the initials of his
+name--Frederick Plumptre!" "He scarcely seemed so tall as that," replied
+Verdant, "though certainly a tall man. But the gown makes a difference,
+I suppose."
+
+Dr. Plumptre was Vice-Chancellor of Oxford from 1848 to 1851, and Master
+of University College for thirty-four years. He died in 1870, and the
+College thereupon elected the Rev. G. G. Bradley, then Head-master of
+Marlborough, and afterwards Dean of Westminster, to the vacant post. It
+was an unfortunate choice. Mr. Bradley was a man of many gifts and
+virtues, and a successful schoolmaster; but the methods which had
+succeeded at Marlborough were not adapted to Oxford, and he soon
+contrived to get at loggerheads both with Dons and with Undergraduates.
+
+However, there existed at that time--and I daresay it exists still--a
+nefarious kind of trades-unionism among the Headmasters of Public
+Schools; and, as Bradley had been a Head-master, all the Head-masters
+advised their best pupils to try the scholarships at University College.
+
+So far as I had any academical connexions, they were exclusively with
+Trinity, Cambridge; and my father was as ignorant of Oxford as myself.
+All I knew about it was that it was the source and home of the Oxford
+movement, which some of my friends at Harrow had taught me to admire.
+Two or three of those friends were already there, and I wished to rejoin
+them; but, as between the different Colleges, I was fancy-free; so when,
+early in 1872, Dr. Butler suggested that I should try for a scholarship
+at University, I assented, reserving myself, in the too probable event
+of failure, for Christ Church. However, I was elected at University on
+the 24th of February, 1872, and went into residence there on the 11th of
+the following October. The Vice-Chancellor who matriculated me was the
+majestic Liddell, who, with his six feet of stately height draped in
+scarlet, his "argent aureole" of white hair, and his three silver maces
+borne before him, always helped me to understand what Sydney Smith meant
+when he said, of some nonsensical proposition, that no power on earth,
+save and except the Dean of Christ Church, should induce him to believe
+it. As I write, I see the announcement of Mrs. Liddell's death; and my
+mind travels back to the drawing-room and lawns of the Deanery at Christ
+Church, and the garland of beautiful faces
+
+
+     "Decking the matron temples of a place
+     So famous through the world."
+
+
+The 13th of October was my first Sunday in Oxford, and my friend Charles
+Gore took me to the Choral Eucharist at Cowley St. John, and afterwards
+to luncheon with the Fathers. So began my acquaintance with a Society
+of which I have always been a grateful admirer. But more exciting
+experiences were at hand: on the 20th of October it was Liddon's turn,
+as Select Preacher, to occupy the pulpit at St. Mary's. The impressions
+of that, my first University sermon, have never faded from my mind. A
+bright autumn morning, the yellow sunlight streaming in upon the densely
+crowded church, the long array of scarlet-robed doctors, the preacher's
+beautiful face looking down from the high pulpit, with anxious brow and
+wistful gaze. And then the rolling Latin hymn, and then the Bidding
+Prayer, and then the pregnant text--_He that believeth on the Son hath
+everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life;
+but the wrath of God abideth on him_. Are we listening to St. John the
+Baptist or St. John the Evangelist? The preacher holds that we are
+listening to the Evangelist, and says that the purpose of St. John's
+Gospel is condensed into his text. "If to believe in Him is life, to
+have known and yet to reject him is death. There is no middle term or
+state between the two.... In fact, this stern, yet truthful and
+merciful, claim makes all the difference between a Faith and a theory."
+And now there is a moment's pause. Preacher and hearers alike take
+breath. Some instinct assures us that we are just coming to the crucial
+point. The preacher resumes: "A statement of this truth in other terms
+is at present occasioning a painful controversy, which it would be
+better in this place to pass over in silence if too much was not at
+stake to warrant a course from which I shall only depart with sincere
+reluctance. Need I say that I allude to the vexed question of the
+Athanasian Creed?" The great discourse which was thus introduced, with
+its strong argument for the retention of the Creed as it stands, has
+long been the property of the Church, and there is no need to
+recapitulate it. But the concluding words, extolling "the high and rare
+grace of an intrepid loyalty to known truth," spoke with a force of
+personal appeal which demands commemoration: "To be forced back upon the
+central realities of the faith which we profess; to learn, better than
+ever before, what are the convictions which we dare not surrender at any
+cost; to renew the freshness of an early faith, which affirms within us,
+clearly and irresistibly, that the one thing worth thinking of, worth
+living for, if need were, worth dying for, is the unmutilated faith of
+Jesus Christ our Lord,--these may be the results of inevitable
+differences, and, if they are, they are blessings indeed."[13]
+
+The same Sunday was marked by another unforgettable experience--my first
+visit to St. Barnabas'. The church was then just three years old. Bishop
+Wilberforce had consecrated it on the 19th of October, 1869, and made
+this characteristic note in his diary:--"Disagreeable service. Acolyte
+running about. Paste squares for bread, etc., but the church a great
+gift." Three years later, a boy fresh from Harrow, and less sensitively
+Protestant than the good Bishop, not only thought "the church a great
+gift," but enjoyed the "acolyte running about," and found the whole
+service the most inspiring and uplifting worship in which he had ever
+joined. My impressions of it are as clear as yesterday's--the unadorned
+simplicity of the fabric, emphasizing by contrast the blaze of light and
+colour round the altar; the floating cloud of incense; the expressive
+and unfussy ceremonial; the straightforward preaching; and, most
+impressive of all, the large congregation of men, old and young, rich
+and poor, undergraduates and artisans, all singing Evangelical hymns
+with one heart and one voice. It was, if ever there was on earth,
+congregational worship; and I, for one, have never seen its like. The
+people's pride in the church was very characteristic: they habitually
+spoke of it as "our Barnabas." The clergy and the worshippers were a
+family, and the church was a home.
+
+At the Dedication Festival of 1872, there was a strong list of
+preachers, including W. J. E. Bennett, of Frome, and Edward King, then
+Principal of Cuddesdon. But the sermon which made an indelible
+impression on me was preached by R. W. Randall, then vicar of All
+Saints, Clifton, and afterwards Dean of Chichester. It was indeed a
+memorable performance. "Performance" is the right word, for, young as
+one was, one realized instinctively the wonderful art and mastery and
+technical perfection of the whole. There was the exquisitely modulated
+voice, sinking lower, yet becoming more distinct, whenever any specially
+moving topic was touched; the restrained, yet emphatic action--I can see
+that uplifted forefinger still--and the touch of personal reminiscence
+at the close, so managed as to give the sense that we were listening to
+an elder brother who, thirty years before, had passed through the same
+experiences, so awfully intermingled of hope and tragedy, which now lay
+before us on the threshold of our Oxford life. It was, in brief, a
+sermon never to be forgotten; it was "a night to be much remembered unto
+the Lord."
+
+Some thirty years later, I was introduced to Dean Randall at a London
+dinner-party. After dinner, I drew my chair towards him, and said, "Mr.
+Dean, I have always wished to have an opportunity of thanking you for a
+sermon which you preached at St. Barnabas', Oxford, at the Dedication
+Festival, 1872." The Dean smiled, with the graceful pleasure of an old
+man honoured by a younger one, and said, "Yes? What was the text?" "The
+text I have long forgotten, but I remember the subject." "And what was
+that?" "It was the insecurity of even the best-founded hopes." "Rather a
+well-worn theme," said the Dean, with a half-smile. "But not, sir," I
+said, "as you handled it. You told us, at the end of the sermon, that
+you remembered a summer afternoon when you were an undergraduate at
+Christ Church, and were sitting over your Thucydides close to your
+window, grappling with a long and complicated passage which was to be
+the subject of next morning's lecture; and that, glancing for a moment
+from your book, you saw the two most brilliant young Christ Church men
+of the day going down to bathe in the Isis. You described the gifts and
+graces of the pair, who, between them, seemed to combine all that was
+best and most beautiful in body and mind and soul. And then you told us
+how, as your friends disappeared towards Christ Church Meadows, you
+returned to your work; and only were roused from it two hours later,
+when a confused noise of grief and terror in the quadrangle below
+attracted your attention, and you saw the dead bodies of Gaisford and
+Phillimore borne past your window from their 'watery bier' at Sandford
+Lasher."
+
+On Advent Sunday, December 1, I saw and heard Dr. Pusey for the first
+time. He was then in broken health; but he gathered all his physical and
+mental energies for a great sermon on "The Responsibility of Intellect
+in Matters of Faith." The theme of this sermon was that Intellect is a
+great trust confided to us by God; that we are responsible to Him for
+the use of it; and that we must exercise it in submission to His
+revealed Will. What He has declared, that it is our duty to believe. Our
+Lord Himself had uttered the most solemn warning against wilful
+unbelief; the Athanasian Creed only re-echoed His awful words; and the
+storm which assailed the Creed was really directed against the revealed
+Truth of God. "This tornado will, I trust, by God's mercy, soon pass; it
+is a matter of life and death. To remove those words of warning, or the
+Creed because it contains them, would be emphatically to teach our
+people that it is _not_ necessary to salvation to believe faithfully the
+Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, or in One God as He has made
+Himself known to us."
+
+Immediately after delivering himself of this great apology for the
+Faith, Pusey went abroad for the benefit of his health, and did not
+return to Oxford till the Summer Term. I well remember the crowd of
+ancient disciples, who had missed their accustomed interview at
+Christmas, thronging his door in Christ Church, like the impotent folk
+at the Pool of Bethesda.
+
+Another reminiscence, and of a very different kind, belongs to my first
+Term. Dean Stanley had been nominated as Select Preacher, and the
+old-fashioned High Churchmen made common cause with the Low Churchmen to
+oppose his appointment. There was a prodigious clamour, but Dr. Pusey
+held aloof from the agitation, believing--and in this he was
+conspicuously right--that "opposition would only aggravate the evil by
+enlisting the enthusiasm of the young." The vote was taken, in an
+unusually crowded Convocation, on the 11th of December. It was a
+noteworthy and rather an amusing scene, and was well described by an
+eyewitness.[14] "Oxford was fairly startled from the serenity which
+usually marks the fag-end of the Michaelmas Term by a sudden irruption
+of the outer world. Recognitions took place at every street-corner. The
+hotels were put upon their mettle. The porters' lodges of the Colleges
+were besieged, and Boffin's Refreshment Rooms ran over with hungry
+parsons from the country. As an evidence of the interest which the
+question of Dean Stanley's appointment excited beyond the walls of the
+University, I may mention that even the guards and porters at the
+railway hallooed to each other to know "the state of the betting"; but
+even they did not seem quite to have calculated on the matter being so
+warmly taken up in London and by the country at large." At half-past one
+o'clock the bell of St. Mary's gave notice to the combatants to prepare
+for the fray, and immediately the floor of the Theatre was sprinkled
+with representative men of all the schools. The non-residents appeared
+in gowns of various degrees of rustiness, some with chimney-pot hats and
+some with wide-awakes. The early comers conversed in small groups,
+hugging instinctively those sides of the building on which were written
+respectively _Placet_ or _Non-Placet_, giving thereby an inkling of how
+they meant to vote. The gathering increased every moment, and soon the
+Doctors in their scarlet began to dot the seats around the
+Vice-Chancellor's chair. Prince Leopold, by right of his royalty,
+entered the sacred enclosure with Dr. Acland, and afterwards took his
+seat among the Doctors. Before two o'clock every inch of the floor was
+full, the occupants standing in anticipation of the coming encounter.
+"Still they gravitated towards their respective voting-doors, and on the
+_Placet_ side one descried the scholarly face of Professor Jowett, the
+sharply-cut features of the Rev. Mark Pattison, and the well-known
+physiognomy of Professor Max Müller. On the opposite side Mr. Burgon was
+marshalling his forces, and Dean Goulburn, from the Doctors' benches,
+looked out over the seething mass of M.A.'s below him." At two o'clock
+the Vice-Chancellor arrived, and forthwith commenced proceedings in
+Latin, which must have been extremely edifying to the ladies who, in
+large numbers, occupied the Strangers' Gallery, backed by a narrow
+fringe of Undergraduates. The object of the Convocation was stated as
+being the appointment of Select Preachers, and the names were then
+submitted to the Doctors and Masters for approval. "_Placetne igitur
+vobis huic nomini assentire?_" being the form in which the question was
+proposed.
+
+The name first on the list was that of the Rev. Harvey Goodwin; and a
+faint buzz in the assembly was interpreted by the Vice-Chancellor,
+skilled in such sounds, as an expression of approval. Thereupon he
+passed on to name number two, which, with some agitation, but with
+clear, resonant voice, he read out as "Arthurus Penrhyn Stanley."
+Immediately there ensued a scene of the wildest confusion. On the
+_Placet_ side, cheers and waving of trencher-caps; on the _Non-Placet_
+side feeble hisses; and from all sides, undergraduate as well as
+graduate, mingled shouts of _Placet_ and _Non_, with an accompaniment of
+cheers and hisses; until the ringing voice of Dean Liddell pronounced
+the magic words _Fiat scrutinium_. Thereupon the two Proctors proceeded
+first of all to take the votes of the Doctors on their benches; and,
+when this was done, they took their station at the doors labelled
+_Placet_ and _Non-placet_. During the process of polling we had an
+opportunity of criticizing the constituents of that truly exceptional
+gathering. It was certainly not true to say, as some said, that only the
+younger Masters voted for Dean Stanley. There was quite a fair
+proportion of white and bald heads on the _Placet_ side. "The country
+contingent was not so numerous as one had expected, and I do not believe
+that all of these went out at the _Non-placet_ door. Evidently, parties
+were pretty evenly balanced; and, when the _Non-placets_ had all
+recorded their votes there were about twenty-five left on Dean Stanley's
+side, which probably would have nearly represented the actual majority,
+but, at the last moment, some stragglers, who had only arrived in Oxford
+by 2.25 train hurried in, and so swelled the numbers. One late-comer
+arrived without his academicals, and some zealous supporter of the Dean
+had to denude himself, and pass his cap and gown outside to enable this
+gentleman to vote." Soon it was over. The Proctors presented their lists
+to the Vice-Chancellor, who, amid breathless silence, pronounced the
+fateful words--"_Majori parti placet._" Then there was indeed a cheer,
+which rang through the building from basement to upper gallery, and was
+taken up outside in a way that reminded one of the trial of the Seven
+Bishops. The hisses, if there were any, were fairly drowned. Oxford had
+given its approval to Dean Stanley, the numbers being--_Placet_, 349;
+_Non-placet_, 287.
+
+When the fuss was over, Liddon wrote thus to a friend:--"It was a
+discreditable nomination; but, having been made, ought, in the interests
+of the Faith, to have been allowed to pass _sub silentio_; for, if
+opposed, it must either be defeated or affirmed by Convocation--a
+choice, _me judice_, of nearly balanced evils. To have defeated it would
+have been to invest Stanley with the cheap honours of a petty martyrdom.
+To have affirmed it is, I fear, to have given a new impetus to the
+barren, unspiritual negations which he represents."
+
+I went up to Oxford well supplied with introductions. Dr. Cradock, the
+well-beloved Principal of Brasenose, scholar, gentleman, man of the
+world, devout Wordsworthian, enthusiastic lover of cricket and boating,
+had married a connexion of my own, who had been a Maid of Honour in
+Queen Victoria's first household. Theirs was the most hospitable house
+in Oxford, and a portrait of Mrs. Cradock, not quite kind, but very
+lifelike, enlivens the serious pages of _Robert Elsmere_. Dr.,
+afterwards Sir Henry, Acland, with his majestic presence, blandly
+paternal address, and ample rhetoric, was not only the Regius Professor
+of Medicine, but also the true and patient friend of many undergraduate
+generations. Mrs. Acland is commemorated in what I have always thought
+one of the grandest sermons in the English language--Liddon's "Worth of
+Faith in a Life to Come."[15] The Warden of Keble and Mrs. Talbot (then
+the young wife of the young Head of a very young College) were, as they
+have been for 40 years, the kindest and most constant of friends. Dr.
+Bright, Canon of Christ Church and Professor of Ecclesiastical History,
+was a lavish entertainer, "with an intense dramatic skill in telling a
+story, an almost biblical knowledge of all the pages of Dickens (and of
+Scott), with shouts of glee, and outpourings of play and fancy and
+allusion." But I need not elaborate the portrait, for everyone ought to
+know Dr. Holland's "Personal Studies" by heart. Edwin Palmer, Professor
+of Latin, was reputed to be the best scholar in Oxford, and Mrs. Palmer
+was a most genial hostess. Henry Smith, Professor of Geometry, was, I
+suppose, the most accomplished man of his time;[16] yet he lives, not by
+his performances in the unthinkable sphere of metaphysical mathematics,
+but by his intervention at Gladstone's last contest for the University.
+Those were the days of open voting, and Smith was watching the votes in
+Gladstone's interest. Professor ----, who never could manage his h's,
+wished to vote for the Tory candidates, Sir William Heathcote and Mr.
+Gathorne Hardy, but lost his head, and said:--"I vote for Glad----."
+Then, suddenly correcting himself, exclaimed, "I mean for 'Eathcote and
+'Ardy." Thereupon Smith said, "I claim that vote for Gladstone." "But,"
+said the Vice-Chancellor, "the voter did not finish your candidate's
+name." "That is true," said Smith, "but then he did not even begin the
+other two." Henry Smith kept house with an admirable and accomplished
+sister--the first woman, I believe, to be elected to a School Board,
+and certainly the only one to whom J. W. Burgon (afterwards Dean of
+Chichester) devoted a whole sermon. "Miss Smith's Sermon," with its
+whimsical protest against feminine activities, was a standing joke in
+those distant days. The Rev. H. R. Bramley, Fellow of Magdalen, used to
+entertain us sumptuously in his most beautiful College. He was a
+connecting link between Dr. Routh (1755-1854) and modern Oxford, and in
+his rooms I was introduced to the ablest man of my generation--a
+newly-elected Scholar of Balliol called Alfred Milner.
+
+It is anticipating, but only by a Term or two (for Dr. King came to
+Christ Church in 1873), to speak of Sunday luncheons at the house of the
+Regius Professor of Pastoral Theology, and of Dr. Liddon's
+characteristic allusion to a remarkably bloated-looking Bishop of Oxford
+in balloon sleeves and a wig, whose portrait adorned the Professor's
+house. "How singular, dear friend, to reflect that _that person_ should
+have been chosen, in the providential order, to connect Mr. Keble with
+the Apostles!"
+
+But though the lines seem to have fallen unto me in ritualistic places,
+I was not without Evangelical advantages. Canon Linton, Rector of St.
+Peter-le-Bailey, was a dear old gentleman, who used to entertain
+undergraduates at breakfasts and luncheons, and after the meal, when
+more secularly-minded hosts might have suggested pipes, would lead us to
+a side-table, where a selection of theological works was displayed, and
+bid us take our choice. "Kay on the Psalms" was a possession thus
+acquired, and has been used by me from that time to this. Nor must this
+retrospective page omit some further reference to J. W. Burgon, Fellow
+of Oriel and Vicar of St. Mary-the-Virgin. Dean Church called him "the
+dear old learned Professor of Billingsgate," and certainly his method of
+conducting controversy savoured (as Sydney Smith said about Bishop Monk)
+of the apostolic occupation of trafficking in fish. But to those whom he
+liked, and who looked up to him (for this was an essential condition),
+he was kind, hospitable, courteous, and even playful. His humour, which
+was of a crabbed kind quite peculiar to himself, found its best vent in
+his sermons. I often wondered whether he realized that the extreme
+grotesqueness of his preaching was the spell which drew undergraduates
+to the Sunday evening service at St. Mary's.
+
+For my next reminiscence of hospitality to Freshmen I must rely on the
+assistance of a pseudonym. At the time of which I am writing, Oxford
+numbered among her Professors one who had graduated, at a rather
+advanced age, from Magdalen Hall. Borrowing a name from Dickens, we will
+call him "Professor Dingo, of European reputation." To the kindness of
+Professor and Mrs. Dingo I was commended by a friend who lived near my
+home in Bedfordshire, and soon after my arrival in Oxford they asked me
+to Sunday luncheon at their villa in The Parks. The conversation turned
+on a new book of Limericks (or "Nonsense Rhymes," as we called them
+then) about the various Colleges. The Professor had not seen it, and
+wanted to know if it was amusing. In my virginal innocence I replied
+that one rhyme had amused me. "Let's have it," quoth the Professor, so
+off I went at score--
+
+
+     "There once was at Magdalen Hall
+     A Man who knew nothing at all;
+         When he took his degree
+         He was past fifty-three--
+     Which is youngish for Magdalen Hall."
+
+
+The Professor snarled like an angry dog, and said, witheringly, that, if
+_that_ was a specimen, the book must be sorry stuff indeed. After
+luncheon I walked away with another undergraduate, rather senior to
+myself, who said rejoicingly, "You've made a good start. That rhyme is
+meant to describe old Dingo."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[13] "The Life of Faith and the Athanasian Creed." University Sermons.
+Series II.
+
+[14] The Rev. C. M. Davies, D.D.
+
+[15] University Sermons. Series II.
+
+[16] "He had gained University honours, such as have been gained by no
+one now living, and will probably never be won again.... He was one of
+the greatest mathematical geniuses of the century. His chief and highest
+intellectual interests lay in an unknown world into which not more than
+two or three persons could follow. In that world he travelled
+alone."--_From a Memorial Sermon by B. Jowett._
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+OXONIANA
+
+
+     "Mind'st thou the bells? What a place it was for bells, lad!
+     Spires as sharp as thrushes' bills to pierce the sky with song.
+     How it shook the heart of one, the swaying and the swinging,
+     How it set the blood a-tramp and all the brains a-singing,
+     Aye, and what a world of thought the calmer chimes came bringing,
+               Telling praises every hour
+               To His majesty and power,
+     Telling prayers with punctual service, summers, centuries, how long?
+     The beads upon our rosary of immemorial song."
+                                       _The Minstrelsy of Isis_.
+
+
+Oxford is a subject from which one cannot easily tear oneself: so I make
+no apology for returning to it. In that delightful book, "The Minstrelsy
+of Isis," I have found an anonymous poem beginning
+
+
+     "Royal heart, loyal heart, comrade that I loved,"
+
+
+and, in the spirit of that line, I dedicate this chapter to the friend
+whom I always regarded as the Ideal Undergraduate.[17] Other names and
+other faces of contemporaries and companions come crowding upon the
+memory, but it is better, on all accounts, to leave them unspecified. I
+lived quite as much in other colleges as in my own, and in a fellowship
+which was gathered from all sorts and sections of undergraduate life.
+Let the reader imagine all the best and brightest men in the University
+between 1872 and 1876, and he will not go far wrong in assuming that my
+friends were among them.
+
+My Oxford life was cut sharply into two halves by a very definite
+dividing-line; the first half was cheerful and irresponsible enough. A
+large part of the cheerfulness was connected with the Church, and my
+earliest friendships (after those which I brought with me from Harrow)
+were formed in the circle which frequented St. Barnabas. I am thankful
+to remember that my eyes were even then open to see the moral beauty and
+goodness all around me, and I had a splendid dream of blending it all
+into one. In my second term I founded an "Oxford University Church
+Society," designed to unite religious undergraduates of all shades of
+Churchmanship for common worship and interchange of views. We formed
+ourselves on what we heard of a similar Society at Cambridge; and, early
+in the Summer Term of 1873, a youth of ruddy countenance and graceful
+address--now Canon Mason and Master of Pembroke--came over from
+Cambridge, and told us how to set to work. The effort was indeed
+well-meant. It was blessed by Churchmen as dissimilar as Bishop
+Mackarness, Edwin Palmer, Burgon, Scott Holland, Illingworth, Ottley,
+Lacey, Gore, and Jayne, now Bishop of Chester; but it was not
+long-lived. Very soon the "Victorian Persecution," as we used to call
+it, engineered by Archbishop Tait through the P.W.R. Act, made it
+difficult for ritualists to feel that they had part or lot with those
+who were imprisoning conscientious clergymen; so the O.U.C.S. fell to
+pieces and disappeared, to be revived after long years and under more
+peaceable conditions, by the present Archbishop of York, when Vicar of
+St. Mary's.
+
+The accession of Dr. King to the Pastoral Professorship brought a new
+element of social delight into the ecclesiastical world of Oxford, and
+that was just what was wanted. We revered our leaders, but saw little of
+them. Dr. Pusey was buried in Christ Church; and though there were some
+who fraudulently professed to be students of Hebrew, in order that they
+might see him (and sketch him) at his lectures, most of us only heard
+him in the pulpit of St. Mary's. It was rather fun to take ritualistic
+ladies, who had fashioned mental pictures of the great Tractarian, to
+Evensong in Christ Church, and to watch their dismay as that very
+unascetic figure, with tumbled surplice and hood awry, toddled to his
+stall. "Dear me! Is that Dr. Pusey? Somehow I had fancied quite a
+different-looking man." Liddon was now a Canon of St. Paul's, and his
+home was at Amen Court; so, when residing at Oxford, he lived a sort of
+hermit-life in his rooms in Christ Church, and did not hold much
+communication with undergraduates. I have lively recollections of eating
+a kind of plum duff on Fridays at the Mission-House of Cowley, while one
+of the Fathers read passages from Tertullian on the remarriage of
+widows; but this, though edifying, was scarcely social.
+
+But the arrival of "Canon King," with the admirable mother who kept
+house for him, was like a sunrise. All those notions of austerity and
+stiffness and gloom which had somehow clung about Tractarianism were
+dispelled at once by his fun and sympathy and social tact. Under his
+roof, undergraduates always felt happy and at home; and in his "Bethel,"
+as he called it, a kind of disused greenhouse in his garden, he
+gathered week by week a band of undergraduate hearers, to whom religion
+spoke, through his lips, with her most searching yet most persuasive
+accent.
+
+Lovers of _Friendship's Garland_ will remember that, during their three
+years at Oxford, Lord Lumpington and Esau Hittall were "so much occupied
+with Bullingdon and hunting that there was no great opportunity for
+those mental gymnastics which train and brace the mind for future
+acquisition." My ways of wasting time were less strenuous than theirs;
+and my desultory reading, and desultory Church-work, were supplemented
+by a good deal of desultory riding. I have some delicious memories of
+autumnal canters over Shotover and Boar's Hill, and racing gallops
+across Port Meadow, and long ambles on summer afternoons, through the
+meadows by the river-side, towards Radley and Nuneham. Having been
+brought up in the country, and having ridden ever since I was promoted
+from panniers, I looked upon riding as a commonplace accomplishment,
+much on a par with swimming and skating. Great, therefore, was my
+surprise to find that many undergraduates, I suppose town-bred, regarded
+horsemanship not merely as a rare and difficult art, but also as
+implying a kind of moral distinction. When riding men met me riding, I
+saw that they "looked at each other with a wild surmise;" and soon,
+perhaps as a consequence, I was elected to "Vincent's." When, after a
+term or two, my father suggested that I had better have my own horse
+sent from home, I was distinctly conscious of a social elevation.
+Henceforward I might, if I would, associate with "Bloods"; but those
+whom they would have contemned as "Ritualistic Smugs" were more
+interesting companions.
+
+The mention of "Vincent's" reminds me of the Union, to which also I
+belonged, though I was a sparing and infrequent participator in its
+debates. I disliked debating for debating's sake; and, though I have
+always loved speaking on Religion or Politics or any other subject in
+which the spoken word might influence practice, it has always seemed to
+me a waste of effort to argue for abstract propositions. If by speaking
+I can lead a man to give a vote on the right side, or a boy to be more
+dutiful to his mother, or a sin-burdened youth to "open his grief," I am
+ready to speak all night; but the debates of the Oxford Union on the
+Falck Laws and the Imperial Titles Bill always left me cold.
+
+The General Election of 1874 occurred during my second year at Oxford.
+The City of Oxford was contested by Harcourt, Cardwell, and the local
+brewer. Harcourt and Cardwell were returned; but immediately afterwards
+Cardwell was raised to the peerage, and a bye-election ensued. I can
+vividly recall the gratification which I felt when the Liberal
+candidate--J. D. Lewis--warmly pressed my hand, and, looking at my
+rosette, hoped that he might count on my vote and interest. Not for the
+world would I have revealed the damning fact that I was a voteless
+undergraduate.
+
+In connexion with the Election of 1874, my tutor--C. A. Fyffe--told me a
+curious story. He was canvassing the Borough of Woodstock on behalf of
+George Brodrick, then an academic Liberal of the deepest dye. Woodstock
+was what was called an "Agricultural Borough"--practically a division of
+the County--and in an outlying district, in a solitary cottage, the
+canvassers found an old man whom his neighbours reported to be a
+Radical. He did not disclaim the title, but no inducements could induce
+him to go to the poll. Gradually, under persistent cross-examination, he
+revealed his mind. He was old enough to remember the days before the
+Reform Bill of 1832. His father had been an ardent reformer. Everyone
+believed that, if only the Bill were passed, hunger and poverty and
+misery would be abolished, and the poor would come by their own. He
+said--and this was the curious point--that firearms were stored in his
+father's cottage, to be used in a popular rising if the Bill were
+rejected by the Lords. Well, the Lords had submitted, and the Bill had
+been passed; and we had got our reform--and no one was any better off.
+The poor were still poor, and there was misery and oppression, and the
+great people had it all their own way. He had got his roof over his
+head, and "a bit of meat in his pot," and it was no good hoping for
+anything more, and he was never going to take any part in politics
+again. It was a notable echo from the voices which, in 1832, had
+proclaimed the arrival of the Millennium.
+
+Oxford in those days was full of Celebrities. Whenever one's friends
+came "up" to pay one a visit, one was pretty certain to be able, in a
+casual stroll up the High or round Magdalen Walks or Christ Church
+Meadows, to point out someone of whom they had heard before. I have
+already spoken of Liddell and Pusey and Liddon and Acland and Burgon
+and Henry Smith. Chief perhaps among our celebrities was Ruskin, who had
+lately been made Slade Professor of Fine Art, and whose Inaugural
+Lecture was incessantly on the lips of such undergraduates as cared for
+glorious declamation.
+
+"There is a destiny now possible to us--the highest ever set before a
+nation to be accepted or refused. We are still undegenerate in race; a
+race mingled of the best northern blood. We are not yet dissolute in
+temper, but still have the firmness to govern, and the grace to obey. We
+have been taught a religion of pure mercy, which we must either now
+finally betray, or learn to defend by fulfilling. And we are rich in an
+inheritance of honour, bequeathed to us through a thousand years of
+noble history, which it should be our daily thirst to increase with
+splendid avarice, so that Englishmen, if it be a sin to covet honour,
+should be the most offending souls alive.... Will you, youths of
+England, make your country again a royal throne of kings; a sceptred
+isle, for all the world a source of light, a centre of peace; mistress
+of Learning and of the Arts; faithful guardian of time-tried principles,
+under temptation from fond experiments and licentious desires; and,
+amidst the cruel and clamorous jealousies of the nations, worshipped in
+her strange valour, of goodwill towards men? _Vexilla regis prodeunt._
+Yes, but of which King? There are two oriflammes; which shall we plant
+on the farthest islands--the one that floats in heavenly fire, or that
+hangs heavy with foul tissue of terrestrial gold?"
+
+Ruskin's lectures, ostensibly devoted to the Fine Arts, ranged over
+every topic in earth and heaven, and were attended by the largest, most
+representative, and most responsive audiences which had ever been
+gathered in Oxford since Matthew Arnold delivered his Farewell Lecture
+on "Culture and its Enemies."
+
+Another of our Professors--J. E. Thorold Rogers--though perhaps scarcely
+a celebrity, was well known outside Oxford, partly because he was the
+first person to relinquish the clerical character under the Act of 1870,
+partly because of his really learned labours in history and economics,
+and partly because of his Rabelaisian humour. He was fond of writing
+sarcastic epigrams, and of reciting them to his friends, and this habit
+produced a characteristic retort from Jowett. Rogers had only an
+imperfect sympathy with the historians of the new school, and thus
+derided the mutual admiration of Green and Freeman--
+
+
+     "Where, ladling butter from a large tureen,
+     See blustering Freeman butter blundering Green."
+
+
+To which Jowett replied, in his quavering treble, "That's a false
+antithesis, Rogers. It's quite possible to bluster and blunder, too!"
+
+The mention of Oxford historians reminds me of my friend Professor
+Dingo, to whom reference has been made in an earlier chapter. He had a
+strong admiration for the virile and masterful character of Henry VIII.,
+and was wont to conceal the blots on his hero's career by this pathetic
+paraphrase--"The later years of this excellent monarch's reign were
+clouded by _much domestic unhappiness_."
+
+Jowett has been mentioned more than once, and there is no need for me to
+describe him. Lord Beaconsfield, in _Endymion_, gave a snapshot of "a
+certain Dr. Comeley, an Oxford Don of the new school, who were
+initiating Lord Montfort in all the mysteries of Neology. This
+celebrated divine, who, in a sweet silky voice, quoted Socrates instead
+of St. Paul, was opposed to all symbols and formulas as essentially
+unphilosophical." Mr. Mallock, in the _New Republic_, supplied us with
+a more finished portrait of "Dr. Jenkinson," and parodied his style of
+preaching with a perfection which irritated the Master of Balliol out of
+his habitual calm. My own intercourse with Jowett was not intimate, but
+I once dined with him on an occasion which made an equally deep
+impression on two of the guests--Lord Milner and myself. When the ladies
+had left the dining-room, an eminent diplomatist began an extremely
+full-flavoured conversation, which would have been unpleasant anywhere,
+and, in the presence of the diplomatist's son, a lad of sixteen, was
+disgusting. For a few minutes the Master endured it, though with visible
+annoyance; and then, suddenly addressing the offender at the other end
+of the table, said, in a birdlike chirp, "Sir ----." "Yes, Master."
+"Shall we continue this conversation in the drawing-room?" No rebuke was
+ever more neatly administered.
+
+Jowett's name reminds me, rather obliquely, of the Rev. H. O. Coxe, who
+in my time was Bodleian Librarian. He was clergyman, sportsman, scholar,
+all in one, with an infectious enthusiasm for the treasures in his
+charge, and the most unfailing kindness and patience in exhibiting them.
+"Those who have enjoyed the real privilege of hearing Mr. Coxe discuss
+points of historical detail, or have been introduced by him to some of
+the rarer treasures of the Bodleian, will bear witness to the living
+interest which such subjects acquired in his hands. How he would kindle
+while he recited Lord Clarendon's written resignation of the
+Chancellorship of the University! With what dramatic zest he read out
+the scraps of paper (carefully preserved by Clarendon) which used to
+pass between himself and his Royal Master across the Council-table!"
+
+I quote this life-like description from Burgon's _Twelve Good Men_, and
+Burgon it is who supplies the link with Jowett. "It was shortly after
+the publication of _Essays and Reviews_ that Jowett, meeting Coxe,
+enquired:--"Have you read my essay?" "No, my dear Jowett. We are good
+friends now; but I know that, if I were to read that essay, I should
+have to cut you. So I haven't read it, and I don't mean to.""--A
+commendable way of escape from theological controversy.
+
+It is scarcely fair to reckon Cardinal Manning among Oxford celebrities;
+but during my undergraduateship he made two incursions into the
+University, which were attended by some quaint consequences. In 1873 he
+was a guest at the banquet held in honour of the fiftieth anniversary of
+the foundation of the Union; and it was noted with amusement that,
+though he was not then a Cardinal, but merely a schismatic Archbishop,
+he contrived to take precedence of the Bishop of Oxford in his own
+cathedral city. Bishop Wilberforce had died three months before, and I
+remember that all the old stagers said:--"If Sam had still been Bishop
+of Oxford, this would not have happened." The Roman Catholics of Oxford
+were of course delighted; and when, soon afterwards, Manning returned as
+Cardinal to open the Roman Catholic Church in St. Giles's, great efforts
+were made to bring all undergraduates who showed any Rome-ward
+proclivities within the sphere of his influence. To one rather bumptious
+youth he said:--"And what are you going to do with your life?" "I'm
+thinking of taking Orders." "Take care you get them, my friend."
+Another, quite unmoved by the pectoral cross and crimson soutane, asked
+artlessly, "What was your college?" The Cardinal replied, with some
+dignity, "I was at Balliol, and subsequently at Merton." "Oh! that was
+like me. I was at Exeter, and I was sent down to a Hall for not getting
+through Smalls." "_I was a Fellow of Merton._" No powers of type can do
+justice to the intonation.
+
+At the time of which I speak Oxford was particularly rich in delightful
+and accomplished ladies. I have already paid my tribute to Mrs. Cradock,
+Mrs. Liddell, Mrs. Acland, Mrs. Talbot, and Miss Eleanor Smith. Miss
+Felicia Skene was at once a devoted servant of the poor and the outcast,
+and also one of the most powerful writers of her time, although she
+contrived almost entirely to escape observation. Let anyone who thinks
+that I rate her powers too highly read "The Divine Master," "La
+Roquette--1871," and "Hidden Depths."
+
+No account of the famous women at Oxford would be complete without a
+reference to Miss Marion Hughes--the first Sister of Mercy in the Church
+of England--professed on Trinity Sunday, 1841, and still the
+Foundress-Mother of the Convent of the Holy and Undivided Trinity at
+Oxford.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I said at the beginning of this chapter that my Oxford life was divided
+sharply into two halves. Neither the climate nor the way of living ever
+suited my health. In my first term I fell into the doctor's hands, and
+never escaped from them so long as I was an undergraduate. I well
+remember the decisive counsel of the first doctor whom I consulted (not
+Dr. Acland). "What wine do you drink?" "None--only beer." "Oh! that's
+all nonsense. You never will be able to live in this climate unless you
+drink port, and plenty of it."
+
+To this generous prescription I dutifully submitted, but even port was
+powerless to keep me well at Oxford. I always felt "seedy"; and the
+nervous worry inseparable from a time of spiritual storm and stress (for
+four of my most intimate friends seceded to Rome) told upon me more than
+I knew. An accidental chill brought things to a climax, and during the
+Christmas vacation of 1874 I was laid low by a sharp attack of
+_myelitis_, mistaken at the time for rheumatic fever. I heard the last
+stroke of midnight, December 31, in a paroxysm of pain which, for years
+after, I never could recall without feeling sick. I lost two terms
+through illness, and the doctors were against my returning to the damps
+of Oxford. However, I managed to hobble back on two sticks, maimed for
+life, and with all dreams of academical distinction at an end. But what
+was more important was that my whole scheme of life was dissipated.
+Henceforward it was with me, as with Robert Elsmere after his malaria
+at Cannes--"It was clear to himself and everybody else that he must do
+what he could, and not what he would, in the Christian vineyard." The
+words have always made me smile; but the reality was no smiling matter.
+The remainder of my life at Oxford was of necessity lived at half-speed;
+and in this place I must commemorate, with a gratitude which the lapse
+of years has never chilled, the extraordinary kindness and tenderness
+with which my undergraduate friends tended and nursed me in that time of
+crippledom.[18] Prince Leopold, then an undergraduate of Christ Church,
+and living at Wykeham House in The Parks, used to lend me his
+pony-carriage, which, as it strictly belonged to the Queen, and bore her
+crown and cypher, did not pay toll; and, with an undergraduate friend at
+my side, I used to snatch a fearful joy from driving at full tilt
+through turnpike gates, and mystifying the toll-keeper by saying that
+the Queen's carriages paid no toll. For the short remainder of my time
+at Oxford I was cut off from riding and all active exercise, and was not
+able even to go out in bad weather. It was with me as with Captain
+Harville in _Persuasion_--"His lameness prevented him from taking much
+exercise; but a mind of usefulness and ingenuity seemed to furnish him
+with constant employment within."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Here I must close my recollections of Oxford, and, as I look back upon
+those four years--1872-1876--I find my thoughts best expressed by Sir
+Arthur Quiller-Couch, who has done for Oxford in his _Alma Mater_ just
+what Matthew Arnold did in the preface to _Essays in Criticism_....
+
+
+     "Know you her secret none can utter?
+       Hers of the Book, the tripled Crown?
+     Still on the spire the pigeons flutter;
+       Still by the gateway flits the gown;
+     Still on the street, from corbel and gutter,
+       Faces of stone look down.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     Still on her spire the pigeons hover;
+       Still by her gateway haunts the gown;
+     Ah, but her secret? You, young lover,
+       Drumming her old ones forth from town,
+     Know you the secret none discover?
+       Tell it--when _you_ go down."
+
+
+_Know you the secret none discover_--none, that is, while they still are
+undergraduates?
+
+Well, I think I do; and, to begin with a negative, it is not the secret
+of Nirvana. There are misguided critics abroad in the land who seem to
+assume that life lived easily in a beautiful place, amid a society which
+includes all knowledge in its comprehensive survey, and far remote from
+the human tragedy of poverty and toil and pain, must necessarily be
+calm. And so, as regards the actual work and warfare of mankind, it may
+be. The bitter cry of starving Poplar does not very readily penetrate to
+the well-spread tables of Halls and Common-rooms. In a laburnum-clad
+villa in The Parks we can afford to reason very temperately about life
+in cities where five families camp in one room. But, when we leave
+actualities, and come to the region of thought and opinion, all the pent
+energy of Oxford seethes and stirs. The Hebrew word for "Prophet" comes,
+I believe, from a root which signifies to bubble like water on the
+flame; and it is just in this fervency of thought and feeling that
+Oxford is Prophetic. It is the tradition that in one year of the
+storm-tossed 'forties the subject for the Newdigate Prize Poem was
+Cromwell, whereas the subject for the corresponding poem at Cambridge
+was Plato. In that selection Oxford was true to herself. For a century
+at least (even if we leave out of sight her earlier convulsions) she
+has been the battle-field of contending sects. Her air has resounded
+with party-cries, and the dead bodies of the controversially slain lie
+thick in her streets. All the opposing forces of Church and State, of
+theology and politics, of philosophy and science, of literary and social
+and economic theory, have contended for mastery in the place which
+Matthew Arnold, with fine irony, described as "so unruffled by the
+fierce intellectual life of our century, so serene!" Every succeeding
+generation of Oxford men has borne its part in these ever recurring
+strifes. To hold aloof from them would have been poltroonery.
+Passionately convinced (at twenty) that we had sworn ourselves for life
+to each cause which we espoused, we have pleaded and planned and
+denounced and persuaded; have struck the shrewdest blows which our
+strength could compass, and devised the most dangerous pitfalls for our
+opponents' feet which wit could suggest. Nothing came of it all, and
+nothing could come, except the ruin of our appointed studies and the
+resulting dislocation of all subsequent life. But we were obeying the
+irresistible impulse of the time and the place in which our lot was
+cast, and we were ready to risk our all upon the venture.
+
+But now all that passion, genuine enough while it lasted, lies far back
+in the past, and we learn the secret which we never discovered while as
+yet Oxford held us in the thick of the fight. We thought then that we
+were the most desperate partisans; we asked no quarter, and gave none;
+pushed our argumentative victories to their uttermost consequences, and
+made short work of a fallen foe. But, when all the old battle-cries have
+died out of our ears, gentler voices begin to make themselves heard. All
+at once we realize that a great part of our old contentions was only
+sound and fury and self-deception, and that, though the causes for which
+we strove may have been absolutely right, our opponents were not
+necessarily villains. In a word, we have learnt the Secret of Oxford.
+All the time that we were fighting and fuming, the higher and subtler
+influences of the place were moulding us, unconscious though we were, to
+a more gracious ideal. We had really learnt to distinguish between
+intellectual error and moral obliquity. We could differ from another on
+every point of the political and theological compass, and yet in our
+hearts acknowledge him to be the best of all good fellows. Without
+surrendering a single conviction, we came to see the virtue of so
+stating our beliefs as to persuade and propitiate, instead of offending
+and alienating. We had attained to that temper which, in the sphere of
+thought and opinion, is analogous to the crowning virtue of Christian
+charity.
+
+
+     "Tell it--when _you_ go down."
+
+
+Not long ago I was addressing a company of Oxford undergraduates, all
+keenly alive to the interests and controversies of the present hour, all
+devotedly loyal to the tradition of Oxford as each understood it, and
+all with their eyes eagerly fixed on "the wistful limit of the world."
+With such an audience it was inevitable to insist on the graces and
+benedictions which Oxford can confer, and to dwell on Mr. Gladstone's
+dogma that to call a man a "typically Oxford man" is to bestow the
+highest possible praise.
+
+But this was not all. Something more remained to be said. It was for a
+speaker whose undergraduateship lay thirty years behind to state as
+plainly as he could his own deepest obligation to the place which had
+decided the course and complexion of his life. Wherever philosophical
+insight is combined with literary genius and personal charm, one says
+instinctively, "That man is, or ought to be, an Oxford man." Chiefest
+among the great names which Oxford ought to claim but cannot is the name
+of Edmund Burke; and the "Secret" on which we have been discoursing
+seems to be conveyed with luminous precision in his description of the
+ideal character:--"It is our business ... to bring the dispositions that
+are lovely in private life into the service and conduct of the
+commonwealth; so to be patriots as not to forget we are gentlemen; to
+cultivate friendships and to incur enmities; to have both strong, but
+both selected--in the one to be placable, in the other immovable."
+
+Whoso has attained to that ideal has learnt the "Secret" of Oxford.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[17] The Rev. J. M. Lester.
+
+[18] Here I must depart from my rule, and mention a name--FitzRoy
+Stewart.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+HOME
+
+
+     "Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam;
+     True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home."
+                            WORDSWORTH, "_To a Sky-lark_."
+
+
+I said good-bye to Oxford on the 17th of June, 1876. What was the next
+step to be? As so often in my life, the decision came through a doctor's
+lips. He spoke in a figure, and this is what he said. "When a man has
+had a severe illness, he has taken a large sum out of his capital.
+Unless he has the wisdom to replace it, he must be permanently poorer;
+and, when the original stock was not large, the necessity of economizing
+becomes more urgent. You are in that case. My advice, therefore, is--Do
+nothing for the next two or three years. Concentrate all your efforts on
+getting better. Live as healthy a life as you can, and give mind and
+body a complete rest. If you will obey this counsel, you will find that
+you have replaced the capital, or, at any rate, some of it; and you may,
+in spite of all disabilities, be able to take your part in the life and
+work of the world." The prescription of total abstinence from effort
+exactly suited my disposition of the moment. Oxford, one way and
+another, had taken more out of me than till then I had realized, and I
+was only too thankful to have an opportunity of making good the loss.
+
+It being, for the time, my prime object to recover some portion of
+health and strength, I was beyond measure fortunate in the possession of
+an absolutely ideal home. "'Home! Sweet Home!' Yes. That is the song
+that goes straight to the heart of every English man and woman. For
+forty years we never asked Madame Adelina Patti to sing anything else.
+The unhappy, decadent, Latin races have not even a word in their
+language by which to express it, poor things! Home is the secret of our
+honest, British, Protestant virtues. It is the only nursery of our
+Anglo-Saxon citizenship. Back to it our far-flung children turn, with
+all their memories aflame. They may lapse into rough ways, but they keep
+something sound at the core so long as they are faithful to the old
+home. There is still a tenderness in the voice, and tears are in their
+eyes, as they speak together of the days that can never die out of
+their lives, when they were at home in the old familiar places, with
+father and mother, in the healthy gladness of their childhood."[19] To
+me home was all this and even more; for not only had it been my earthly
+Paradise when I was a child, but now, in opening manhood, it was a
+sanctuary and a resting-place, in which I could prepare myself to face
+whatever lot the future might have in store for me.
+
+That London as well as country may be, under certain conditions, Home, I
+am well aware. For many natures London has an attractiveness which is
+all its own. And yet to indulge one's taste for it may be a grave
+dereliction of duty. The State is built upon the Home, and as a
+training-place for social virtue, there can surely be no comparison
+between a home in the country and a home in London. All those educating
+influences which count for so much in the true home are infinitely
+weaker in the town than in the country. In a London home there is
+nothing to fascinate the eye. The contemplation of the mews and the
+chimney-pots through the back-windows of the nursery will not elevate
+even the most impressible child. There is no mystery, no dreamland, no
+Enchanted Palace, no Bluebeard's Chamber, in a stucco mansion built by
+Cubitt, or a palace of terra-cotta on the Cadogan estate. There can be
+no traditions of the past, no inspiring memories of virtuous ancestry,
+in a house which your father bought five years ago and of which the
+previous owners are not known to you even by name. "The Square" or "The
+Gardens" are sorry substitutes for the Park and the Pleasure-grounds,
+the Common and the Downs. Crossing-sweepers are a deserving folk, but
+you cannot cultivate those intimate relations with them which bind you
+to the lodge-keeper at home, or to the old women in the almshouses, or
+to the septuagenarian waggoner who has driven your father's team ever
+since he was ten years old. Holy Trinity, Sloane Street, or All Saints,
+Margaret Street, may be beautifully ornate, and the congregation what
+Lord Beaconsfield called "sparkling and modish"; but they can never have
+the romantic charm of the Village Church where you were confirmed side
+by side with the keeper's son, or proposed to the Vicar's daughter when
+you were wreathing holly round the lectern. There is a magic in the
+memory of a country home with which no urban associations can compete.
+
+Nowadays the world is perpetually on the move, but in the old days
+people who possessed a country house passed nine months out of the
+twelve under its sacred roof--sacred because it was inseparably
+connected with memories of ancestry and parentage and early association;
+with marriage and children, and pure enjoyment and active benevolence
+and neighbourly goodwill. In a word, the country house was Home, and for
+those who dwelt in it the interests of life were very much bound up in
+the Park and the covers, the croquet-ground and the cricket-ground, the
+kennel, the stable, and the garden. I remember, when I was an
+undergraduate, lionizing some Yorkshire damsels on their first visit to
+Oxford, then in the "high midsummer pomps" of its beauty. But all they
+said was, in the pensive tone of unwilling exiles, "How beautifully the
+sun must be shining on the South Walk at home!"
+
+The Village Church was a great centre of domestic affection. All the
+family had been christened in it. The eldest sister had been married in
+it. Generations of ancestry mouldered under the chancel-floor. Christmas
+decorations were an occasion of much innocent merriment, and a little
+ditty high in favour in Tractarian homes warned the decorators to be--
+
+
+     "Unselfish--looking not to see
+     Proofs of their own dexterity;
+     But quite contented that 'I' should
+     Forgotten be in brotherhood."
+
+
+Of course, whether Tractarian or Evangelical, religious people regarded
+church-going as a spiritual privilege; and everyone, religious or not,
+recognized it as a civil duty. "When a gentleman is _sur ses terres_,"
+said Major Pendennis, "he must give an example to the country people;
+and, if I could turn a tune, I even think I should sing. The Duke of St.
+David's, whom I have the honour of knowing, always sings in the country,
+and let me tell you it has a doosed fine effect from the Family Pew."
+Before the passion for "restoration" had set in, and ere yet Sir Gilbert
+Scott had transmogrified the Parish Churches of England, the Family Pew
+was indeed the ark and sanctuary of the territorial system--and a very
+comfortable ark too. It had a private entrance, a round table, a good
+assortment of armchairs, a fire-place, and a wood-basket. And I well
+remember a wash-leather glove of unusual size which was kept in the
+wood-basket for the greater convenience of making up the fire during
+divine service. "You may restore the church as much as you like," said
+the lay-rector of our parish, to an innovating Incumbent, "but I must
+insist on my Family Pew not being touched. If I had to sit in an open
+seat, I should never get a wink of sleep again."
+
+A country home left its mark for all time on those who were brought up
+in it. The sons played cricket and went bat-fowling with the village
+boys, and not seldom joined with them in a poaching expedition to the
+paternal preserves. However popular or successful or happy a
+Public-school boy might be at Eton or Harrow, he counted the days till
+he could return to his pony and his gun, his ferrets and rat-trap and
+fishing-rod. In after years, amid all the toil and worry of active life,
+he looked back lovingly to the corner of the cover where he shot his
+first pheasant, or the precise spot in the middle of the Vale where he
+first saw a fox killed, and underwent the disgusting Baptism of Blood.
+
+Girls, living more continuously at home, entered even more intimately
+into the daily life of the place. Their morning rides led them across
+the Village Green; their afternoon drives were often steered by the
+claims of this or that cottage to a visit. They were taught as soon as
+they could toddle never to enter a door without knocking, never to sit
+down without being asked, and never to call at meal-time. They knew
+everyone in the village--old and young; played with the babies, taught
+the boys in Sunday School, carried savoury messes to the old and
+impotent, read by the sick-beds, and brought flowers for the coffin.
+Mamma knitted comforters and dispensed warm clothing, organized relief
+in hard winters and times of epidemic, and found places for the
+hobbledehoys of both sexes. The pony-boy and the scullery-maid were
+pretty sure to be products of the village. Very likely the
+young-ladies'-maid was a village girl whom the doctor had pronounced too
+delicate for factory or farm. I have seen an excited young groom staring
+his eyes out of his head at the Eton and Harrow match, and exclaiming
+with rapture at a good catch, "It was my young governor as 'scouted'
+that. 'E's nimble, ain't he?" And I well remember an ancient
+stable-helper at a country house in Buckinghamshire who was called "Old
+Bucks," because he had never slept out of his native county, and very
+rarely out of his native village, and had spent his whole life in the
+service of one family.
+
+Of course, when so much of the impressionable part of life was lived
+amid the "sweet, sincere surroundings of country life," there grew up,
+between the family at the Hall and the families in the village, a
+feeling which, in spite of our national unsentimentality, had a
+chivalrous and almost feudal tone. The interest of the poor in the life
+and doings of "The Family" was keen and genuine. The English peasant is
+too much a gentleman to be a flatterer, and compliments were often
+bestowed in very unexpected forms. "They do tell me as 'is
+understanding's no worse than it always were," was a ploughman's way of
+saying that an uncle of mine was in full possession of his faculties.
+"We call 'im 'Lord Charles' because he's so old and so cunning," was
+another's description of a pony which had belonged to my father. "Ah, I
+know you're but a poor creature at the best!" was the recognized way of
+complimenting a lady on what she considered her bewitching and romantic
+delicacy.
+
+But these eccentricities were merely verbal, and under them lay a deep
+vein of genuine and lasting regard. "I've lived under four dukes and
+four 'ousekeepers, and I'm not going to be put upon in my old age!" was
+the exclamation of an ancient poultry-woman, whose dignity had been
+offended by some irregularity touching her Christmas dinner. When the
+daughter of the house married and went into a far country, she was sure
+to find some emigrant from her old home who welcomed her with effusion,
+and was full of enquiries about his Lordship and her Ladyship, and Miss
+Pinkerton the governess, and whether Mr. Wheeler was still coachman, and
+who lived now at the Entrance Lodge. Whether the sons got commissions,
+or took ranches, or became curates in slums, or contested remote
+constituencies, some grinning face was sure to emerge from the crowd
+with "You know me, sir? Bill Juffs, as used to go birds-nesting with
+you"; or, "You remember my old dad, my lord? He used to shoe your black
+pony." When the eldest son came of age, his condescension in taking this
+step was hailed with genuine enthusiasm. When he came into his kingdom,
+there might be some grumbling if he went in for small economies, or
+altered old practices, or was a "hard man" on the Bench or at the Board
+of Guardians; but, if he went on in the good-natured old ways, the
+traditional loyalty was unabated. Lord Shaftesbury wrote thus about the
+birth of his eldest son's eldest son:--"My little village is all agog
+with the birth of a son and heir in the very midst of them, the first,
+it is believed, since 1600, when the first Lord Shaftesbury was born.
+The christening yesterday was an ovation. Every cottage had flags and
+flowers. We had three triumphal arches; and all the people were
+exulting. 'He is one of us.' 'He is a fellow-villager.' 'We have now got
+a lord of our own.' This is really gratifying. I did not think that
+there remained so much of the old respect and affection between peasant
+and proprietor, landlord and tenant."
+
+In the present day, if a season of financial pressure sets in, people
+shut up their country houses, let their shooting, cut themselves off
+with a sigh of relief from all the unexciting duties and simple
+pleasures of the Home, and take refuge from boredom in the delights of
+London. In London life has no duties. Little is expected of one, and
+nothing required.
+
+But in old days, when people wished to economize, it was London that
+they deserted. They sold the "Family Mansion" in Portland Place or Eaton
+Square; and, if they revisited the glimpses of the social moon, they
+took a furnished house for six weeks in the summer; the rest of the year
+they spent in the country. This plan was a manifold saving. There was no
+rent to pay, and only very small rates, for everyone knows that country
+houses are shamefully under-assessed. Carriages did not require
+re-painting every season, and no new clothes were wanted. As the ladies
+in _Cranford_ said--"What can it matter what we wear here, where
+everyone knows who we are?" The products of the Park, the Home Farm, the
+hothouses, and the kitchen-garden kept the family supplied with food. A
+brother-magnate staying at Beaudesert with the famous Lord Anglesey
+waxed enthusiastic over the mutton, and, venturing on the privilege of
+an old friendship, asked how much it cost him. "Cost me?" screamed the
+hero. "Good Gad, it costs me nothing! I don't buy it. It's my own," and
+he was beyond measure astonished when his statistical guest proved that
+"his own" cost him about a guinea per pound. In another great house,
+conducted on strictly economical lines, it was said that the very
+numerous family were reared exclusively on rabbits and garden-stuff, and
+that their enfeebled constitutions and dismal appearance in later life
+were due to this ascetic regimen.
+
+People were always hospitable in the country; but rural entertaining was
+not a very costly business. The "three square meals and a snack," which
+represent the minimum requirements of the present day, are a huge
+development of the system which prevailed in my youth. Breakfast had
+already grown from the tea and coffee, and rolls and eggs, which
+Macaulay tells us were deemed sufficient at Holland House, to an affair
+of covered dishes. Luncheon-parties were sometimes given--terrible
+ceremonies which lasted from two to four; but the ordinary luncheon of
+the family was a snack from the servants' joint or the children's rice
+pudding; and five o'clock tea had only lately been invented. To
+remember, as I just can, the Foundress[20] of that divine refreshment
+seems like having known Stephenson or Jenner.
+
+Dinner was substantial enough in all conscience, and the wine nearly as
+heavy as the food. Imagine quenching one's thirst with sherry in the
+dog-days! Yet so we did, till about half-way through dinner, and then,
+on great occasions, a dark-coloured rill of champagne began to trickle
+into the V-shaped glasses. At the epoch of cheese, port made its
+appearance in company with home-brewed beer; and, as soon as the ladies
+and the schoolboys departed, the men applied themselves, with much
+seriousness of purpose, to the consumption of claret which was really
+vinous.
+
+Grace was said before and after dinner. There was a famous squire in
+Hertfordshire whose love of his dinner was constantly at war with his
+pietistic traditions. He always had his glass of sherry poured out
+before he sat down to dinner, so that he might get at it without a
+moment's delay. One night, in his generous eagerness, he upset the glass
+just as he dropped into his seat at the end of grace, and the formula
+ran on to an unexpected conclusion, thus: "For what we are going to
+receive, the Lord make us truly thankful--D--n!" But if the
+incongruities which attended grace before dinner were disturbing, still
+more so were the solemnities of the close. Grace after dinner always
+happened at the moment of loudest and most general conversation. For an
+hour and a half people had been stuffing as if their lives depended on
+it--"one feeding like forty." Out of the abundance of the mouth the
+heart speaketh, and everyone was talking at once, and very loud. Perhaps
+the venue was laid in a fox-hunting country, and then the air was full
+of such voices as these: "Were you out with the Squire to-day?" "Any
+sport?" "Yes, we'd rather a nice gallop." "Plenty of the animal about, I
+hope?" "Well, I don't know. I believe that new keeper at Boreham Wood is
+a vulpicide. I don't half like his looks." "What an infernal villain! A
+man who would shoot a fox would poison his own grandmother." "Sh! Sh!"
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"_For what we have received_," &c.
+
+"Do you know you've been talking at the top of your voice all the time
+grace was going on?"
+
+"Not really? I'm awfully sorry. But our host mumbles so, I never can
+make out what he's saying."
+
+"I can't imagine why people don't have grace after dessert. I know I'm
+much more thankful for strawberry ice than for saddle of mutton."
+
+And so on and so forth. On the whole, I am not sure that the abolition
+of grace is a sign of moral degeneracy, but I note it as a social change
+which I have seen.
+
+In this kind of hospitality there was no great expense. People made very
+little difference between their way of living when they were alone, and
+their way of living when they had company. A visitor who wished to make
+himself agreeable sometimes brought down a basket of fish or a barrel of
+oysters from London; and, if one had no deer of one's own, the arrival
+of a haunch from a neighbour's or kinsman's park was the signal for a
+gathering of local gastronomers. And in matters other than meals life
+went on very much the same whether you had friends staying with you or
+whether you were alone. The guests drove and rode, and walked and shot,
+according to their tastes and the season of the year. They were carried
+off, more or less willingly, to see the sights of the
+neighbourhood--ruined castles, restored cathedrals, famous views. In
+summer there might be a picnic or a croquet-party; in winter a lawn-meet
+or a ball. But all these entertainments were of the most homely and
+inexpensive character. There was very little outlay, no fuss, and no
+display.
+
+But now an entirely different spirit prevails. People seem to have lost
+the power of living quietly and happily in their country homes. They all
+have imbibed the urban philosophy of George Warrington, who, when Pen
+gushed about the country with its "long, calm days, and long calm
+evenings," brutally replied, "Devilish long, and a great deal too calm.
+I've tried 'em." People of that type desert the country simply because
+they are bored by it. They feel with the gentleman who stood for Matthew
+Arnold in _The New Republic_, and who, after talking about "liberal
+air," "sedged brooks," and "meadow grass," admitted that it would be a
+dreadful bore to have no other society than the Clergyman of the parish,
+and no other topics of conversation than Justification by Faith and the
+measles. They do not care for the country in itself; they have no eye
+for its beauty, no sense of its atmosphere, no memory for its
+traditions. It is only made endurable to them by sport and gambling and
+boisterous house-parties; and when, from one cause or another, these
+resources fail, they are frankly bored, and long for London. They are no
+longer content, as our fathers were, to entertain their friends with
+hospitable simplicity. So profoundly has all society been vulgarized by
+the worship of the Golden Calf that, unless people can vie with alien
+millionaires in the sumptuousness with which they "do you"--delightful
+phrase,--they prefer not to entertain at all. An emulous ostentation has
+killed hospitality. All this is treason to a high ideal.
+
+Whatever tends to make the Home beautiful, attractive, romantic--to
+associate it with the ideas of pure pleasure and high duty--to connect
+it not only with all that was happiest, but also with all that was best,
+in early years--whatever fulfils these purposes purifies the fountain of
+national life. A home, to be perfectly a home, should "incorporate
+tradition, and prolong the reign of the dead." It should animate those
+who dwell in it to virtue and beneficence, by reminding them of what
+others did, who went before them in the same place, and lived amid the
+same surroundings. Thank God, such a home was mine.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[19] Henry Scott Holland.
+
+[20] Anna Maria, Duchess of Bedford, died in 1857.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+LONDON
+
+
+     "O'er royal London, in luxuriant May,
+     While lamps yet twinkled, dawning crept the day.
+     Home from the hell the pale-eyed gamester steals;
+     Home from the ball flash jaded Beauty's wheels;
+     From fields suburban rolls the early cart;
+     As rests the Revel, so awakes the Mart."
+                                        _The New Timon_.
+
+
+When I was penning, in the last chapter, my perfectly sincere praises of
+the country, an incongruous reminiscence suddenly froze the genial
+current of my soul. Something, I know not what, reminded me of the
+occasion when Mrs. Bardell and her friends made their memorable
+expedition to the "Spaniards Tea-Gardens" at Hampstead. "How sweet the
+country is, to be sure!" sighed Mrs. Rogers; "I almost wish I lived in
+it always." To this Mr. Raddle, full of sympathy, rejoined: "For lone
+people as have got nobody to care for them, or as have been hurt in
+their mind, or that sort of thing, the country is all very well. The
+country for a wounded spirit, they say." But the general verdict of the
+company was that Mrs. Rogers was "a great deal too lively and
+sought-after, to be content with the country"; and, on second thoughts,
+the lady herself acquiesced. I feel that my natural temperament had
+something in common with that of Mrs. Rogers. "My spirit" (and my body
+too) had been "wounded" by Oxford, and the country acted as both a
+poultice and a tonic. But my social instinct was always strong, and
+could not be permanently content with "a lodge in the vast wilderness"
+of Woburn Park, or dwell for ever in the "boundless contiguity of shade"
+which obliterates the line between Beds and Bucks.
+
+I was very careful to observe the doctor's prescription of total
+idleness, but I found it was quite as easily obeyed in London as in the
+country. For three or four months then, of every year, I forsook the
+Home which just now I praised so lavishly, and applied myself,
+circumspectly indeed but with keen enjoyment, to the pleasures of the
+town.
+
+"_One look back_"--What was London like in those distant days, which
+lie, say, between 1876 and 1886?
+
+Structurally and visibly, it was a much uglier place than now. The
+immeasurable wastes of Belgravian stucco; the "Baker Streets and Harley
+Streets and Wimpole Streets, resembling each other like a large family
+of plain children, with Portland Place and Portman Square for their
+respectable parents,"[21] were still unbroken by the red brick and
+terra-cotta, white stone and green tiles, of our more æsthetic age. The
+flower-beds in the Parks were less brilliant, for that "Grand old
+gardener," Mr. Harcourt, to whom we are so much indebted, was still at
+Eton. Piccadilly had not been widened. The Arches at Hyde Park Corner
+had not been re-arranged. Glorious Whitehall was half occupied by shabby
+shops; and labyrinths of slums covered the sites of Kingsway and
+Shaftesbury Avenue.
+
+But, though London is now a much prettier place than it was then, I
+doubt if it is as socially magnificent. The divinity which hedged Queen
+Victoria invested her occasional visits to her Capital with a glamour
+which it is difficult to explain to those who never felt it. Of beauty,
+stature, splendour, and other fancied attributes of Queenship, there was
+none; but there was a dignity which can neither be described nor
+imitated; and, when her subjects knelt to kiss her hand at Drawing
+Room, or Levee, or Investiture, they felt a kind of sacred awe which no
+other presence could inspire.
+
+It was, of course, one of the elements of Queen Victoria's mysterious
+power, that she was so seldom seen in London. In the early days of her
+widowhood she had resigned the command of Society into other hands; and
+social London, at the time of which I write, was dominated by the Prince
+of Wales. Just at this moment,[22] when those who knew him well are
+genuinely mourning the loss of King Edward VII., it would scarcely
+become me to describe his influence on Society when first I moved in it.
+So I borrow the words of an anonymous writer, who, at the time at which
+his book was published, was generally admitted to know the subjects of
+which he discoursed.
+
+"The Social Ruler of the English realm is the Prince of Wales. I call
+him the Social Ruler, because, in all matters pertaining to society and
+to ceremonial, he plays vicariously the part of the Sovereign. The
+English monarchy may be described at the present moment as being in a
+state of commission. Most of its official duties are performed by the
+Queen. It is the Prince of Wales who transacts its ceremonial business,
+and exhibits to the masses the embodiment of the monarchical principle.
+If there were no Marlborough House, there would be no Court in London.
+The house of the Prince of Wales may be an unsatisfactory substitute for
+a Court, but it is the only substitute which exists, and it is the best
+which, under the circumstances, is attainable.
+
+"In his attitude to English Society, the Prince of Wales is a benevolent
+despot. He wishes it to enjoy itself, to disport itself, to dance, sing,
+and play to its heart's content. But he desires that it should do so in
+the right manner, at the right times, and in the right places; and of
+these conditions he holds that he is the best, and, indeed, an
+infallible, judge.
+
+"The Prince of Wales is the Bismarck of London society: he is also its
+microcosm. All its idiosyncrasies are reflected in the person of His
+Royal Highness. Its hopes, its fears, its aspirations, its solicitudes,
+its susceptibilities, its philosophy, its way of looking at life and of
+appraising character--of each of these is the Heir-Apparent the mirror.
+If a definition of Society were sought for, I should be inclined to give
+it as the social area of which the Prince of Wales is personally
+cognizant, within the limits of which he visits, and every member of
+which is to some extent in touch with the ideas and wishes of His Royal
+Highness. But for this central authority, Society in London would be in
+imminent danger of falling into the same chaos and collapse as the
+universe itself, were one of the great laws of nature to be suspended
+for five minutes."
+
+Of the loved and gracious lady who is now Queen Mother, I may trust
+myself to speak. I first saw her at Harrow Speeches, when I was a boy of
+18, and from that day to this I have admired her more than any woman
+whom I have ever seen. To the flawless beauty of the face there was
+added that wonderful charm of innocence and unfading youth which no
+sumptuosities of dress and decoration could conceal. To see the Princess
+in Society was in those days one of my chief delights, and the sight
+always suggested to my mind the idea of a Puritan Maiden set in the
+midst of Vanity Fair.
+
+We have seen that the centre of Society at the period which I am
+describing was Marlborough House, and that centre was encircled by rings
+of various compass, the widest extending to South Kensington in the one
+direction, and Portman Square in the other. The innermost ring was
+composed of personal friends, and, as personal friendship belongs to
+private life, we must not here discuss it. The second ring was composed
+of the great houses--"The Palaces," as Pennialinus[23] calls them,--the
+houses, I mean, which are not distinguished by numbers, but are called
+"House," with a capital H. And first among these I must place Grosvenor
+House. As I look back over all the entertainments which I have ever seen
+in London, I can recall nothing to compare with a Ball at Grosvenor
+House, in the days of Hugh, Duke of Westminster, and his glorious wife.
+No lesser epithet than "glorious" expresses the combination of beauty,
+splendour, and hospitable enjoyment, which made Constance, Duchess of
+Westminster, so unique a hostess. Let me try to recall the scene.
+
+Dancing has begun in a tentative sort of way, when there is a sudden
+pause, and "God Save the Queen" is heard in the front hall. The Prince
+and Princess of Wales have arrived, and their entrance is a pageant
+worth seeing. With courtly grace and pretty pomp, the host and hostess
+usher their royal guests into the great gallery, walled with the
+canvasses of Rubens, which serves as a dancing-room. Then the fun
+begins, and the bright hours fly swiftly till one o'clock suggests the
+tender thought of supper, which is served on gold plate and Sèvres china
+in a garden-tent of Gobelins tapestry. "'What a perfect family!'
+exclaimed Hugo Bohun, as he extracted a couple of fat little birds from
+their bed of aspic jelly. 'Everything they do in such perfect taste. How
+safe you were to have ortolans for supper!'"[24]
+
+Next in my recollection to Grosvenor House, but after a considerable
+interval, comes Stafford House. This is a more pretentious building than
+the other; built by the Duke of York and bought by the Duke of
+Sutherland, with a hall and staircase designed by Barry, perfect in
+proportion, and so harmonious in colouring that its purple and yellow
+_scagliola_ might deceive the very elect into the belief that it is
+marble. There, as at Grosvenor House, were wealth and splendour and the
+highest rank; a hospitable host and a handsome hostess; but the peculiar
+feeling of welcome, which distinguished Grosvenor House, was lacking,
+and the aspect of the whole place, on an evening of entertainment, was
+rather that of a mob than of a party.
+
+Northumberland House at Charing Cross, the abode of the historic
+Percys, had disappeared before I came to London, yielding place to
+Northumberland Avenue; but there were plenty of "Houses" left. Near
+where the Percys had flourished, the Duke of Buccleuch, a magnifico of
+the patriarchal type, kept court at Montagu House, and Londoners have
+not yet forgotten that, when the Thames Embankment was proposed, he
+suggested that the new thoroughfare should be deflected, so that it
+might not interfere with the ducal garden running down to the river. In
+the famous Picture-Gallery of Bridgewater House, Lord Beaconsfield
+harangued his disconsolate supporters after the disastrous election of
+1880, and predicted that Conservative revival which he did not live to
+see. Close by at Spencer House, a beautiful specimen of the decorative
+work of the Brothers Adam, the Liberal Party used to gather round the
+host, who looked like a Van Dyke. Another of their resorts was
+Devonshire House, which Horace Walpole pronounced "good and plain as the
+Duke of Devonshire who built it." There the 7th Duke, who was a
+mathematician and a scholar, but no lover of society, used to hide
+behind the door in sheer terror of his guests, while his son, Lord
+Hartington, afterwards 8th Duke, gazed with ill-concealed aversion on
+his political supporters. Lansdowne House was, as it still is, a Palace
+of Art, with all the dignity and amenity of a country house, planted in
+the very heart of London. During the last quarter of a century the
+creation of Liberal Unionism has made it the headquarters of a political
+party; but, at the time of which I write, it was only a place of select
+and beautiful entertaining.
+
+Apsley House, the abode of "The Son of Waterloo," could not, in my time,
+be reckoned a social centre, but was chiefly interesting as a museum of
+Wellington relics. Norfolk House was, as it is, the headquarters of
+Roman Catholic society, and there, in 1880, was seen the unique sight of
+Matthew Arnold doing obeisance to Cardinal Newman at an evening
+party.[25] Dorchester House, architecturally considered, is beyond doubt
+the grandest thing in London; in those days occupied by the accomplished
+Mr. Holford, who built it, and now let to the American Ambassador.
+Chesterfield House, with its arcaded staircase of marble and bronze from
+the dismantled palace of the Dukes of Chandos at Edgeware, was built by
+the fourth Lord Chesterfield, as he tells us, "among the fields;" and
+contains the library in which he wrote his famous letters to his son.
+Holland House, so long the acknowledged sanctuary of the Whig party,
+still stands amid its terraces and gardens, though its hayfields have, I
+fear, fallen into the builders' hands. Macaulay's Essay, if nothing
+else, will always preserve it from oblivion.
+
+I have written so far about these "Houses," because in virtue of their
+imposing characteristics they formed, as it were, an inner, if not the
+innermost, circle round Marlborough House. But of course Society did not
+dwell exclusively in "Houses," and any social chronicler of the period
+which I am describing will have to include in his survey the long
+stretch of Piccadilly, dividing the "W." from the "S.W." district. On
+the upper side of it, Portman Square, Grosvenor Square, Berkeley Square,
+the Grosvenor Streets and Brook Streets, Curzon Street, Charles Street,
+Hill Street; and below, St. James's Square and Carlton House Terrace,
+Grosvenor Place, Belgrave Square and Eaton Square, Lowndes Square and
+Chesham Place. Following Piccadilly westward into Kensington, we come
+to Lowther Lodge, Norman Shaw's most successful work, then beginning its
+social career on the coming of age of the present Speaker,[26] April
+1st, 1876. Below it, Prince's Gate and Queen's Gate and Prince's
+Gardens, and all the wilds of South Kensington, then half reclaimed; and
+that low-lying territory, not even half reclaimed, which, under Lord
+Cadogan's skilful management, has of late years developed into a
+"residential quarter" of high repute. Fill all these streets, and a
+dozen others like them, with rank and wealth and fashion, youth and
+beauty, pleasure-seeking and self-indulgence, and you have described the
+concentric circles of which Marlborough House was the heart. Sydney
+Smith, no mean authority on the social capacities of London, held that
+"the parallelogram between Oxford Street, Piccadilly, Regent Street, and
+Hyde Park, enclosed more intelligence and ability, to say nothing of
+wealth and beauty, than the world had ever collected in such a space
+before." This was very well for Sydney (who lived in Green Street); but
+he flourished when Belgravia had barely been discovered, when South
+Kensington was undreamed-of; and, above all, before the Heir Apparent
+had fixed his abode in Pall Mall. Had he lived till 1863, he would have
+had to enlarge his mental borders.
+
+Of the delightful women and beautiful girls who adorned Society when I
+first knew it, I will not speak. A sacred awe makes me mute. The
+"Professional Beauties" and "Frisky Matrons" who disgraced it, have, I
+hope, long since repented, and it would be unkind to revive their names.
+The "Smart Men," old and young, the "cheery boys," the "dancing
+dogs,"--the Hugo Bohuns and the Freddy Du Canes--can be imagined as
+easily as described. They were, in the main, very good fellows;
+friendly, sociable, and obliging; but their most ardent admirers would
+scarcely call them interesting; and the companionship of a club or a
+ballroom seemed rather vapid when compared with Oxford:--
+
+
+     "The madness and the melody, the singing youth that went there,
+     The shining, unforgettable, imperial days we spent there."
+
+
+But here and there, swimming rare in the vast whirlpool of Society, one
+used to encounter remarkable faces. Most remarkable was the face of Lord
+Beaconsfield,--past seventy, though nobody knows how much; with his
+black-dyed hair in painful contrast to the corpse-like pallor of his
+face; with his Blue Ribbon and diamond Star; and the piercing eyes which
+still bespoke his unconquerable vitality.
+
+Sometimes Mr. Gladstone was to be seen, with his white tie working round
+toward the back of his neck, and a rose in his button-hole, looking like
+a rather unwilling captive in the hands of Mrs. Gladstone, who moved
+through the social crush with that queenlike dignity of bearing which
+had distinguished her ever since the days when she and her sister, Lady
+Lyttelton, were "the beautiful Miss Glynnes." Robert Lowe, not yet Lord
+Sherbrooke, was a celebrity who might often be seen in Society,--a
+noteworthy figure with his ruddy face, snow-white hair, and purblind
+gaze. The first Lord Lytton--Bulwer-Lytton, the novelist--was dead
+before I came to London; but his brilliant son, "Owen Meredith," in the
+intervals of official employment abroad, was an interesting figure in
+Society; curled and oiled and decorated, with a countenance of Semitic
+type.
+
+Lord Houghton--to me the kindest and most welcoming of hereditary
+friends--had a personality and a position altogether his own. His
+appearance was typically English; his manner as free and forthcoming as
+a Frenchman's. Thirty years before he had been drawn by a master-hand as
+Mr. Vavasour in _Tancred_, but no lapse of time could stale his infinite
+variety. He was poet, essayist, politician, public orator, country
+gentleman, railway-director, host, guest, ball-giver, and ball-goer, and
+acted each part with equal zest and assiduity. When I first knew him he
+was living in a house at the top of Arlington Street, from which Hogarth
+had copied the decoration for his "Marriage à la mode." The site is now
+occupied by the Ritz Hotel, and his friendly ghost still seems to haunt
+the Piccadilly which he loved.
+
+
+     "There on warm, mid-season Sundays, Fryston's bard is wont to wend,
+     Whom the Ridings trust and honour, Freedom's staunch and genial
+         friend;
+     Known where shrewd hard-handed craftsmen cluster round the
+         northern kilns,
+     He whom men style Baron Houghton, but the gods call Dicky
+         Milnes."[27]
+
+
+When first I entered Society, I caught sight of a face which instantly
+arrested my attention. A very small man, both short and slim, with a
+rosy complexion, protruding chin, and trenchant nose, the remains of
+reddish hair, and an extremely alert and vivacious expression. The
+broad Red Ribbon of a G.C.B. marked him out as in some way a
+distinguished person; and I discovered that he was the Lord Chief
+Justice of England,--Sir Alexander Cockburn, one of the most conspicuous
+figures in the social annals of the 'thirties and 'forties, the
+"Hortensius" of _Endymion_, whose "sunny face and voice of music" had
+carried him out of the ruck of London dandies to the chief seat of the
+British judicature, and had made him the hero of the Tichborne Trial and
+the Alabama Arbitration. Yet another personage of intellectual fame who
+was to be met in Society was Robert Browning, the least poetical-looking
+of poets. Trim, spruce, alert, with a cheerful manner and a flow of
+conversation, he might have been a Cabinet Minister, a diplomatist, or a
+successful financier, almost anything except what he was. "Browning,"
+growled Tennyson, "I'll predict your end. You'll die of apoplexy, in a
+stiff choker, at a London dinner-party."
+
+The streams of society and of politics have always intermingled, and, at
+the period of which I am writing, Lord Hartington, afterwards, as 8th
+Duke of Devonshire, leader of the Liberal Unionists, might still be seen
+lounging and sprawling in doorways and corners. Mr. Arthur Balfour,
+weedy and willowy, was remarked with interest as a young man of great
+possessions, who had written an unintelligible book but might yet do
+something in Parliament; while Lord Rosebery, though looking absurdly
+youthful, was spoken of as cherishing lofty ambitions.
+
+Later on, I may perhaps say more about private entertainment and about
+those who figured in it; but now I must turn to the public sights and
+shows. Matthew Arnold once wrote to his mother: "I think you will be
+struck with the aspect of London in May; the wealth and brilliancy of it
+is more remarkable every year. The carriages, the riders, and the
+walkers in Hyde Park, on a fine evening in May or June, are alone worth
+coming to London to see." This description, though written some years
+before, was eminently true of Rotten Row and its adjacent drives when I
+first frequented them. Frederick Locker, a minor poet of Society, asked
+in some pensive stanzas on Rotten Row:
+
+
+     "But where is now the courtly troop
+       That once rode laughing by?
+     I miss the curls of Cantilupe,
+       The laugh of Lady Di."
+
+
+Lord Cantilupe, of whom I always heard that he was the handsomest man
+of his generation, died before I was born, and Lady Di Beauclerck had
+married Baron Huddleston and ceased to ride in Rotten Row before I came
+to London; so my survey of the scene was unmarred by Locker's reflective
+melancholy, and I could do full justice to its charm. "Is there," asked
+Lord Beaconsfield, "a more gay and graceful spectacle in this world than
+Hyde Park at the end of a long summer morning in the merry month of May?
+Where can we see such beautiful women, such gallant cavaliers, such fine
+horses, such brilliant equipages? The scene, too, is worthy of such
+agreeable accessories--the groves, the gleaming waters, and the
+triumphal arches. In the distance the misty heights of Surrey and the
+lovely glades of Kensington." This passage would need some re-touching
+if it were to describe the Park in 1911, but in 1880 it was still a
+photograph.
+
+With regard to Public Entertainments in the more technical sense, the
+period of which I am writing was highly favoured. We had Irving and Miss
+Terry at the height of their powers, with all the gorgeous yet accurate
+"staging" which Irving had originated. We had Lady Bancroft with that
+wonderful undertone of pathos in even her brightest comedy, and her
+accomplished husband, whose peculiar art blended so harmoniously with
+her own. We had John Hare, the "perfect gentleman" of Stage-land, and
+the Kendals with their quiet excellence in Drawing-room Drama; and the
+riotous glory of Mrs. John Wood, whose performances, with Arthur Cecil,
+at the Court Theatre, will always remain the most mirth-provoking
+memories of my life. Midway between the Theatre and the Opera, there was
+the long and lovely series of Gilbert and Sullivan, who surely must have
+afforded a larger amount of absolutely innocent delight to a larger
+number of people than any two artists who ever collaborated in the
+public service.
+
+As to the Opera itself, I must quote a curious passage from Lord
+Beaconsfield, who figures so often in these pages, because none ever
+understood London so perfectly as he.
+
+"What will strike you most at the Opera is that you will not see a
+single person you ever saw before in your life. It is strange; and it
+shows what a mass of wealth and taste and refinement there is in this
+wonderful metropolis of ours, quite irrespective of the circles in which
+we move, and which we once thought, entirely engrossed them."
+
+Those words describe, roughly, the seasons of 1867-1870; and they still
+hold good, to a considerable extent, of my earlier years in London. The
+Opera was then the resort of people who really loved music. It had
+ceased to be, what it had been in the 'thirties and 'forties, a merely
+fashionable resort; and its social resurrection had scarcely begun.
+
+Personally, I have always been fonder of real life than of its dramatic
+counterfeit; and a form of Public Entertainment which greatly attracted
+me was that provided by the Law Courts. To follow the intricacies of a
+really interesting trial; to observe the demeanour and aspect of the
+witnesses; to listen to the impassioned flummery of the leading counsel;
+to note its effect on the Twelve Men in the Box; and then to see the
+Chinese Puzzle of conflicting evidence arranged in its damning exactness
+by a skilful judge, is to me an intellectual enjoyment which can hardly
+be equalled. I have never stayed in court after the jury had retired in
+a capital case, for I hold it impious to stare at the mortal agony of a
+fellow-creature; but the trial of Johann Most for inciting to
+tyrannicide; of Gallagher and his gang of dynamiters for Treason-Felony;
+and of Dr. Lampson for poisoning his brother-in-law, can never be
+forgotten. Not so thrilling, but quite as interesting, were the "Jockey
+Trial," in 1888, the "Baccarat Case," in 1891, and the "Trial at Bar,"
+of the Raiders in 1896. But they belong to a later date than the period
+covered by this chapter.
+
+My fondness for the Law Courts might suggest that I was inclined to be a
+lawyer. Not so. Only two professions ever attracted me in the slightest
+degree,--Holy Orders and Parliament. But when the dividing-line of 1874
+cut my life in two, it occurred to my Father that, aided by name and
+connexions, I might pass a few years at the Parliamentary Bar,
+pleasantly and not unprofitably, until an opportunity of entering
+Parliament occurred. Partly with that end in view, and partly because it
+seemed disgraceful to have no definite occupation, I became, in 1875, a
+student of the Inner Temple. I duly ate my dinners; or, rather, as the
+Temple dined at the unappetizing hour of six, went through a form of
+eating them; and in so doing was constantly reminded of the experiences
+of my favourite "Pen." The ways of Law-students had altered wonderfully
+little in the lapse of forty years.
+
+"The ancient and liberal Inn of the Inner Temple provides in its Hall,
+and for a most moderate price, an excellent and wholesome dinner of
+soup, meat, tarts, and port wine or sherry, for the Barristers and
+Students who attend that place of refection. The parties are arranged in
+messes of four, each of which quartets has its piece of beef or leg of
+mutton, its sufficient apple-pie, and its bottle of wine. 'This is
+boiled beef day, I believe, Sir,' said Lowton to Pen. 'Upon my word,
+Sir, I'm not aware,' said Pen. 'I'm a stranger; this is my first term;
+on which Lowton began to point out to him the notabilities in the Hall.
+'Do you see those four fellows seated opposite to us? They are regular
+swells--tip-top fellows, I can tell you--Mr. Trail, the Bishop of
+Ealing's son, Honourable Fred Ringwood, Lord Cinqbars' brother, you
+know; and Bob Suckling, who's always with him. I say, I'd like to mess
+with those chaps.' 'And why?' asked Pen. 'Why! they don't come down here
+to dine, you know, they only make believe to dine. _They_ dine here,
+Lord bless you! They go to some of the swell clubs, or else to some
+grand dinner-party. You see their names in the _Morning Post_ at all the
+fine parties in London. They dine! They won't dine these two hours, I
+dare say.' 'But why should you like to mess with them, if they don't
+eat any dinner?' Pen asked, still puzzled. 'There's plenty, isn't
+there?' 'How green you are,' said Lowton. 'Excuse me, but you are green!
+They don't drink any wine, don't you see, and a fellow gets the bottle
+to himself, if he likes it, when he messes with those three chaps.
+That's why Corkoran got in with them.'"
+
+Such were dinners at the Temple in Thackeray's time, and such they were
+in mine. My legal studies were superintended by my friend Mr. J. S. Fox,
+now K.C., and Recorder of Sheffield. Should this book ever fall under
+his learned eye, I should be interested to know if he has ever completed
+the erudite work which in those distant days he contemplated
+undertaking,
+
+
+       "Tell a Lie and Stick to it:"
+     A Treatise on the Law of Estoppel.
+
+
+But this is a digression.
+
+Before I leave London as it was when first I dwelt in it, I ought to
+recall some of the eminent persons who adorned it. Lord Beaconsfield was
+at the zenith of his power and popularity. Mr. Gladstone, though the
+crowning triumph of 1880 was not far off, was so unpopular in Society
+that I was asked to meet him at a dinner as a favour to the hostess, who
+found it difficult to collect a party when he was dining. Lord Salisbury
+had just emerged from a seven years' retirement, and was beginning to
+play for the Premiership. Mr. Chamberlain was spoken of with a kind of
+awe, as a desperate demagogue longing to head a revolution; and Lord
+Randolph Churchill was hardly known outside the Turf Club.
+
+Law was presided over, as I have already said, by the brilliant
+Cockburn, and the mellifluous Coleridge was palpably preparing to
+succeed him. People whispered wonders about Charles Bowen; and Henry
+James and Charles Russell had established their positions. In the
+hierarchy of Medicine there were several leaders. Jenner ruled his
+patients by terror; Gull by tact, and Andrew Clark by religious
+mysticism. To me, complaining of dyspepsia, he prescribed a diet with
+the Pauline formula: "I seek to impose a yoke upon you, that you may be
+truly free." In the chief seat of the Church sat Archbishop Tait, the
+most dignified prelate whom I have ever met in our communion, and a
+really impressive spokesman of the Church in the House of Lords. The
+Northern Primate, Dr. Thomson, was styled "The Archbishop of Society";
+and the Deanery at Westminster sheltered the fine flower of grace and
+culture in the fragile person of Dean Stanley. G. H. Wilkinson,
+afterwards Bishop of Truro and of St. Andrews, had lately been appointed
+to St. Peter's, Eaton Square, and had burst like a gunboat into a Dead
+Sea of lethargy and formalism.
+
+Of course, the list does not pretend to be exhaustive. It only aims at
+commemorating a few of the figures, in different walks of life, which
+commanded my attention when I began to know--otherwise than as a
+schoolboy can know it--what London is, means, and contains. Five and
+thirty years have sped their course. My Home in the country has ceased
+to exist; and I find myself numbered among that goodly company who, in
+succeeding ages, have loved London and found it their natural
+dwelling-place. I fancy that Lord St. Aldwyn is too much of a sportsman
+to applaud the sentiment of his ancestor who flourished in the reign of
+Charles II., but it is exactly mine.
+
+"London is the only place of England to winter in, whereof many true men
+might be put for examples. If the air of the streets be fulsome, then
+fields be at hand. If you be weary of the City, you may go to the
+Court. If you surfeit of the Court, you may ride into the country; and
+so shoot, as it were, at rounds with a roving arrow. You can wish for no
+kind of meat, but here is a market; for no kind of pastime, but here is
+a companion. If you be solitary, here be friends to sit with you. If you
+be sick, and one doctor will not serve your turn, you may have twain.
+When you are weary of your lodging, you may walk into St. Paul's ... in
+the Middle Aisle you may hear what the Protestants say, and in the
+others what the Papists whisper; and, when you have heard both, believe
+but one, for but one of both says true you may be assured."
+
+We clear the chasm of a century, and hear Dr. Johnson singing the same
+tune as Squire Hicks.
+
+"The happiness of London is not to be conceived but by those who have
+been in it. I'll venture to say, there is more learning and science
+within the circumference of ten miles from where we now sit, than in all
+the rest of the kingdom."
+
+"London is nothing to some people; but to a man whose pleasure is
+intellectual, London is the place."
+
+"The town is my element; there are my friends, there are my books, to
+which I have not yet bid farewell, and there are my amusements."
+
+But even Johnson, who is always quoted as the typical lover of London,
+was not more enthusiastic in its praise than Gibbon. To him "London was
+never dull, there at least he could keep the monster _Ennui_ at a
+respectful distance." For him its heat was always tempered; even its
+solitude was "delicious." In "the soft retirement of my _bocage de_
+Bentinck Street" the dog-days pass unheeded. "Charming hot weather! I am
+just going to dine alone. Afterwards I shall walk till dark in _my_
+gardens at Kensington, and shall then return to a frugal supper and
+early bed in Bentinck Street. I lead the life of a philosopher, without
+any regard to the world or to fashion."
+
+So much for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; we now return to
+the nineteenth and are listening to Sydney Smith. "I look forward
+anxiously to the return of the bad weather, coal fires, and good society
+in a crowded city." "The country is bad enough in summer, but in winter
+it is a fit residence only for beings doomed to such misery for misdeeds
+in another state of existence." "You may depend upon it, all lives lived
+out of London are mistakes, more or less grievous--but mistakes." "I
+shall not be sorry to be in town. I am rather tired of simple pleasures,
+bad reasoning, and worse cookery."
+
+Let Lord Beaconsfield have the last word, as is his due; for truly did
+he know and love his London.
+
+"It was a mild winter evening, a little fog still hanging about, but
+vanquished by the cheerful lamps, and the voice of the muffin-bell was
+heard at intervals; a genial sound that calls up visions of trim and
+happy hearths. If we could only so contrive our lives as to go into the
+country for the first note of the nightingale, and return to town for
+the first note of the muffin-bell, existence, it is humbly presumed,
+might be more enjoyable."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[21] Lord Beaconsfield, _Tancred_.
+
+[22] Written in May, 1910.
+
+[23] A nickname invented by the famous Eton tutor, "Billy Johnson," for
+a florid journalist.
+
+[24] Lord Beaconsfield, _Lothair_.
+
+[25] See M. Arnold's Letters, May 15, 1880.
+
+[26] The Right Hon. J. W. Lowther.
+
+[27] Sir George Trevelyan, _The Ladies in Parliament_.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+HOSPITALITY
+
+
+     "I never eat and I never drink," said the Cardinal. "I am sorry to
+     say I cannot. I like dinner-society very much. You see the world,
+     and you hear things which you do not hear otherwise."
+                                          LORD BEACONSFIELD, _Lothair_.
+
+
+The Cardinal was much to be pitied. He had a real genius for society,
+and thoroughly enjoyed such forms of it as his health and profession
+permitted. Though he could not dine with Mr. Putney Giles, he went to
+Mrs. Putney Giles's evening party, where he made an important
+acquaintance. He looked in at Lady St. Jerome's after dinner; and his
+visits to Vauxe and to Muriel Towers were fraught with memorable
+results.
+
+Mrs. Putney Giles, though a staunch Protestant, was delighted to receive
+a Cardinal, and not less so that he should meet in her drawing-room the
+inexpressibly magnificent Lothair. That is all in the course of nature;
+but what has always puzzled me is the ease with which a youth of no
+particular pretensions, arriving in London from Oxford or Cambridge or
+from a country home, swims into society, and finds himself welcomed by
+people whose names he barely knows. I suppose that in this, as in more
+important matters, the helpers of the social fledgling are good-natured
+women. The fledgling probably starts by being related to one or two, and
+acquainted with three or four more; and each of them says to a friend
+who entertains--"My cousin, Freddy Du Cane, is a very nice fellow, and
+waltzes capitally. Do send him a card for your dance"--or "Tommy Tucker
+is a neighbour of ours in the country. If ever you want an odd man to
+fill up a place at dinner, I think you will find him useful." Then there
+was in those days, and perhaps there is still, a mysterious race of
+men--Hierophants of Society--who had great powers of helping or
+hindering the social beginner. They were bachelors, not very young; who
+had seen active service as dancers and diners for ten or twenty seasons;
+and who kept lists of eligible youths which they were perpetually
+renewing at White's or the Marlborough. To one of these the intending
+hostess would turn, saying, "Dear Mr. Golightly, _do_ give me your
+list;" and, if Freddy Du Cane had contrived to ingratiate himself with
+Mr. Golightly, invitations to balls and dances, of every size and sort,
+would soon begin to flutter down on him like snow-flakes. It mattered
+nothing that he had never seen his host or hostess, nor they him. Corney
+Grain expressed the situation in his own inimitable verse:
+
+
+     "Old Mr. Parvenu gave a great ball--
+     And of all his smart guests he knew no one at all.
+     Old Mr. Parvenu went up to bed,
+     And the guest said 'Good-night' to the butler instead."
+
+
+But light come, light go. Ball-going is elysian when one is very young
+and cheerful and active, but it is a pleasure which, for nine men out of
+ten, soon palls. Dinner-society, as Cardinal Grandison knew, is a more
+serious affair, and admission to it is not so lightly attained.
+
+When Sydney Smith returned from a visit to Paris, he wrote, in the
+fulness of his heart:
+
+"I care very little about dinners, but I shall not easily forget a
+_matelote_ at the 'Rochers de Cancale,' or an almond tart at Montreuil,
+or a _poulet à la Tartare_ at Grignon's. These are impressions which no
+changes in future life can obliterate."
+
+I am tempted to pursue the line of thought thus invitingly opened, but I
+forbear; for it really has no special connexion with the retrospective
+vein. I am now describing the years 1876-1880, and dinners then were
+pretty much what they are now. The new age of dining had begun. Those
+frightful hecatombs of sheep and oxen which Francatelli decreed had made
+way for more ethereal fare. The age-long tyranny of "The Joint" was
+already undermined. I have indeed been one of a party of forty in the
+dog-days, where a belated haunch of venison cried aloud for decent
+burial; but such outrages were even then becoming rare. The champagne of
+which a poet had beautifully said:
+
+
+     "How sad and bad and mad it was,
+       And Oh! how it was sweet!"
+
+
+had been banished in favour of the barely alcoholic liquor which foams
+in modern glasses. And, thanks to the influence of King Edward VII,
+after-dinner drinking had been exorcised by cigarettes. The portentous
+piles of clumsy silver which had overshadowed our fathers'
+tables--effigies of Peace and Plenty, Racing Cups and Prizes for fat
+cattle--had been banished to the plate-closets; bright china and
+brighter flowers reigned in their stead. In short, a dinner thirty-five
+years ago was very like a dinner to-day. It did not take me long to find
+that (with Cardinal Grandison) "I liked dinner-society very much," and
+that "you see the world there and hear things which you do not hear
+otherwise."
+
+I have already described the methods by which ball-society was, and
+perhaps is, recruited. An incident which befell me in my second season
+threw a similar light on the more obscure question of dinner-society.
+One day I received a large card which intimated that Mr. and Mrs.
+Goldmore requested the honour of my company at dinner. I was a little
+surprised, because though I had been to balls at the Goldmores' house
+and had made my bow at the top of the stairs, I did not really know
+them. They had newly arrived in London, with a great fortune made in
+clay pipes and dolls' eyes, and were making their way by entertaining
+lavishly. However, it was very kind of them to ask me to dinner, and I
+readily accepted. The appointed evening came, and I arrived rather late.
+In an immense drawing-room there were some thirty guests assembled, and,
+as I looked round, I could not see a single face which I had ever seen
+before. Worse than that, it was obvious that Mr. and Mrs. Goldmore did
+not know me. They heard my name announced, received me quite politely,
+and then retired into a window, where their darkling undertones,
+enquiring glances, and heads negatively shaken, made it only too clear
+that they were asking one another who on earth the last arrival was.
+However, their embarrassment and mine was soon relieved by the
+announcement of dinner. As there were more male guests than women, there
+was no need to give me a partner; so we all swept downstairs in a
+promiscuous flood, and soon were making the vital choice between
+_bisque_ and _consommé_. Eating my dinner, I revolved my plans, and
+decided to make a clean breast of it. So, when we went up into the
+drawing-room, I made straight for my hostess. "I feel sure," I said,
+"that you and Mr. Goldmore did not expect me to-night." "Oh," was the
+gracious reply, "I hope there was nothing in our manner which made you
+feel that you were unwelcome." "Nothing," I replied, "could have been
+kinder than your manner, but one has a certain social instinct which
+tells one when one has made a mistake. And yet what the mistake was I
+cannot guess. I am sure it is the right house and the right evening--Do
+please explain." "Well," said Mrs. Goldmore, "as you have found out so
+much, I think I had better tell you all. _We were not expecting you._ We
+have not even now the pleasure of knowing who you are. We were
+expecting Dr. Russell, the _Times_ Correspondent, and all these ladies
+and gentlemen have been asked to meet him." So it was not my mistake
+after all, and I promptly rallied my forces. "The card certainly had my
+first name, initials, and address all right, so there was nothing to
+make me suspect a mistake. Besides, I should have thought that everyone
+who knew the _Times_ Russell knew that his first name was William--he is
+always called 'Billy Russell.'" "Well"--and now the truth coyly
+emerged--"the fact is that we _don't_ know him. We heard that he was a
+pleasant man and fond of dining out, and so we looked him up in the
+_Court Guide_, and sent the invitation. I suppose we hit on your address
+by mistake for his." I suppose so too; and that this is the method by
+which newcomers build up a "Dinner-Society" in London.
+
+One particular form of dinner deserves a special word of commemoration,
+because it has gone, never to return. This was the "Fish Dinner" at
+Greenwich or Blackwall, or even so far afield as Gravesend. It was to a
+certain extent a picnic; without the formality of dressing, and made
+pleasant by opportunities of fun and fresh air, in the park or on the
+river, before we addressed ourselves to the serious business of the
+evening; but that was serious indeed. The "Menu" of a dinner at the Ship
+Hotel at Greenwich lies before me as I write. It contains turtle soup,
+eleven kinds of fish, two _entrées_, a haunch of venison, poultry, ham,
+grouse, leverets, five sweet dishes, and two kinds of ice. Well, those
+were great days--we shall not look upon their like again. Let a poet[28]
+who knew what he was writing about have the last word on Dinner.
+
+
+     "We may live without poetry, music, and art;
+     We may live without conscience and live without heart;
+     We may live without friends; we may live without books;
+     But civilized man cannot live without Cooks.
+
+     "He may live without lore--what is knowledge but grieving?
+     He may live without hope--what is hope but deceiving?
+     He may live without love--what is passion but pining?
+     But where is the man that can live without dining?"
+
+
+There is an exquisite truth in this lyrical cry, but it stops short of
+the fulness of the subject. It must be remembered that "dining" is not
+the only form of eating. Mr. Gladstone, who thought modern luxury rather
+disgusting, used to complain that nowadays life in a country house meant
+three dinners a day, and, if you reckoned sandwiches and poached eggs at
+five o'clock tea, nearly four. Indeed, the only difference that I can
+perceive between a modern luncheon and a modern dinner is that at the
+former meal you don't have soup or a printed _Menu_. There have always
+been some houses where the luncheons were much more famous than the
+dinners. Dinner, after all, is something of a ceremony; it requires
+forethought, care, and organization. Luncheon is more of a scramble,
+and, in the case of a numerous and scattered family, it is the
+pleasantest of reunions.
+
+My uncle Lord John Russell (1792-1878) published in 1820 a book of
+_Essays and Sketches_, in which he speaks of "women sitting down to a
+substantial luncheon at three or four," and observes that men would be
+wise if they followed the example. All contemporary evidence points to
+luncheon as a female meal, at which men attended, if at all,
+clandestinely. If a man habitually sat down to luncheon, and ate it
+through, he was regarded as indifferent to the claims of dinner, and,
+moreover, was contemned as an idler. No one who had anything to do could
+find time for a square meal in the middle of the day. But, as years went
+on, the feeling changed. Prince Albert was notoriously fond of luncheon,
+and Queen Victoria humoured him. They dined very late, and the luncheon
+at the Palace became a very real and fully recognized meal. The example,
+communicated from the highest quarters, was soon followed in Society;
+and, when I first knew London, luncheon was as firmly established as
+dinner. As a rule, it was not an affair of fixed invitation; but a
+hostess would say, "You will always find us at luncheon, somewhere about
+two"--and one took her at her word.
+
+The luncheon by invitation was a more formal, and rather terrible,
+affair. I well remember a house where at two o'clock in June we had to
+sit down with curtains drawn, lights ablaze, and rose-coloured shades to
+the candles, because the hostess thought, rightly as regarded herself,
+less so as regarded her guests, that no one's complexion could stand the
+searching trial of midsummer sunshine.
+
+"Sunday Luncheon" was always a thing apart. For some reason, not
+altogether clear, perhaps because devotion long sustained makes a strong
+demand on the nervous system, men who turned up their noses at luncheon
+on weekdays devoured roast beef and Yorkshire pudding on Sundays, and
+went forth, like giants refreshed, for a round of afternoon calls. The
+Sunday Luncheon was a recognized centre of social life. Where there was
+even a moderate degree of intimacy a guest might drop in and be sure of
+mayonnaise, chicken, and welcome. I can recall an occasion of this kind
+when I saw social Presence of Mind exemplified, as I thought and think,
+on an heroic scale. Luncheon was over. It had not been a particularly
+bounteous meal; the guests had been many; the chicken had been eaten to
+the drumstick and the cutlets to the bone. Nothing remained but a huge
+Trifle, of chromatic and threatening aspect, on which no one had
+ventured to embark. Coffee was just coming, when the servant entered
+with an anxious expression, and murmured to the hostess that Monsieur de
+Petitpois--a newly-arrived attaché--had come, and seemed to expect
+luncheon. The hostess grasped the situation in an instant, and issued
+her commands with a promptitude and a directness which the Duke of
+Wellington could not have surpassed. "Clear everything away, but leave
+the Trifle. Then show M. de Petitpois in." Enter De Petitpois.
+"Delighted to see you. Quite right. Always at home at Sunday luncheon.
+Pray come and sit here and have some Trifle. It is our national Sunday
+dish." Poor young De Petitpois, actuated by the same principle which
+made the Prodigal desire the husks, filled himself with spongecake,
+jam, and whipped cream; and went away looking rather pale. If he kept a
+journal, he no doubt noted the English Sunday as one of our most curious
+institutions, and "Le Trifle" as its crowning horror.
+
+Supper is a word of very different significances. There is the Ball
+Supper, which I have described in a previous chapter. There is the
+Supper after the Missionary Meeting in the country, when "The Deputation
+from the Parent Society" is entertained with cold beef, boiled eggs, and
+cocoa. There is the diurnal Supper, fruitful parent of our national
+crudities, eaten by the social class that dines at one; and this Supper
+(as was disclosed at a recent inquest) may consist of steak, tomatoes,
+and tea.
+
+And yet, again, there is the Theatrical Supper, which, eaten in
+congenial company after _Patience_ or _The Whip_, is our nearest
+approach to the "Nights and Suppers of the Gods." This kind of supper
+has a niche of its own in my retrospects. It was my privilege when first
+I came to London to know Lady Burdett-Coutts, famous all over the world
+as a philanthropist, and also, in every tone and gesture, a survival
+from the days when great station and great manner went together. Lady
+Burdett-Coutts was an enthusiastic devotee of the drama; and, when her
+Evening Parties were breaking up, she would gently glide round the great
+rooms in Stratton Street, and say to a departing guest:
+
+"I hope you need not go just yet. I am expecting Mr. Irving to supper
+after the play, and I am asking a few friends to meet him."
+
+As far as I know, I am the only survivor of those delightful feasts.
+
+Dinner and luncheon and supper must, I suppose, be reckoned among the
+permanent facts of life; but there is, or was, one meal of which I have
+witnessed the unwept disappearance. It had its roots in our historic
+past. It clung to its place in our social economy. It lived long and
+died hard. It was the Breakfast-Party. When I first lived in London, it
+was, like some types of human character, vigorous but unpopular. No one
+could really like going out to breakfast; but the people who gave
+Breakfast-Parties were worthy and often agreeable people; and there were
+few who had the hardihood to say them Nay.
+
+The most famous breakfast-parties of the time were given by Mr.
+Gladstone, on every Thursday morning in the Session; when, while we ate
+broiled salmon and drank coffee, our host discoursed to an admiring
+circle about the colour-sense in Homer, or the polity of the ancient
+Hittites. Around the table were gathered Lions and Lionesses of various
+breeds and sizes, who, if I remember aright, did not get quite as much
+opportunity for roaring as they would have liked; for, when Mr.
+Gladstone had started on a congenial theme, it was difficult to get in a
+word edgeways. One of these breakfast-parties at 10, Downing Street,
+stands out in memory more clearly than the rest, for it very nearly had
+a part in that "Making of History" which was then so much in vogue. The
+date was April 23, 1885. The party comprised Lady Ripon, Lord Granville,
+Dean Church, and Miss Mary Anderson, then in the height of her fame and
+beauty. We were stolidly munching and listening, when suddenly we heard
+a crash as if heaven and earth had come together; and presently we
+learned that there had been an explosion of dynamite at the Admiralty,
+about a hundred yards from where we were sitting. The proximity of
+nitro-glycerine seemed to operate as a check on conversation, and, as we
+rose from the table, I heard Miss Anderson say to Miss Gladstone, "Your
+pa seemed quite scared."
+
+Other breakfast-givers of the time were Lord Houghton, Lord Arthur
+Russell, Mr. Shaw-Lefevre (afterwards Lord Eversley), and Sir John
+Lubbock (afterwards Lord Avebury); and there were even people so
+desperately wedded to this terrible tradition that they formed
+themselves into Clubs with no other object than to breakfast, and bound
+themselves by solemn pledges to meet one morning in every week, and eat
+and argue themselves into dyspepsia. Sydney Smith wrote thus to a
+friend: "I have a breakfast of philosophers to-morrow at ten
+punctually--muffins and metaphysics, crumpets and contradiction. Will
+you come?" That inviting picture, though it was drawn before I was born,
+exactly describes the breakfast-parties which I remember. One met all
+sorts of people, but very few Mary Andersons. Breakfasters were
+generally old,--politicians, diplomatists, authors, journalists, men of
+science, political economists, and everyone else who was most improving.
+No doubt it was a priceless privilege to meet them; yet, as I heard them
+prate and prose, I could not help recalling a favourite passage from
+Mrs. Sherwood's quaint tale of _Henry Milner_:--
+
+"Mr. Dolben, as usual, gave utterance at breakfast to several of those
+pure and wise and refined principles, which sometimes distil as drops of
+honey from the lips of pious and intellectual old persons." It was
+breakfast that set Mr. Dolben off. We are not told that he distilled his
+honey at dinner or supper; so his case must be added to the long list of
+deleterious results produced by breakfasting in public.
+
+Conversation must, I think, have been at rather a low ebb when I first
+encountered it in London. Men breakfasted in public, as we have just
+seen, in order to indulge in it; and I remember a terrible Club where it
+raged on two nights of every week, in a large, dark, and draughty room,
+while men sat round an indifferent fire, drinking barley-water, and
+talking for talking's sake--the most melancholy of occupations. But at
+these dismal orgies one never heard anything worth remembering. The
+"pious and intellectual old persons" whom Mrs. Sherwood admired had
+withdrawn from the scene, if indeed they had ever figured on it. Those
+who remained were neither pious nor intellectual, but compact of spite
+and greediness, with here and there worse faults. But some brighter
+spirits were coming on. To call them by the names which they then bore,
+Mr. George Trevelyan and Mr. John Morley were thought very promising,
+for social fame in London takes a long time to establish itself. Sir
+William Harcourt was capital company in the heavier style; and Lord
+Rosebery in the lighter. But Mr. Herbert Paul was known only to the
+_Daily News_, and Mr. Augustine Birrell's ray serene had not emerged
+from the dim, unfathomed caves of the Chancery Bar.
+
+So far, I have been writing about Conversation with a capital "C,"--an
+elaborate and studied art which in old days such men as Sharpe and
+Jekyll and Luttrell illustrated, and, in times more modern, Brookfield
+and Cockburn and Lowe and Hayward. For the ordinary chit-chat of social
+intercourse--chaff and repartee, gossip and fun and frolic--I believe
+that London was just as good in 1876 as it had been fifty years before.
+We were young and happy, enjoying ourselves, and on easy terms with one
+another. "It was roses, roses all the way." Our talk was unpremeditated
+and unstudied, quick as lightning, springing out of the interest or the
+situation of the moment, uttered in an instant and as soon forgotten.
+Everyone who has ever made the attempt must realize that to gather up
+the fragments of such talk as this is as impossible as to collect
+shooting stars or to reconstruct a rainbow.
+
+But, though I cannot say what we talked about in those distant days, I
+believe I can indicate with certainty two topics which were never
+mentioned. One is Health, and the other is Money. I presume that people
+had pretty much the same complaints as now, but no one talked about
+them. We had been told of a lady who died in agony because she insisted
+on telling the doctor that the pain was in her chest, whereas it really
+was in the unmentionable organ of digestion. That martyr to propriety
+has no imitator in the present day. Everyone has a disease and a doctor,
+and young people of both sexes are ready on the slightest acquaintance
+to describe symptoms and compare experiences. "Ice!" exclaimed a pretty
+girl at dessert. "Good gracious, no. So bad for indy!" And her
+companion, who had not travelled with the times, learned with interest
+that "indy" was the pet name for indigestion.
+
+Then, again, as to money. In the "Sacred Circle of the Great
+Grandmotherhood," I never heard the slightest reference to income. Not
+that the Whigs despised money. They were at least as fond of it as other
+people, and, even when it took the shape of slum-rents, its odour was
+not displeasing; but it was not a subject for conversation. People did
+not chatter about their neighbours' incomes; and, if they made their own
+money in trades or professions, they did not regale us with statistics
+of profit and loss. To-day everyone seems to be, if I may use the
+favourite colloquialism, "on the make"; and the devotion with which
+people worship money pervades their whole conversation, and colours
+their whole view of life. "Scions of Aristocracy," to use the good old
+phrase of Pennialinus, will produce samples of tea or floor-cloth from
+their pockets, and sue quite winningly for custom. A speculative bottle
+of extraordinarily cheap peach-brandy will arrive with the compliments
+of Lord Tom Noddy, who has just gone into the wine-trade; and Lord
+Magnus Charters will tell you that, if you are going to rearrange your
+electric light, his firm has got some really artistic fittings which he
+can let you have on specially easy terms.
+
+So far I have spoken of Hospitality as if it consisted wholly in eating
+and drinking. Not so. In those days Evening Parties, or Receptions, or
+Drums, or Tails, for so they were indifferently called, took place on
+four or five nights of every week. "Tails" as the name implies, were
+little parties tacked on to the end of big dinners, where a few people
+looked in, rather cross at not having been invited to dine, or else in a
+desperate hurry to get on to a larger party or a ball. The larger
+parties were given generally on Saturday evenings; and then, amid a
+crushing crowd and a din which recalled the Parrot-House at the Zoo, one
+might rub shoulders with all the famous men and women of the time. When
+Mr. St. Barbe in _Endymion_ attended a gathering of this kind, he said
+to his companion, "I daresay that Ambassador has been blundering all his
+life, and yet there is something in that Star and Ribbon. I do not know
+how you feel, but I could almost go down on my knees to him.
+
+
+     'Ye stars which are the poetry of heaven,'
+
+
+Byron wrote; a silly line, he should have written--
+
+
+     'Ye stars which are the poetry of dress.'"
+
+
+Political "Drums" had a flavour which was all their own. If they were
+given in any of the Great Houses of London, where the stateliness and
+beauty of the old world still survived, such guests as Lord
+Beaconsfield's creations, Mr. Horrocks, M.P., and Trodgitts, the
+unsuccessful candidate, would look a little subdued. But in the ordinary
+house, with a back and front drawing-room and a buffet in the
+dining-room, those good men were quite at home, and the air was thick
+with political shop--whether we should loose Pedlington or save
+Shuffleborough with a struggle--whether A would get office and how
+disgusted B would be if he did.
+
+Here and there a more thrilling note was sounded. At a Liberal party in
+the spring of 1881 an ex-Whip of the Liberal party said to a Liberal
+lady, as he was giving her a cup of tea: "Have you heard how ill old
+Dizzy is?" "Oh, yes!" replied the lady, with a rapturous wink, "I
+know--dying!" Such are the amenities of political strife.
+
+A much more agreeable form of hospitality was the Garden-Party. When I
+came to live in London, the old-fashioned phrase--a "Breakfast"--so
+familiar in memoirs and novels, had almost passed out of use. On the
+22nd of June, 1868, Queen Victoria signalized her partial return to
+social life by commanding her lieges to a "Breakfast" in the gardens of
+Buckingham Palace; and the newspapers made merry over the notion of
+Breakfast which began at four and ended at seven. The old title
+gradually died out, and by 1876 people had begun to talk about
+"Garden-Parties."
+
+By whichever names they were called, they were, and are, delightful
+festivals. Sometimes they carried one as far as Hatfield, my
+unapproached favourite among all the "Stately homes of England"; but
+generally they were nearer London--at Syon, with the Thames floating
+gravely past its lawns--Osterley, where the decorative skill of the
+Brothers Adam is superimposed on Sir Thomas Gresham's Elizabethan
+brickwork--Holland House, rife with memories of Fox and
+Macaulay--Lowther Lodge, with its patch of unspoiled country in the
+heart of Western London. Closely akin to these Garden-Parties were other
+forms of outdoor entertainment--tea at Hurlingham or Ranelagh; and
+river-parties where ardent youth might contrive to capsize the adored
+one, and propose as he rescued her, dripping, from the Thames.
+
+It is only within the last few years that we have begun to talk of
+"Week-Ends" and "week-Ending." These terrible phrases have come down to
+us from the North of England; but before they arrived the thing which
+they signify was here. "Saturday-to-Monday Parties" they were called.
+They were not so frequent as now, because Saturday was a favourite
+night for entertaining in London, and it was generally bespoken for
+dinners and drums. But, as the summer advanced and hot rooms became
+unendurable, people who lived only forty or fifty miles out of London
+began to ask if one would run down to them on Friday or Saturday, and
+stay over Sunday. Of these hospitalities I was a sparing and infrequent
+cultivator, for they always meant two sleepless nights; and, as someone
+truly observed, just as you had begun to wear off the corners of your
+soap, it was time to return to London. But there were people, more
+happily constituted, who could thoroughly enjoy and profit by the weekly
+dose of fresh air and quiet. It was seldom that Mrs. Gladstone failed to
+drag Mr. Gladstone to some country house "from Saturday to Monday."
+
+As I re-read what I have written in this chapter, I seem to have lived
+from 1876 to 1880 in the constant enjoyment of one kind or another of
+Hospitality. It is true; and for the kindness of the friends who then
+did so much to make my life agreeable, I am as grateful as I was when I
+received it. My social life in London seems to me, as I look back, "a
+crystal river of unreproved enjoyment"; and some of those who shared it
+with me are still among my closest friends.
+
+One word more, and I have done with Hospitality. I brought with me from
+Oxford a simple lad who had been a College servant. In those more
+courteous days a young man made it a rule to leave his card at every
+house where he had been entertained; so I made a list of addresses, gave
+it to my servant with a nicely-calculated batch of cards, and told him
+to leave them all before dinner. When I came in to dress, this dialogue
+ensued: "Have you left all those cards?" "Yes, sir." "You left two at
+each of the houses on your list?" "Oh no, sir. I left one at each house,
+and all the rest at the Duke of Leinster's." Surely Mrs. Humphry Ward or
+Mr. H. G. Wells might make something of this bewildering effect produced
+by exalted rank on the untutored mind.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[28] The second Lord Lytton.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+ELECTIONEERING
+
+
+     "Candidates are creatures not very susceptible of affronts, and
+     would rather, I suppose, climb in at a window than be absolutely
+     excluded. Mr. Grenville, advancing towards me, shook me by the hand
+     with a degree of cordiality that was extremely seducing.... He is
+     very young, genteel, and handsome, and the town seems to be much at
+     his service."
+                                                  _W. Cowper_, 1784.
+
+
+Gladstone's first administration, which had begun so gloriously in 1868,
+ended rather ignominiously at the General Election of 1874. Matthew
+Arnold wrote to his friend, Lady de Rothschild, "What a beating it is!
+You know that Liberalism did not seem to me quite the beautiful and
+admirable thing it does to the Liberal party in general, and I am not
+sorry that a new stage in its growth should commence, and that the party
+should be driven to examine itself, and to see how much real stuff it
+has in its mind, and how much claptrap."
+
+That wholesome discipline of self-examination was greatly assisted by
+the progress of events. England was now subjected to the personal rule
+of Disraeli. In 1868 he had been for ten months Prime Minister on
+sufferance, but now for the first time in his life he was in power. His
+colleagues were serfs or cyphers. He had acquired an influence at Court
+such as no other Minister ever possessed. He had conciliated the House
+of Lords, which in old days had looked askance at the picturesque
+adventurer. He was supported by a strong, compact, and determined
+majority in the House of Commons. He was the idol of Society, of the
+Clubs, and of the London Press. He was, in short, as nearly a dictator
+as the forms of our constitution permit; and the genius, which for forty
+years had been hampered and trammelled by the exigencies of a precarious
+struggle, could now for the first time display its true character and
+significance. Liberals who had been bored and provoked by the incessant
+blunders of the Liberal ministry in its last years, and, like Matthew
+Arnold, had welcomed a change of government, soon began to see that they
+had exchanged what was merely fatuous and foolish for what was actively
+mischievous. They were forced to ask themselves how much of the
+political faith which they had professed was "real stuff," and how much
+was "claptrap." Disraeli soon taught them that, even when all
+"claptrap" was laid aside, the "real stuff" of Liberalism--its vital and
+essential part--was utterly incompatible with Disraelitish ideals.
+
+The Session of 1874 began quietly enough, and the first disturbance
+proceeded from a quite unexpected quarter. The two Primates of the
+English Church were at this time Archbishop Tait and Archbishop Thomson.
+Both were masterful men. Both hated Ritualism; and both worshipped the
+Man in the Street. The Man in the Street was supposed to be an
+anti-Ritualist; so the two Archbishops conceived the happy design of
+enlisting his aid in the destruction of a religious movement which, with
+their own unaided resources, they had failed to crush. Bishop
+Wilberforce, who would not have suffered the Ritualists to be bullied,
+had been killed in the previous summer. Gladstone, notoriously not
+unfriendly to Ritualism, was dethroned; so all looked smooth and easy
+for a policy of persecution. On the 20th of April, 1874, Archbishop Tait
+introduced his "Public Worship Regulation Bill" into the House of Lords;
+and, in explanation of this measure, Tait's biographers say that it
+merely "aimed at reviving in a practical shape the _forum domesticum_
+of the Bishops, with just so much of coercive force added as seemed
+necessary to meet the changed circumstances of modern times." I have
+always loved this sentence. _Forum domesticum_ is distinctly good, and
+so is "coercive force." The _forum domesticum_ has quite a comfortable
+sound, and, as to the "coercive force" which lurks in the background,
+Ritualists must not enquire too curiously. The Bishops were to have it
+all their own way, and everyone was to be happy. Such was the Bill as
+introduced; but in Committee it was made infinitely more oppressive.
+Henceforward a single lay-judge, to be appointed by the two Archbishops,
+was to hear and determine all cases relating to irregularities in Public
+Worship.
+
+When the Bill reached the House of Commons, it was powerfully opposed by
+Gladstone; but the House was dead against him, and Sir William Harcourt,
+who, six months before, had been his Solicitor-General, distinguished
+himself by the truculence with which he assailed the Ritualists. On the
+5th of August, Gladstone wrote to his wife: "An able but yet frantic
+tirade from Harcourt, extremely bad in tone and taste, and chiefly aimed
+at poor me.... I have really treated him with forbearance before, but I
+was obliged to let out a little to-day."
+
+Meanwhile, Disraeli, seeing his opportunity, had seized it with
+characteristic skill. He adopted the Bill with great cordiality. He
+rejected all the glozing euphemisms which had lulled the House of Lords.
+He uttered no pribbles and prabbles about _forum domesticum_, and
+paternal guidance, and the authoritative interpretation of ambiguous
+formularies. "This," he said, "is a Bill to put down Ritualism." So the
+naked truth, carefully veiled from view in episcopal aprons and
+lawn-sleeves, was now displayed in all its native charm. Its success was
+instant and complete. The Second Reading passed unanimously; and the
+Archbishops' masterpiece became at once a law and a laughing-stock. The
+instrument of tyranny broke in the clumsy hands which had forged it, and
+its fragments to-day lie rusting in the lumber-room of archiepiscopal
+failures.
+
+But in the meantime the debates on the Bill had produced some political
+effects which its authors certainly had not desired. Gladstone's
+vehement attacks on the Bill, and his exhilarating triumph over the
+recalcitrant Harcourt, showed the Liberal party that their chief, though
+temporarily withdrawn from active service, was as vivacious and as
+energetic as ever, as formidable in debate, and as unquestionably
+supreme in his party whenever he chose to assert his power. Another
+important result of the controversy was that Gladstone was now the
+delight and glory of the Ritualists. The Committee organized to defend
+the clergy of St. Alban's, Holborn, against the _forum domesticum_ and
+"coercive force" of Bishop Jackson, made a formal and public
+acknowledgment of their gratitude for Gladstone's "noble and unsupported
+defence of the rights of the Church of England." Cultivated and earnest
+Churchmen, even when they had little sympathy with Ritualism, were
+attracted to his standard, and turned in righteous disgust from the
+perpetrator of clumsy witticisms about "Mass in masquerade." In towns
+where, as at Oxford and Brighton, the Church is powerful, the effect of
+these desertions was unmistakably felt at the General Election of 1880.
+
+It has been truly said that among the subjects which never fail to
+excite Englishmen is Slavery. "No public man," said Matthew Arnold, "in
+this country will be damaged by having even 'fanaticism' in his hatred
+of slavery imputed to him." In July, 1875, the Admiralty issued to
+Captains of Her Majesty's ships a Circular of Instructions which roused
+feelings of anger and of shame. This circular ran counter alike to the
+jealousy of patriots and to the sentiment of humanitarians. It directed
+that a fugitive slave should not be received on board a British vessel
+unless his life was in danger, and that, if she were in territorial
+waters, he should be surrendered on legal proof of his condition. If the
+ship were at sea, he should only be received and protected until she
+reached the country to which he belonged. These strange and startling
+orders were not in harmony either with the Law of Nations or with the
+law of England. They infringed the invaluable rule which prescribes that
+a man-of-war is British territory, wherever she may be; and they seemed
+to challenge the famous decision of Lord Mansfield, that a slave who
+enters British jurisdiction becomes free for ever. Parliament had risen
+for the recess just before the circular appeared, so it could not be
+challenged in the House of Commons; but it raised a storm of indignation
+out of doors which astonished its authors. Disraeli wrote "The incident
+is grave;" and, though in the subsequent session the Government tried to
+whittle down the enormity, the "incident" proved to be graver than even
+the Premier had imagined; for it showed the Liberals once again that
+Toryism is by instinct hostile to freedom.
+
+But events were now at hand before which the Public Worship Regulation
+Act and the Slave Circular paled into insignificance.
+
+In the autumn of 1875 an insurrection had broken out in Bulgaria, and
+the Turkish Government despatched a large force to repress it. This was
+done, and repression was followed by a hideous orgy of massacre and
+outrage. A rumour of these horrors reached England, and public
+indignation spontaneously awoke. Disraeli, with a strange frankness of
+cynical brutality, sneered at the rumour as "Coffee-house babble," and
+made odious jokes about the Oriental way of executing malefactors. But
+Christian England was not to be pacified with these Asiatic
+pleasantries, and in the autumn of 1876 the country rose in passionate
+indignation against what were known as "the Bulgarian Atrocities."
+Preaching in St. Paul's Cathedral, Liddon made a signal departure from
+his general rule of avoiding politics in the pulpit, and gave splendid
+utterance to the passion which was burning in his heart. "Day by day we
+English are learning that this year of grace 1876 has been signalized by
+a public tragedy which, I firmly believe, is without a parallel in
+modern times.... Not merely armed men, but young women and girls and
+babes, counted by hundreds, counted by thousands, subjected to the most
+refined cruelties, subjected to the last indignities, have been the
+victims of the Turk." And then came a fine burst of patriotic
+indignation. "That which makes the voice falter as we say it is that,
+through whatever misunderstanding, the Government which is immediately
+responsible for acts like these has turned for sympathy, for
+encouragement, not to any of the historical homes of despotism or
+oppression, not to any other European Power, but alas! to England--to
+free, humane, Christian England. The Turk has, not altogether without
+reason, believed himself, amid these scenes of cruelty, to be leaning on
+our country's arm, to be sure of her smile, or at least of her
+acquiescence."
+
+And soon a mightier voice than even Liddon's was added to the chorus of
+righteous indignation. Gladstone had resigned the leadership of the
+Liberal Party at the beginning of 1875, and for sixteen months he
+remained buried in his library at Hawarden. But now he suddenly
+reappeared, and flung himself into the agitation against Turkey with a
+zeal which in his prime he had never excelled, if, indeed, he had
+equalled it. On Christmas Day, 1876, he wrote in his diary--"The most
+solemn I have known for long; I see that eastward sky of storm and of
+underlight!" When Parliament met in February, 1877, he was ready with
+all his unequalled resources of eloquence, argumentation, and
+inconvenient enquiry, to drive home his great indictment against the
+Turkish Government and its champion, Disraeli, who had now become Lord
+Beaconsfield. For three arduous years he sustained the strife with a
+versatility, a courage, and a resourcefulness, which raised the
+enthusiasm of his followers to the highest pitch, and filled his
+antagonists with a rage akin to frenzy. I well remember that in July,
+1878, just after Lord Beaconsfield's triumphant return from Berlin, a
+lady asked me as a special favour to dine with her: "Because I have got
+the Gladstones coming, and everyone declines to meet him." Strange, but
+true.
+
+1878 was perhaps the most critical year of the Eastern question. Russia
+and Turkey were at death-grips, and Lord Beaconsfield seemed determined
+to commit this country to a war in defence of the Mahomedan Power, which
+for centuries has persecuted the worshippers of Christ in the East of
+Europe. By frustrating the sinister design Gladstone saved England from
+the indelible disgrace of a second Crimea. But it was not only in
+Eastern Europe that he played the hero's part. In Africa, and India, and
+wherever British arms were exercised and British honour was involved, he
+dealt his resounding blows at that odious system of bluster and swagger
+and might against right, on which the Prime Minister and his colleagues
+bestowed the tawdry nickname of Imperialism. In his own phrase he
+devoted himself to "counterworking the purpose of Lord Beaconsfield,"
+and all that was ardent and enthusiastic and adventurous in Liberalism
+flocked to his standard.
+
+
+     "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
+     But to be young was very heaven."
+
+
+One could not stand aloof--the call to arms was too imperious. We saw
+our Leader contending single-handed with "the obscene empires of Mammon
+and Belial," and we longed to be at his side in the thick of the fight.
+To a man born and circumstanced as I was the call came with peculiar
+power. I had the love of Freedom in my blood. I had been trained to
+believe in and to serve the Liberal cause. I was incessantly reminded of
+the verse, which, sixty years before, Moore had addressed to my uncle,
+Lord John Russell,
+
+
+     "Like the boughs of that laurel, by Delphi's decree
+       Set apart for the Fane and its service divine,
+     So the branches that spring from the old Russell tree
+       Are by Liberty claimed for the use of her shrine."
+
+
+In 1841 that same uncle wrote thus to his eldest brother: "Whatever may
+be said about other families, I do not think ours ought to retire from
+active exertion. In all times of popular movement, the Russells have
+been on the 'forward' side. At the Reformation, the first Earl of
+Bedford; in Charles the First's days, Francis, the Great Earl; in
+Charles the Second's, William, Lord Russell; in later times, Francis,
+Duke of Bedford; our father; you; and lastly myself in the Reform Bill."
+
+These hereditary appeals were strong, but there were influences which
+were stronger. A kind of romantic and religious glamour, such as one had
+never before connected with politics, seemed to surround this attack on
+the strongholds of Anti-Christ. The campaign became a crusade.
+
+Towards the end of 1879 I accepted an invitation to contest "the Borough
+and Hundreds of Aylesbury" at the next General Election. The "Borough"
+was a compact and attractive-looking town, and the "Hundreds" which
+surrounded it covered an area nearly coextensive with the present
+division of Mid Bucks. Close by was Hampden House, unaltered since the
+day when four thousand freeholders of Buckinghamshire rode up to
+Westminster to defend their impeached member, John Hampden. All around
+were those beech-clad recesses of the Chiltern Hills, in which,
+according to Lord Beaconsfield, the Great Rebellion was hatched. I do
+not vouch for that fact, but I can affirm that thirty years ago those
+recesses sheltered some of the stoutest Liberals whom I have ever known.
+The town and its surroundings were, for parliamentary purposes, a
+Borough, and, as all householders in Boroughs had been enfranchised by
+the Reform Act of 1867, the Agricultural Labourers of the district were
+already voters.
+
+It happens that Agricultural Labourers are the class of voters with
+which I am most familiar; and an intimate acquaintance with these men
+has taught me increasingly to admire their staunchness, their
+shrewdness, and their racy humour. Two or three of the old sayings come
+back to memory as I write. "More pigs and less parsons" must have been a
+survival from the days of Tithe. "The Black Recruiting Sergeant" was a
+nickname for a canvassing Incumbent. "I tell you how it is with a
+State-Parson," cried a Village Hampden: "if you take away his book, he
+can't preach. If you take away his gown he mayn't preach. If you take
+away his screw, he'll be d--d if he'll preach." A Radical M.P. suddenly
+deserted his constituency and took a peerage, and this was the verdict
+of the Village Green: "Mister So-and-so says he's going to the House of
+Lords to 'leaven it with Liberal principles.' Bosh! Mr. So-and-so can't
+no more leaven the House of Lords than you can sweeten a cartload of
+muck with a pot of marmalade."
+
+Aylesbury returned two Members to Parliament, and its political history
+had been chequered. When first I came to know it, the two members were
+Mr. Samuel George Smith and Sir Nathaniel de Rothschild (afterwards Lord
+Rothschild). Mr. Smith was a Tory. Sir Nathaniel professed to be a
+Liberal; but, as his Liberalism was of the sort which had doggedly
+supported Lord Beaconsfield all through the Eastern Question, the more
+enthusiastic spirits in the constituency felt that they were wholly
+unrepresented. It was they who invited me to stand. From the first, Sir
+Nathaniel made it known that he would not support or coalesce with me;
+and perhaps, considering the dissimilarity of our politics, it was just
+as well. So there were three candidates, fighting independently for two
+seats; there was no Corrupt Practices Act in those days; and the
+situation was neatly summarized by a tradesman of the town. "Our three
+candidates are Mr. S. G. Smith, head of 'Smith, Payne & Co.;' Sir
+Nathaniel de Rothschild, head of 'N. M. Rothschild & Sons,' and Mr.
+George Russell, who, we understand, has the Duke of Bedford behind him.
+So we are looking forward to a very interesting contest." That word
+_interesting_ was well chosen.
+
+Now began the most vivid and enjoyable portion of my life. Everything
+conspired to make it pleasant. In the first place, I believed absolutely
+in my cause. I was not, as Sydney Smith said, "stricken by the palsy of
+candour." There were no doubts or questionings or ambiguities in my
+mind. My creed with regard both to foreign and to domestic politics was
+clear, positive, and deliberate. I was received with the most
+extraordinary kindness and enthusiasm by people who really longed to
+have a hand in the dethronement of Lord Beaconsfield, and who believed
+in their politics as part of their religion.
+
+After my first speech in the Corn Exchange of Aylesbury I was severely
+reprehended because I had called Lord Beaconsfield a "Jew." If I had
+known better, I should have said "a Semite" or "an Israelite," or--his
+own phrase--"a Mosaic Arab," and all would have been well. I had and
+have close friends among the Jews, so my use of the offending word was
+not dictated by racial or social prejudice. But it expressed a strong
+conviction. I held then, and I hold now, that it was a heavy misfortune
+for England that, during the Eastern Question, her Prime Minister was
+one of the Ancient Race. The spiritual affinity between Judaism and
+Mahomedanism, founded on a common denial of the Christian Creed, could
+not be without its influence on a statesman whose deepest convictions,
+from first to last, were with the religion of his forefathers. In 1876
+Mr. Gladstone wrote--"Some new lights about Disraeli's Judaic feeling,
+in which he is both consistent and conscientious, have come in upon me."
+And similar "lights" dictated my action and my language at the crisis of
+1879-1880.
+
+Another element of enjoyment was that I was young--only twenty-six.
+Youth is an invaluable asset in a first campaign. Youth can canvass all
+day, and harangue all night. It can traverse immense distances without
+fatigue, make speeches in the open air without catching cold, sleep
+anywhere, eat anything, and even drink port with a grocer's label on it,
+at five in the afternoon. Then again, I had a natural and inborn love of
+public speaking, and I have known no enjoyment in life equal to that of
+addressing a great audience which you feel to be actively sympathetic.
+
+Yes, that spring of 1880 was a delightful time. As the condemned
+highwayman said to the chaplain who was exhorting him to repentance for
+his life of adventure on the road--"You dog, it was delicious." It was
+all so new. One emerged (like Herbert Gladstone) from the obscurity of
+College rooms or from the undistinguished herd of London ball-goers, or
+from the stables and stubbles of a country home, and became, all in a
+moment, a Personage. For the first time in one's life one found that
+people--grown-up, sensible, vote-possessing people--wished to know one's
+opinions, and gave heed to one's words. For the first time, one had
+"Colours" of one's own, as if one were a Regiment or a University; for
+the first time one beheld one's portrait, flattering though perhaps
+mud-bespattered, on every wall. For the first time one was cheered in
+the street, and entered the Corn-Exchange amid what the Liberal paper
+called "thunders of applause," and the opponent's organ whittled down to
+"cheers."
+
+But canvassing cannot, I think, be reckoned among the pleasures of a
+candidature. One must be very young indeed to find it even tolerable. A
+candidate engaged in a house-to-house canvass has always seemed to me
+(and not least clearly when I was the candidate) to sink beneath the
+level of humanity. To beg for votes, as if they were alms or broken
+victuals, is a form of mendicancy which is incompatible with common
+self-respect, and yet it is a self-abasement which thirty years ago
+custom imperatively demanded. "If my vote ain't worth calling for, I
+suppose it ain't worth 'aving" was the formula in which the elector
+stated his requirement.
+
+To trudge, weary and footsore, dusty and deliquescent, from door to
+door; to ask, with damnable iteration, if Mr. So-and-so is at home, and
+to meet the invariable rejoinder, "No, he isn't," not seldom running on
+with--"And, if he was, he wouldn't see you;" to find oneself (being
+Blue) in a Red quarter, where the very children hoot at you, and
+inebriate matrons shout personalities from upper windows--all this is
+detestable enough. But to find the voter at home and unfriendly is an
+experience which plunges the candidate lower still. A curious tradition
+of privileged insolence, which runs through all English history from the
+days when great men kept Jesters and the Universities had their _Terræ
+Filii_, asserts itself, by immemorial usage, at an election. People who
+would be perfectly civil if one called on them in the ordinary way, and
+even rapturously grateful if they could sell one six boxes of lucifers
+or a pound of toffee, permit themselves a freedom of speech to the
+suppliant candidate, which tests the fibre of his manhood. If he loses
+his temper and answers in like sort, the door is shut on him with some
+Parthian jeer, and, as he walks dejectedly away, the agent says--"Ah,
+it's a pity you offended that fellow. He's very influential in this
+ward, and I believe a civil word would have won him." If, on the other
+hand, the candidate endures the raillery and smiles a sickly smile, he
+really fares no better. After a prolonged battle of wits (in which he
+takes care not to be too successful) he discovers that the beery
+gentleman in shirtsleeves has no vote, and that, in the time which he
+has spent in these fruitless pleasantries, he might have canvassed half
+the street.
+
+There is, of course, a pleasanter side to canvassing. It warms the
+cockles of one's heart to be greeted with the words, "Don't waste your
+time here, sir. My vote's yours before you ask for it. There's your
+picture over the chimney-piece." And when a wife says, "My husband is
+out at work, but I know he means to vote for you," one is inclined to
+embrace her on the spot.
+
+These are the amenities of electioneering; but a man who enters on a
+political campaign expecting fair treatment from his opponents is indeed
+walking in a vain shadow. The ordinary rules of fairplay and
+straightforward conduct are forgotten at an election. In a political
+contest people say and do a great many things of which in every-day life
+they would be heartily ashamed. An election-agent of the old school once
+said to me in the confidence of after-dinner claret, "For my own part,
+when I go into a fight, I go in to win, and I'm not particular to a
+shade or two." All this is the common form of electioneering, but in one
+respect I think my experience rather unusual. I have been all my life as
+keen a Churchman as I am a Liberal, and some of my closest friends are
+clergymen. I never found that the Nonconformists were the least
+unfriendly to me on this account. They had their own convictions, and
+they respected mine; and we could work together in perfect concord for
+the causes of Humanity and Freedom. But the most unscrupulous opponents
+whom I have ever encountered have been the parochial clergy of the
+Church to which I belong, and the bands of "workers" whom they direct.
+Tennyson once depicted a clergyman who--
+
+
+                              "From a throne
+     Mounted in heaven should shoot into the dark
+     Arrows of lightnings,"
+
+
+and graciously added that he "would stand and mark." But, when the Vicar
+from his pulpit-throne launches barbed sayings about "those who would
+convert our schools into seminaries of Atheism or Socialism, and would
+degrade this hallowed edifice into a Lecture-Hall--nay, a Music-Hall,"
+then the Liberal candidate, constrained to "sit and mark" these bolts
+aimed at his cause, is tempted to a breach of charity. The Vicar's
+"workers" follow suit, but descend a little further into personalities.
+"You know that the Radical Candidate arrived drunk at one of his
+meetings? He had to be lifted out of the carriage, and kept in the
+Committee Room till he was sober. Shocking, isn't it? and then such
+shameful hypocrisy to talk about Local Option! But can you wonder? You
+know he's an atheist? Oh yes, I know he goes to Church, but that's all a
+blind. His one object is to do away with Religion. Yes, they do say he
+has been in the Divorce Court, but I should not like to say I know it,
+though I quite believe it. His great friend, Mr. Comus, certainly was,
+and Mr. Quickly only got off by paying an immense sum in hush-money.
+They're all tarred with the same brush, and it really is a religious
+duty to keep them out of Parliament."
+
+Such I have observed to be the attitude of parochial clergy and
+church-workers towards Liberal candidates.
+
+
+     "They said their duty both to man and God
+     Required such conduct--which seemed very odd."
+
+
+I suppose they would have justified it by that zeal for Established
+Churches and Sectarian Schools which, if it does not actually "eat up"
+its votaries, certainly destroys their sense of proportion and
+perspective.[29]
+
+Though I have said so much about the pugnacity of the clergy, I would
+not have it supposed that the Tory laity were slack or backward in
+political activity. To verbal abuse one soon became case-hardened; but
+one had also to encounter physical violence. In those days, stones and
+cabbage-stalks and rotten eggs still played a considerable part in
+electioneering. Squires hid their gamekeepers in dark coppices with
+instructions to pelt one as one drove past after dark. The linch-pin was
+taken out of one's carriage while one was busy at a meeting; and it was
+thought seriously unsafe for the candidate to walk unescorted through
+the hostile parts of the borough.
+
+But, after all, this animosity, theological, moral, physical, did no
+great harm. It quickened the zeal and strengthened the resolve of one's
+supporters; and it procured one the inestimable aid of young, active,
+and pugnacious friends, who formed themselves into a body-guard and a
+cycle-corps, protecting their candidate when the play was rough, and
+spreading the light all over the constituency.
+
+Why did not Lord Beaconsfield dissolve Parliament in July, 1878, when he
+returned in a blaze of triumph from the Congress of Berlin? Probably
+because his nerve had failed him, and he chose to retain his supremacy
+unquestioned, rather than commit it to the chances of a General
+Election. Anyhow, he let the moment pass; and from that time on his
+Government began to lose ground. In 1879 _Vanity Fair_, a strongly
+Disraelitish organ, pronounced (under a cartoon) that Gladstone was the
+most popular man in England. In the autumn of that year, the
+"Mid-Lothian Campaign" raised him to the very summit of his great
+career; and, when Christmas came, most Liberals felt that it was all
+over except the shouting.
+
+On the 9th of March, 1880, Lord Beaconsfield announced that he had
+"advised the Queen to recur to the sense of her people." His opponents
+remarked that the nonsense of her people was likely to serve his turn a
+good deal better; and to the task of exposing and correcting that
+nonsense we vigorously applied ourselves during the remaining weeks of
+Lent. It is true that the same statesman had once declared himself "on
+the side of the Angels" in order to reassure the clergy, and had once
+dated a letter on "Maundy Thursday" in order to secure the High Church
+vote. Encouraged by these signs of grace, some of his followers mildly
+remonstrated against a Lenten dissolution and an Easter poll. But
+counsels which might have weighed with Mr. Disraeli, M.P. for Bucks (who
+had clerical constituents), were thrown away on Lord Beaconsfield, who
+had the Crown, Lords, and Commons on his side; and on the 24th of March
+the Parliament which he had dominated for six years was scattered to the
+winds.
+
+Electioneering in rural districts was pure joy. It was a delicious
+spring, bright and yet soft, and the beech-forests of the Chilterns were
+in early leafage.
+
+
+     "There is a rapturous movement, a green growing,
+       Among the hills and valleys once again,
+     And silent rivers of delight are flowing
+       Into the hearts of men.
+
+     "There is a purple weaving on the heather,
+       Night drops down starry gold upon the furze;
+     Wild rivers and wild birds sing songs together,
+       Dead Nature breathes and stirs."[30]
+
+
+In the spring of 1880, Nature had no monopoly of seasonable life.
+Humanity was up and doing. Calm people were roused to passion, and
+lethargic people to activity. There was hurrying and rushing and
+plotting and planning, and all the fierce but fascinating bustle of a
+great campaign. One hurried across the Vale from a Farmers' Ordinary,
+where one had been exposing Lord Beaconsfield's nonsense about the
+"Three Profits" of agricultural land, to a turbulent meeting in a chapel
+or a barn (for the use of the schoolroom was denied to the Liberal
+candidate). As we drove through the primrose-studded lanes, or past the
+village green, the bell was ringing from the grey tower of the Parish
+Church, and summoning the villagers to the daily Evensong of Holy Week.
+The contrast was too violent to be ignored; and yet, for a citizen who
+took his citizenship seriously, the meeting was an even more imperative
+duty than the service. Hostilities were suspended for Good Friday,
+Easter Even, and Easter Day, but on Easter Monday they broke out again
+with redoubled vigour; and, before the week was over, the Paschal
+Alleluias were blending strangely with pæans of victory over conquered
+foes. When even so grave and spiritually-minded a man as Dean Church
+wrote to a triumphant Gladstonian, "I don't wonder at your remembering
+the Song of Miriam," it is manifest that political fervour had reached a
+very unusual point.
+
+On the 2nd of April I was returned to Parliament, as colleague of Sir
+Nathaniel de Rothschild, in the representation of Aylesbury. We were the
+last Members for that ancient Borough, for, before the next General
+Election came round, it had been merged, by Redistribution, in Mid
+Bucks. The Liberal victory was overwhelming. Lord Beaconsfield, who had
+expected a very different result, resigned on the 18th of April, and
+Gladstone became Prime Minister for the second time. Truly his enemies
+had been made his footstool. On the 30th of April I took the oath and my
+seat in the House of Commons, and a fresh stage of life began.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[29] I must except from this general indictment the Rev. A. T. Lloyd,
+Vicar of Aylesbury in 1880, and afterwards Bishop of Newcastle. A strong
+Conservative, but eminently a Christian gentleman.
+
+[30] Archbishop Alexander.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+PARLIAMENT
+
+
+     "Still in the Senate, whatsoe'er we lack,
+     It is not genius;--call old giants back,
+     And men now living might as tall appear;
+     Judged by our sons, not us--_we_ stand too near.
+     Ne'er of the living can the living judge--
+     Too blind the affection, or too fresh the grudge."
+                       BULWER-LYTTON, _St. Stephen's_.
+
+
+"In old days it was the habit to think and say that the House of Commons
+was an essentially 'queer place,' which no one could understand until he
+was a Member of it. It may, perhaps, be doubted whether that somewhat
+mysterious quality still altogether attaches to that assembly. 'Our own
+Reporter' has invaded it in all its purlieus. No longer content with
+giving an account of the speeches of its members, he is not satisfied
+unless he describes their persons, their dress, and their characteristic
+mannerisms. He tells us how they dine, even the wines and dishes which
+they favour, and follows them into the very mysteries of their
+smoking-room. And yet there is perhaps a certain fine sense of the
+feelings, and opinions, and humours of this Assembly which cannot be
+acquired by hasty notions and necessarily superficial remarks, but must
+be the result of long and patient observation, and of that quick
+sympathy with human sentiment, in all its classes, which is involved in
+the possession of that inestimable quality styled tact.
+
+"When Endymion Ferrars first took his seat in the House of Commons, it
+still fully possessed its character of enigmatic tradition. For himself,
+Endymion entered the Chamber with a certain degree of awe, which, with
+use, diminished, but never entirely disappeared. The scene was one over
+which his boyhood even had long mused, and it was associated with all
+those traditions of genius, eloquence, and power that charm and inspire
+youth. His acquaintance with the forms and habits of the House was of
+great advantage to him, and restrained that excitement which dangerously
+accompanies us when we enter into a new life, and especially a life of
+such deep and thrilling interests and such large proportions."[31]
+
+I quote these words from a statesman who knew the House of Commons more
+thoroughly than anyone else has ever known it; and, though Lord
+Beaconsfield was describing the Parliament which assembled in August,
+1841, his description would fit, with scarcely the alteration of a word,
+the Parliament in which I took my seat in April, 1880.[32]
+
+The "acquaintance with the forms and habits of the House," which Lord
+Beaconsfield attributes to his favourite Endymion, was also mine; from
+my earliest years I had been familiar with every nook and corner of the
+Palace of Westminster. My father's official residence in Speaker's Court
+communicated by a private door with the corridors of the Palace, and my
+father's privilege as Sergeant-at-Arms enabled him to place me in, or
+under, the Gallery whenever there was a debate or a scene of special
+interest. I was early initiated into all the forms and ceremonies of
+the House; the manoeuvres of the mace, the obeisances to the Chair,
+the rap of "Black Rod" on the locked door, the daily procession of Mr.
+Speaker and his attendants (which Sir Henry Irving pronounced the most
+theatrically effective thing of its kind in our public life).
+
+The Sergeant-at-Arms has in his gift the appointment of all the
+doorkeepers, messengers, and attendants of the House; and, as my father
+was Sergeant from 1848 to 1875, the staff was almost exclusively
+composed of men who had been servants in our own or our friends'
+families. This circumstance was vividly brought home to me on the day on
+which I first entered the House. In the Members' Lobby I was greeted by
+a venerable-looking official who bowed, smiled, and said, when I shook
+hands with him, "Well, sir, I'm glad, indeed, to see you here; and, when
+I think that I helped to put both your grandfather and your grandmother
+into their coffins, it makes me feel quite at home with you."
+
+The first duty of a new House of Commons is to elect a Speaker, and on
+the 7th of April, 1880, we re-elected Mr. Henry Brand (afterwards Lord
+Hampden), who had been Speaker since 1872. Mr. Brand was a short man,
+but particularly well set up, and in his wig and gown he carried himself
+with a dignity which fully made up for the lack of inches. His voice was
+mellow, and his utterance slightly pompous, so that the lightest word
+which fell from his lips conveyed a sense of urbane majesty. He looked
+what he was, and what the traditions of the House required--a country
+gentleman of the highest type. One of the most noticeable traits was his
+complexion, fresh and rosy as a boy's. I well remember one day, after a
+stormy "all-night sitting," saying to his train-bearer, "The Speaker has
+borne it wonderfully. He looks as fresh as paint." Whereupon the
+train-bearer, a man of a depressed spirit, made answer, "Ah! sir, it's
+the Speaker's 'igh colour that deceives you. 'E'll 'ave that same 'igh
+colour when 'e's laid out in 'is coffin."
+
+The election of the Speaker having been duly accomplished, and the
+Members sworn in, the House adjourned till the 20th of May, then to meet
+for the despatch of business; and this may be a convenient point for a
+brief recapitulation of recent events.
+
+Lord Hartington (afterwards eighth Duke of Devonshire) had been, ever
+since the beginning of 1875, the recognized leader of the Liberal Party.
+But, when Gladstone re-entered the field as the foremost assailant of
+Lord Beaconsfield's policy, Lord Hartington's authority over his party
+was sensibly diminished. Indeed, it is not too much to say that he was
+brushed on one side, and that all the fervour and fighting power of the
+Liberal Party were sworn to Gladstone's standard.
+
+When the General Election of 1880 reached its close, everyone felt that
+Gladstone was now the real, though not the titular, leader of the
+Liberal Party, and the inevitable Prime Minister. Lord Beaconsfield did
+not wait for an adverse vote in the new House, but resigned on the 18th
+of April. We do not at present know, but no doubt we shall know when Mr.
+Monypenny's "Life" is completed, whether Queen Victoria consulted Lord
+Beaconsfield as to his successor. A friend of mine once asked the Queen
+this plain question: "When a Prime Minister goes out, does he recommend
+a successor?" And the Queen replied, with equal plainness, "Not unless I
+ask him to do so." There can, I think, be little doubt that Her Majesty,
+in April, 1880, asked Lord Beaconsfield's advice in this delicate
+matter, and we may presume that the advice was that Her Majesty should
+follow the constitutional practice, and send for Lord Hartington, as
+being the leader of the victorious party. This was done, and on the 22nd
+of April Lord Hartington waited on Her Majesty at Windsor, and was
+invited to form an Administration. Feeling in the Liberal Party ran very
+high. It was not for this that we had fought and won. If Gladstone did
+not become Prime Minister, our victory would be robbed of half its joy;
+and great was our jubilation when we learned that the task had been
+declined. As the precise nature of the transaction has often been
+misrepresented, it is as well to give it in Lord Hartington's own
+words--
+
+"The advice which Lord Hartington gave to the Queen from first to last
+was that Her Majesty should send for Mr. Gladstone, and consult him as
+to the formation of a Government; and that, if he should be willing to
+undertake the task, she should call upon him to form an Administration.
+
+"Lord Hartington had up to that time had no communication with Mr.
+Gladstone on the subject, and did not know what his views as to
+returning to office might be. With the Queen's permission, Lord
+Hartington, on his return from Windsor, informed Mr. Gladstone and Lord
+Granville, but no other person, of what had passed between Her Majesty
+and himself."
+
+The result of that interview was a foregone conclusion. If Lord
+Hartington consented to form an Administration, Gladstone would not take
+a place in it. If he was not to be Prime Minister, he must remain
+outside. Having put this point beyond the reach of doubt, Lord
+Hartington returned next day to Windsor, accompanied by Lord Granville,
+who led the Liberal Party in the House of Lords. They both assured the
+Queen that the victory was Gladstone's, and that the Liberal Party would
+be satisfied with no other Prime Minister. The two statesmen returned to
+London in the afternoon, and called on Gladstone. He was expecting them
+and the message which they brought. He went down to Windsor without an
+hour's delay, and that evening "kissed hands" as Prime Minister for the
+second time.
+
+This was the climax of his career. He had dethroned Lord Beaconsfield.
+He had vindicated the cause of humanity and freedom all over the world;
+and he had been recalled, by unanimous acclamation, to the task of
+governing the British Empire. On the 20th of May he met his twelfth
+Parliament, and the second in which he had been Chief Minister of the
+Crown. "At 4.15," he wrote in his diary, "I went down to the House with
+Herbert.[33] There was a great and fervent crowd in Palace Yard, and
+much feeling in the House. It almost overpowered me, as I thought by
+what deep and hidden agencies I have been brought into the midst of the
+vortex of political action and contention.... Looking calmly on the
+course of experience, I do believe that the Almighty has employed me for
+His purposes in a manner larger or more special than before, and has
+strengthened me and led me on accordingly, though I must not forget the
+admirable saying of Hooker, that even ministers of good things are like
+torches--a light to others, waste and destruction to themselves."
+
+The conviction so solemnly expressed by Gladstone was entertained by not
+a few of his followers. We felt that, _Deo adjuvante_, we had won a
+famous victory for the cause of Right; and, as a Party, we "stood on the
+top of golden hours." An overwhelming triumph after a desperate fight;
+an immense majority, in which internecine jealousies were, at least for
+the moment, happily composed; a leader of extraordinary powers and
+popularity; an administration of All the Talents; an attractive and
+practicable programme of Ministerial measures--these were some of the
+elements in a condition unusually prosperous and promising. But trained
+observers of political phenomena laid even greater stress on Gladstone's
+personal ascendancy over the House of Commons. Old and experienced
+Members of Parliament instructed the newcomer to watch carefully the
+methods of his leadership, because it was remarkable for its
+completeness, its dexterity, and the willing submission with which it
+was received.
+
+The pre-eminence of the Premier was, indeed, the most noteworthy feature
+which the new House presented to the student of Parliamentary life.
+Whether considered morally or intellectually, he seemed to tower a head
+and shoulders above his colleagues, and above the Front Opposition
+Bench. The leader of the Opposition was the amiable and accomplished Sir
+Stafford Northcote, afterwards Lord Iddesleigh, a
+
+
+                      "scrupulous, good man,
+     Who would not, with a peremptory tone,
+     Assert the nose upon his face his own."
+
+
+In his youth he had been Gladstone's Private Secretary, and he still
+seemed to tremble at his old chief's glance.
+
+But, when everything looked so fair and smiling, Speaker Brand quietly
+noted in his diary, that the Liberal Party "were not only strong, but
+determined to have their way in spite of Mr. Gladstone." And this
+determination to "have their way" was soon and startlingly manifested,
+and challenged the personal ascendancy of which we had heard so much.
+
+Charles Bradlaugh, a defiant Atheist, and the teacher of a social
+doctrine which decent people abhor, had been returned as one of the
+Members for Northampton. When the other Members were sworn, he claimed a
+right to affirm, which was disallowed on legal grounds. He thereupon
+proposed to take the oath in the ordinary way; the Tories objected, and
+the Speaker weakly gave way. The House, on a division, decided that
+Bradlaugh must neither affirm nor swear. In effect, it decreed that a
+duly elected Member was not to take his seat. On the 23rd of June,
+Bradlaugh came to the table of the House, and again claimed his right to
+take the oath. The Speaker read the Resolution of the House forbidding
+it. Thereupon Bradlaugh asked to be heard, and addressed the House from
+the Bar. I happened to be dining that night with Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone
+in Downing Street. Gladstone came in full of excitement, and pronounced
+Bradlaugh's speech "consummate." However, it availed nothing. Bradlaugh
+was ordered to withdraw from the House; refused, and was committed to a
+farcical imprisonment of two days in the Clock Tower; and so, as Lord
+Morley says, there "opened a series of incidents that went on as long as
+the Parliament, clouded the radiance of the Party triumph, threw the new
+Government at once into a minority, dimmed the ascendancy of the great
+Minister, and showed human nature at its worst." From the day when
+Bradlaugh's case was first mooted, it became apparent that the Liberal
+Party contained a good many men who had only the frailest hold on the
+primary principles of Liberalism, and who, under the pressure of social
+and theological prejudice, were quite ready to join the Tories in a
+tyrannical negation of Religious Liberty. Gladstone, though deserted and
+defeated by his own followers, maintained the righteous cause with a
+signal consistency and courage. There was no one in the world to whom
+Bradlaugh's special opinions could have been more abhorrent; but he
+felt--and we who followed him felt the same--that the cause of God and
+morality can never be served by the insolent refusal of a civil right.
+
+There is no need to recapitulate the story in all its stages, but one
+incident deserves commemoration. In April, 1883, Gladstone brought in an
+Affirmation Bill, permitting Members of Parliament (as witnesses in
+Law-Courts were already permitted) to affirm their allegiance instead of
+swearing it. On the 26th of April he moved the Second Reading of the
+Bill in the finest speech which I have ever heard. Under the existing
+system (which admitted Jews to Parliament, but excluded Atheists), to
+deny the existence of God was a fatal bar, but to deny the Christian
+Creed was no bar at all. This, as Gladstone contended, was a formal
+disparagement of Christianity, which was thereby relegated to a place of
+secondary importance. And then, on the general question of attaching
+civil penalties to religious misbelief, he uttered a passage which no
+one who heard it can forget. "Truth is the expression of the Divine
+Mind; and, however little our feeble vision may be able to discern the
+means by which God may provide for its preservation, we may leave the
+matter in His hands, and we may be sure that a firm and courageous
+application of every principle of equity and of justice is the best
+method we can adopt for the preservation and influence of Truth."
+
+The Bill was lost by a majority of three, recreant Liberals again
+helping to defeat the just claim of a man whom they disliked; and
+Bradlaugh did not take his seat until the new Parliament in 1886
+admitted, without a division, the right which the old Parliament had
+denied. Meanwhile, a few of us, actuated by the desperate hope of
+bringing the clergy to a right view of the controversy, printed
+Gladstone's speech as a pamphlet, and sent a copy, with a covering
+letter, to every beneficed clergyman in England, Scotland, and Ireland.
+One of the clergy thus addressed sent me the following reply, which has
+ever since been hoarded among my choicest treasures:
+
+
+                                                       June 16th, 1883.
+     MY DEAR SIR,
+
+     I have received your recommendation to read carefully the speech of
+     Mr. Gladstone in favour of admitting the infidel Bradlaugh into
+     Parliament. I did so, when it was delivered, and I must say that
+     the strength of argument rests with the Opposition. I fully expect,
+     in the event of a dissolution, the Government will lose between 50
+     and 60 seats.
+
+     Any conclusion can be arrived at, according to the premises laid
+     down. Mr. G. avoided the Scriptural lines and followed his own. All
+     parties knew the feeling of the country on the subject, and,
+     notwithstanding the bullying and majority of Gladstone, he was
+     defeated.
+
+     Before the Irish Church was robbed, I was nominated to the Deanery
+     of Tuam; but, Mr. Disraeli resigning, I was defrauded of my just
+     right by Mr. Gladstone, and my wife, Lady ---- ----, the only
+     surviving child of an Earl, was sadly disappointed, but there is a
+     just Judge above. The letter of nomination is still in my
+     possession.
+                   I am, dear Sir,
+                                Yours faithfully,
+                             ---- ----, D.D. and LL.D.
+
+
+One is often asked if Gladstone had any sense of humour. My simple and
+sufficient reply is that, when he had read this letter, he returned it
+to my hands with a knitted brow and flashing eyes, and this indignant
+question: "What does the fellow mean by quoting an engagement entered
+into by my predecessor as binding on me?"
+
+The good fortune, which had so signally attended Gladstone's campaign
+against Lord Beaconsfield, seemed to desert him as soon as the victory
+was won. The refusal of the House to follow his lead in Bradlaugh's case
+put heart of grace into his opponents, who saw thus early in the new
+Parliament a hopeful opening for vicious attack. The Front Opposition
+Bench, left to its own devices, would not have accomplished much, but it
+was splendidly reinforced by the Fourth Party--a Party of Four--Lord
+Randolph Churchill, Sir Henry Drummond-Wolff, Sir John Gorst, and Mr.
+Arthur Balfour. Some light has been cast by recent memoirs on the mutual
+relations of the Four; but beyond question the head and front of the
+Party was Lord Randolph. That ingenious man possessed a deadly knack of
+"drawing" Gladstone, as the boys say. He knew the great man's
+"vulnerable temper and impetuous moods,"[34] and delighted in exercising
+them. He pelted Gladstone with rebukes and taunts and gibes, and the
+recipient of these attentions "rose freely." There was something rather
+unpleasant in the spectacle of a man of thirty playing these tricks upon
+a man of seventy; but one could not deny that the tricks were extremely
+clever; and beyond doubt they did a vast deal to consolidate the
+performer's popularity out of doors. It is not too much to say that, by
+allowing himself to be drawn, Gladstone made Lord Randolph.
+
+The most formidable enemy of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons
+was Parnell; and, when he joined forces with the Fourth Party and their
+adherents, the conjunction was disastrous to Liberalism. He figures in
+Lord Morley's "Life" of Gladstone as a high-souled and amiable patriot.
+I always thought him entirely destitute of humane feeling, and a bitter
+enemy of England. I remember the late Lord Carlisle, then George Howard
+and Member for East Cumberland, gazing at Parnell across the House and
+quoting from _The Newcomes_--"The figure of this garçon is not
+agreeable. Of pale, he has become livid." A lady who met him in a
+country house wrote me this interesting account of him:
+
+"I cannot exaggerate the impression he made on me. I never before felt
+such power and magnetic force in any man. As for his eyes, if he looks
+at you, you can't look away, and, if he doesn't, you are wondering how
+soon he will look at you again. I'm afraid I have very little trust in
+his goodness--I should think it a very minus quantity; but I believe
+absolutely in his strength and his power of influence. I should be sorry
+if he were my enemy, for I think he would stop at nothing."
+
+At the General Election of 1880, Irish questions were completely in the
+background. The demand for Home Rule was not taken seriously, even by
+Mr. John Morley,[35] who stood unsuccessfully for Westminster. Ireland
+was politically tranquil, and the distress due to the failure of the
+crops had been alleviated by the combined action of Englishmen
+irrespective of party. But during the summer of 1880 it was found that
+the Irish landlords were evicting wholesale the tenants whom famine had
+impoverished. To provide compensation for these evicted tenants was the
+object of a well-meant but hastily drawn "Disturbance Bill," which the
+Government passed through the Commons. It was rejected by an
+overwhelming majority in the Lords, and the natural consequence of its
+rejection was seen in the ghastly record of outrage and murder which
+stained the following winter.
+
+The Session of 1881 opened on the 6th of January. The speech from the
+Throne announced two Irish Bills--one to reform the tenure of land, and
+one to repress crime and outrage. The combination was stigmatized by Mr.
+T. P. O'Connor as "weak reform and strong coercion"; and the same
+vivacious orator, alluding to Mr. Chamberlain's supposed sympathy with
+the Irish cause, taunted the Right Honourable gentleman with having had
+"if not the courage of his convictions, at least the silence of his
+shame."
+
+The debate on the Address in the Commons lasted eleven nights, the
+Irish Members moving endless amendments, with the avowed object of
+delaying the Coercion Bill, which was eventually brought in by Forster
+on the 24th January. The gist of the Bill was arrest on suspicion and
+imprisonment without trial. The Irish Members fought it tooth and nail,
+and were defied by Gladstone in a speech of unusual fire. "With fatal
+and painful precision," he exclaimed, "the steps of crime dogged the
+steps of the Land League; and it is not possible to get rid of facts
+such as I have stated, by vague and general complaints, by imputations
+against parties, imputations against England, or imputations against
+Government. You must meet them, and confute them, if you can. None will
+rejoice more than myself if you can attain such an end. But in the
+meantime they stand, and they stand uncontradicted, in the face of the
+British House of Commons." The speech in which this tremendous
+indictment was delivered attracted loud cheers from Liberals and
+Conservatives alike, but stirred the Irish to fury. I remember Mr.
+O'Connor saying to me, "If only Gladstone had been in opposition, how he
+would have enjoyed tearing into shreds the statistics which he has just
+quoted!" The resistance to the Bill became impassioned. The House sat
+continuously from the afternoon of January 31st to the forenoon of
+February 2nd. Members were divided, like miners, into Day-Shifts and
+Night-Shifts. The Refreshment-Rooms at the House were kept open all
+night, and we recruited our exhausted energies with grilled bones,
+oysters, and champagne, and went to bed at breakfast-time. At 9.30 on
+Wednesday morning, February 2nd, Mr. Speaker Brand, who had been absent
+from the House for some hours, suddenly resumed the Chair, and, without
+waiting for J. G. Biggar to finish his speech, put the question that
+leave be given to bring in the Coercion Bill. The Irish raved and
+stormed, and cried out against the Speaker's action as "a Breach of
+Privilege." That it was not; but it was an unexpected and a salutary
+revolution. When questioned, later in the day, as to the authority on
+which he had acted, the Speaker said, "I acted on my own responsibility,
+and from a sense of my duty to the House." Thus was established,
+summarily and under unprecedented circumstances, that principle of
+Closure which has since developed into an indispensable feature of
+Parliamentary procedure.
+
+The Session as a whole was extremely dull. The Irish Land Bill was so
+complicated that, according to common report, only three persons in the
+House understood it, and they were Gladstone, the Irish Chancellor,[36]
+and Mr. T. M. Healy. The only amusing incident was that on the 16th of
+June, owing to the attendance of Liberal Members at Ascot Races, the
+majority on a critical division fell to twenty-five. Having occupied the
+whole Session, the Bill was so mangled by the House of Lords that the
+best part of another year had to be spent on mending it. Meanwhile, the
+Coercion Bill proved, in working, a total failure. Forster had averred
+that the police knew the "Village Ruffians" who incited to crime, and
+that, if only he were empowered to imprison them without trial, outrages
+would cease. But either he did not lay hold of the right men, or else
+imprisonment had no terrors; for all through the autumn and winter of
+1881 agrarian crimes increased with terrible rapidity. In a fit of
+desperation, Forster cast Parnell into prison, and Gladstone announced
+the feat amid the tumultuous applause of the Guildhall. But things only
+went from bad to worse, and soon there were forty agrarian murders
+unpunished. Having imprisoned Parnell without trial, and kept him in
+prison for six months, the Government now determined to release him, in
+the hope, for certainly there was no assurance, that he would behave
+like a repentant child who has been locked up in a dark cupboard, and
+would use his influence to restore order in Ireland. Dissenting, as well
+he might, from this policy, Forster resigned. His resignation was
+announced on the 2nd of May. That evening I met Gladstone at a party,
+and, in answer to an anxious friend, he said: "The state of Ireland is
+very greatly improved." Ardent Liberals on both sides of the Channel
+shared this sanguine faith, but they were doomed to a cruel
+disappointment. On the 6th of May, the Queen performed the public
+ceremony of dedicating Epping Forest, then lately rescued from
+depredation, to the service of the public. It was a forward spring; the
+day was bright, and the forest looked more beautiful than anything that
+Doré ever painted. I was standing in the space reserved for the House of
+Commons, by W. H. O'Sullivan, M.P. for the County of Limerick. He was an
+ardent Nationalist, but recent events had touched his heart, and he
+overflowed with friendly feeling. "This is a fine sight," he said to
+me, "but, please God, we shall yet see something like it in Ireland. We
+have entered at last upon the right path. You will hear no more of the
+Irish difficulty." Within an hour of the time at which he spoke, the
+newly-appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland--the gallant and high-minded
+Lord Frederick Cavendish--and the Under Secretary, Mr. Burke, were
+stabbed to death in the Phoenix Park at Dublin, and the "Irish
+difficulty" entered on the acutest phase which it has ever known.
+
+At that time Lord Northbrook was First Lord of the Admiralty, and on
+Saturday evening, the 6th of May, he gave a party at his official
+residence. The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh were among the guests, and
+there was some music after dinner. In the middle of the performance, I
+noticed a slight commotion, and saw a friend leading Mrs. Gladstone out
+of the room. The incident attracted attention, and people began to
+whisper that Gladstone, who was not at the party, must have been taken
+suddenly ill. While we were all wondering and guessing, a waiter leaned
+across the buffet in the tea-room, and said to me, "Lord Frederick
+Cavendish has been murdered in Dublin. I am a Messenger at the Home
+Office, and we heard it by telegram this evening." In an incredibly
+short time the ghastly news spread from room to room, and the guests
+trooped out in speechless horror. That night brought a condition more
+like delirium than repose. One felt as though Hell had opened her mouth,
+and the Powers of Darkness had been let loose. Next day London was like
+a city of the dead, and by Monday all England was in mourning. Sir
+Wilfrid Lawson thus described that awful Sunday: "The effect was
+horrifying--almost stupefying. No one who walked in the streets of
+London that day can ever forget the sort of ghastly depression which
+seemed to affect everyone. Perfect strangers seemed disposed to speak in
+sympathizing, horror-stricken words with those whom they met. In short,
+there was a moral gloom which could be felt over the whole place."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[31] Lord Beaconsfield. _Endymion._
+
+[32] The following incident may be worth recording for the information
+of such as are interested in the antiquities of Parliament. I first took
+my seat on the highest bench above and behind the Treasury Bench, under
+the shadow of the Gallery. A few days later, an old Parliamentarian said
+to me, "That's quite the wrong place for you. That belongs to ancient
+Privy Councillors, and they sit there because, if any difficulty arises,
+the Minister in charge of the business can consult them, without being
+observed by everyone in the House." That was the tradition in 1880, but
+it has long since died out.
+
+[33] Afterwards Lord Gladstone.
+
+[34] Gladstone's own phrase.
+
+[35] Afterwards Lord Morley of Blackburn.
+
+[36] The Right Hon. Hugh Law.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+POLITICS
+
+
+     "Ne'er to these chambers, where the mighty rest,
+     Since their foundation came a nobler guest;
+     Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss conveyed
+     A fairer spirit, or more welcome shade."
+                 T. TICKELL, _On the death of Mr. Addison_.
+
+
+Lord Frederick Cavendish was laid to rest with his forefathers at
+Edensor, near Chatsworth, on the 11th of May, 1882--and on the evening
+of that day the Home Secretary, Sir William Harcourt, brought in a
+"Prevention of Crimes Bill" for Ireland, designed to supersede the
+Coercion Act which had proved such a dismal failure. The new Bill
+provided for the creation of special tribunals composed of Judges of the
+Superior Courts, who could sit without juries; and gave the police the
+right of search at any time in proclaimed districts, and authorized them
+to arrest any persons unable to give an account of themselves. The Bill
+was succinctly described as "Martial Law in a Wig," and, as such, it
+was exactly adapted to the needs of a country in which social war had
+raged unchecked for two years. The murderous conspiracy died hard, but
+experience soon justified those who had maintained that, as soon as a
+proper tribunal was constituted, evidence would be forthcoming. The Act
+was courageously administered by Lord Spencer and Sir George Trevelyan,
+under circumstances of personal and political peril which the present
+generation can hardly realize. In less than two years the murderers of
+Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke had been hanged; the conspiracy
+which organized the murders had been broken up; and social order was
+permanently re-established.
+
+Such were the excellent effects of the Crimes Act of 1882, and annalists
+treating of this period have commonly said that the Act was due to the
+murders in the Phoenix Park. Some years ago Lord James of Hereford,
+who, as Attorney-General, had been closely associated with these events,
+placed in my hands a written statement of the circumstances in which the
+Act originated, and begged that, if possible, the truth of the matter
+might be made known. This may be a convenient opportunity for giving his
+testimony.
+
+"The Bill of 1882 was designed, and on the stocks, during the month of
+April. I saw F. Cavendish as to some of its details almost immediately
+before his starting for Ireland. As Chief Secretary, he discussed with
+me the provisions the Bill should contain. On Sunday, May 7, 1882, when
+the news of F. Cavendish's murder became known, I went to see Harcourt.
+He begged me to see that the drawing of the Bill was hastened on. About
+2 o'clock I went to the Irish Office, and found the Irish
+Attorney-General hard at work on the Bill. The first draft of it was
+then in print. No doubt F. Cavendish's death tended to affect the
+subsequent framing of the Bill. Harcourt came upon the scenes. T---- and
+J---- were called to the assistance of the Irish draftsmen, and no doubt
+the Bill was rendered stronger in consequence of the events of May 6.
+
+"I also well remember the change of front about the power of Search. The
+Irish Members in the most determined manner fought against the creation
+of this power.... Harcourt, who had charge of the Bill, would listen to
+none of these arguments, but Mr. Gladstone was much moved by them. There
+was almost a crisis produced in consequence of this disagreement; but
+Harcourt gave way, and the concession was announced."
+
+It is not my purpose in these chapters to speak about my own
+performances in Parliament, but the foregoing allusion to the concession
+on the Right of Search tempts me to a personal confession. In the Bill,
+as brought in, there was a most salutary provision giving the police the
+right to search houses in which murders were believed to be plotted.
+After making us vote for this clause three times--on the First Reading,
+on the Second Reading, and in Committee--the Government, as we have just
+seen, yielded to clamour, and proposed on Report to alter the clause by
+limiting the Right of Search to day-time. I opposed this alteration, as
+providing a "close time for murder," and had the satisfaction of helping
+to defeat the Government. The Big-Wigs of the Party were extremely
+angry, and Mr. R. H. Hutton, in _The Spectator_, rebuked us in his most
+grandmotherly style. In reply, I quoted some words of his own. "There is
+nothing which injures true Liberalism more than the sympathy of its left
+wing with the loose ruffianism of unsettled States." "Such a State," I
+said, "is Ireland; and if, under the pressure of extraordinary
+difficulties, Ministers vacillate or waver in their dealings with it,
+the truest Liberalism, I believe, is that which holds them firmly to
+their duty."
+
+In that sad Session of 1882 the troubles of the Government "came not
+single spies, but in battalions," and the most enduring of those
+troubles arose in Egypt. For the benefit of a younger generation, let me
+recall the circumstances.
+
+Ismail Pasha, the ruler of Egypt, had accumulated a national debt of
+about £100,000,000, and the pressure on the wretched peasants who had to
+pay was crushing. Presently they broke out in revolt, partly with the
+hope of shaking off this burden, and partly with a view to establishing
+some sort of self-government. But the financiers who had lent money to
+Egypt took fright, and urged the Government to interfere and suppress
+the insurrection. A meeting of Tories was held in London on June 29th
+and the Tory Leaders made the most inflammatory speeches. Unhappily, the
+Government yielded to this show of violence. It was said by a close
+observer of Parliamentary institutions that "When the Government of the
+day and the Opposition of the day take the same side, one may be almost
+sure that some great wrong is at hand," and so it was now. On July 10th
+our fleet bombarded Alexandria, smashing its rotten forts with the
+utmost ease, and killing plenty of Egyptians. I remember to this day the
+sense of shame with which I read our Admiral's telegraphic despatch:
+"Enemy's fire weak and ineffectual."
+
+The protest delivered on the following day, by Sir Wilfrid Lawson, the
+most consistent and the most disinterested politician whom I ever knew,
+deserves to be remembered.
+
+"I say deliberately, and in doing so I challenge either Tory or Liberal
+to contradict me, that no Tory Government could have done what the
+Liberal Government did yesterday in bombarding those forts. If such a
+thing had been proposed, what would have happened? We should have had
+Sir William Harcourt stumping the country, and denouncing Government by
+Ultimatum. We should have had Lord Hartington coming down, and moving a
+Resolution condemning these proceedings being taken behind the back of
+Parliament. We should have had Mr. Chamberlain summoning the Caucuses.
+We should have had Mr. Bright declaiming in the Town Hall of Birmingham
+against the wicked Tory Government; and as for Mr. Gladstone, we all
+know that there would not have been a railway-train, passing a roadside
+station, that he would not have pulled up at, to proclaim
+non-intervention as the duty of the Government."
+
+On the 12th of July John Bright retired from the Government, as a
+protest against the bombardment, and made a short speech full of solemn
+dignity. "I asked my calm judgment and my conscience what was the path I
+ought to take. They pointed it out to me, as I think, with an unerring
+finger, and I am humbly endeavouring to follow it."
+
+But it was too late. The mischief was done, and has not been undone to
+this day. I remember Mr. Chamberlain saying to me: "Well, I confess I
+was tired of having England kicked about all over the world. I never
+condemned the Tory Government for going to war; only for going to war on
+the wrong side." It was a characteristic saying; but this amazing lapse
+into naked jingoism spread wonder and indignation through the Liberal
+Party, and shook the faith of many who, down to that time, had regarded
+Gladstone as a sworn servant of Peace. The Egyptian policy of 1882 must,
+I fear, always remain the blot on Gladstone's scutcheon; and three
+years later he gave away the whole case for intervention, and threw the
+blame on his predecessors in office. In his Address to the Electors of
+Midlothian before the General Election of 1885 he used the following
+words: "We have, according to my conviction from the very first (when
+the question was not within the sphere of Party contentions), committed
+by our intervention in Egypt a grave political error, and the
+consequence which the Providential order commonly allots to such error
+is not compensation, but retribution."
+
+But, though Providence eventually allotted "retribution" to our crimes
+and follies in Egypt, and though they were always unpopular with the
+Liberal Party out of doors, it was curious to observe that the position
+of the Government in the House of Commons was stronger at the end of
+1882 than it was at the beginning. That this was so was due, I think, in
+part to the fact that for the moment we were victorious in Egypt,[37]
+and in part to admiration for the vigour with which Lord Spencer was
+fighting the murderous conspiracy in Ireland. The Government enjoyed the
+dangerous praise of the Opposition; obstruction collapsed; and some new
+Rules of Procedure were carried by overwhelming majorities. Here let me
+interpolate an anecdote. Mr. M---- L---- was a barrister, an obsequious
+supporter of the Government, and, as was generally surmised, on the
+lookout for preferment. Mr. Philip Callan, M.P. for County Louth, was
+speaking on an amendment to one of the new Rules, and Mr. M---- L----
+thrice tried to call him to order on the ground of irrelevancy. Each
+time, the Chairman of Committee ruled that, though the Honourable Member
+for Louth was certainly taking a wide sweep, he was not out of order.
+Rising the third time from the seat Callan said: "I may as well take the
+opportunity of giving notice that I propose to move the insertion of a
+new Standing Order, which will read as follows: 'Any Hon. Member who
+three times unsuccessfully calls another Hon. Member to order, shall be
+ineligible for a County Court Judgeship.'" Mr. M---- L---- looked coy,
+and everyone else shouted with glee.
+
+The Session of 1883 opened very quietly. The speech from the Throne
+extolled the success of the Ministerial policy in Ireland and Egypt, and
+promised a series of useful but not exciting measures. Meanwhile the
+more active Members of the Liberal Party, among whom I presumed to
+reckon myself, began to agitate for more substantial reforms. We had
+entered on the fourth Session of the Parliament. A noble majority was
+beginning to decline, and we felt that there was no time to lose if we
+were to secure the ends which we desired. Knowing that I felt keenly on
+these subjects, Mr. T. H. S. Escott, then Editor of the _Fortnightly_,
+asked me to write an article for his Review, and in that article I spoke
+my mind about the Agricultural Labourers' Suffrage, the Game Laws, the
+reform of the City of London, and an English Land Bill. "The action of
+the Peers," I said, "under Lord Salisbury's guidance will probably force
+on the question of a Second Chamber, and those who flatter themselves
+that the Liberal Party will shrink from discussing it will be grievously
+disillusioned. Disestablishment, begun in Ireland, will inevitably work
+round, by Scotland, to England. And who is to preside over these
+changes?"
+
+I returned to the charge in the June number of the _Nineteenth Century_,
+and urged my points more strongly. I pleaded for social reform, and for
+"a Free Church in a Free State." I crossed swords with a noble Lord who
+had pronounced dogmatically that "A Second Chamber is absolutely
+necessary." I gave my reasons for thinking that now-a-days there is very
+little danger of hasty and ill-considered legislation, and I pointed out
+that, when this danger disappears, the reason for a Second Chamber
+disappears with it. "But," I said, "granting, for the sake of argument,
+that something of this danger still survives, would it not be fully met
+by limiting the power of the Lords to a Veto for a year on a measure
+passed by the Commons?"
+
+These articles, coupled with my speeches in the House and in my
+constituency, gave dire offence to the Whigs; and I was chastened with
+rebukes which, if not weighty, were at any rate ponderous. "Not this
+way," wrote the _St. James's Gazette_, in a humorous apostrophe, "not
+this way, O Junior Member for Aylesbury, lies the road to the Treasury
+Bench," and so, indeed, it seemed. But, on returning from an evening
+party at Sir Matthew Ridley's, on the 5th of June, 1883, I found a
+letter from Mr. Gladstone, offering me the post of Parliamentary
+Secretary to the Local Government Board. One sentence of that letter I
+may be allowed to quote:
+
+"Your name, and the recollections it suggests, add much to the
+satisfaction which, independently of relationship, I should have felt in
+submitting to you this request." It was like Gladstone's courtesy to
+call his offer a "request."
+
+Thus I became harnessed to the machine of Government, and my friends,
+inside the House and out of it, were extremely kind about the
+appointment. Nearly everyone who wrote to congratulate me used the same
+image: "You have now set your foot on the bottom rung of the ladder."
+But my staunch friend George Trevelyan handled the matter more
+poetically, in the following stanza:
+
+
+     "As long as a plank can float, or a bolt can hold together,
+       When the sea is smooth as glass, or the waves run mountains high,
+     In the brightest of summer skies, or the blackest of dirty weather,
+       Wherever the ship swims, there swim I."
+
+
+The part of "the ship" to which I was now fastened was certainly not the
+most exalted or exciting of the public offices. The estimation in which
+it was held in official circles is aptly illustrated by a pleasantry of
+that eminent Civil Servant, Sir Algernon West. When the Revised Version
+of the New Testament appeared, Gladstone asked Sir Algernon (who had
+begun life in the Treasury), if he thought it as good as the Authorized
+Version. "Certainly not," was the reply. "It is so painfully lacking in
+dignity." Gladstone, always delighted to hear an innovation censured
+(unless he himself had made it), asked for an illustration. "Well," said
+West, "look at the Second Chapter of St. Luke. _There went out a decree
+from Cæsar Augustus that all the world should be taxed._ Now that always
+struck me as a sublime conception--a tax levied on the whole world by a
+stroke of the pen--an act worthy of an Imperial Treasury. But I turn to
+the Revised Version, and what do I read? _That all the world should be
+enrolled_--a census--the sort of thing the Local Government Board could
+do. That instance, to my mind, settles the question between Old and
+New."
+
+But in the office thus contemned by the Paladins of the Treasury, there
+was plenty of interesting though little-observed work. In the autumn of
+1883 I undertook, in conjunction with the President of the Board, a
+mission of enquiry into the worst slums in London. There is no need to
+recapitulate here all the horrors we encountered, for they can be read
+in the evidence given before the Royal Commission on the Housing of the
+Poor which was appointed in the following year; but one incident made a
+peculiar impression on my mind. The Sanitary Officer reported some
+underground dwellings in Spitalfields as being perhaps the worst
+specimens of human habitation which we should find, and he offered to be
+my guide. I entered a cellar-like room in a basement, which, till one's
+eyes got used to the dimness, seemed pitch-dark. I felt, rather than
+saw, the presence of a woman, and, when we began to talk, I discerned by
+her voice that she was not a Londoner. "No, sir," she replied, "I come
+from Wantage, in Berkshire." Having always heard of Wantage as a kind of
+Earthly Paradise, where the Church, the Sisterhood, and the "Great
+House" combined to produce the millennium, I said, involuntarily, "How
+you must wish to be back there!" "Back at Wantage!" exclaimed the Lady
+of the Cellar. "No, indeed, sir. This is a poor place, but it's better
+than Wantage." It was instructive to find this love of freedom, and
+resentment of interference, in the bowels of the earth of Spitalfields.
+
+An incident which helps to illustrate Gladstone's personal ascendancy
+belongs to this period. Those were the days of agitation for and
+against a Channel Tunnel, eagerly promoted by speculative tunnel-makers,
+and resolutely opposed by Mr. Chamberlain, then President of the Board
+of Trade. Gladstone, when asked if he was for or against the Tunnel,
+said very characteristically, "I am not so much in favour of the Tunnel,
+as opposed to the opponents of it"; and this of course meant that he was
+really in favour of it. About this time I met him at dinner, and after
+the ladies had gone, I think we were eight men round the table.
+Gladstone began praising the Tunnel; one of the hearers echoed him, and
+the rest of us were silent. Looking round triumphantly, Gladstone said,
+"Ah, this is capital! Here we are--eight sensible men--and all in favour
+of the Tunnel." Knowing that several of us were against the Tunnel, I
+challenged a division and collected the votes. Excepting Gladstone and
+his echo, we all were anti-tunnelites, and yet none of us would have had
+the hardihood to say so.
+
+In this year--1883--Gladstone's Government had regained some portion of
+the popularity and success which they had lost; but when the year ran
+out, their success was palpably on the wane, and their popularity of
+course waned with it. The endless contradictions and perplexities,
+crimes and follies, of our Egyptian policy became too obvious to be
+concealed or palliated, and at the beginning of 1884 the Government
+resolved on their crowning and fatal blunder. On the 18th of January,
+Lord Hartington (Secretary of State for War), Lord Granville, Lord
+Northbrook, and Sir Charles Dilke had an interview with General Gordon,
+and determined that he should be sent to evacuate the Soudan. Gladstone
+assented, and Gordon started that evening on his ill-starred errand. In
+view of subsequent events, it is worth recording that there were some
+Liberals who, from the moment they heard of it, condemned the
+undertaking. The dithyrambics of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ drew from
+William Cory[38] the following protest:
+
+
+                                                     "January 21, 1884.
+
+     "It's really ludicrous--the P. M. G. professing a clearly
+     suprarational faith in an elderly Engineer, saying that he will
+     cook the goose if no one interferes with him ... as if he could go
+     to Suakim, 'summon' a barbarous potentate, make him supply his
+     escort to Khartoum, and, when at Khartoum, issue edicts right and
+     left; as if he could act without subaltern officers, money, stores,
+     gold, etc.; as if he were an _homme drapeau_, and had an old army
+     out there ready to troop round him, as the French veterans round
+     Bonaparte at Fréjus."
+
+
+In Parliament, the principal work of 1884 was to extend the
+Parliamentary Franchise to the Agricultural Labourer. A Tory Member said
+in debate that the labourers were no more fit to have the franchise than
+the beasts they tended; and Lord Goschen, who had remained outside the
+Cabinet of 1880 sooner than be party to giving them the vote, used to
+say to the end of his life that, if the Union were ever destroyed, it
+would be by the agricultural labourers. I, however, who had lived among
+them all my life and knew that they were at least as fit for political
+responsibility as the artisans, threw myself with ardour into the
+advocacy of their cause. (By the way, my speech of the Second Reading of
+the Franchise Bill was answered by the present Speaker[39] in his maiden
+speech.) All through the summer the battle raged. The Lords did not
+refuse to pass the Bill, but said that, before they passed it, they must
+see the accompanying scheme of Redistribution. It was not a very
+unreasonable demand, but Gladstone denounced it as an unheard-of
+usurpation. We all took our cue from him, and vowed that we would smash
+the House of Lords into atoms before we consented to this insolent
+claim. Throughout the Parliamentary recess, the voices of protest
+resounded from every Liberal platform, and even so lethargic a
+politician as Lord Hartington harangued a huge gathering in the Park at
+Chatsworth. Everything wore the appearance of a constitutional crisis.
+Queen Victoria, as we now know, was seriously perturbed, and did her
+utmost to avert a rupture between Lords and Commons. But still we
+persisted in our outcry. The Lords must pass the Franchise Bill without
+conditions, and when it was law, we would discuss Redistribution. A new
+Session began on 23rd of October. The Franchise Bill was brought in
+again, passed, and sent up to the Lords. At first the Lords seemed
+resolved to insist on their terms; then they wavered; and then again
+they hardened their hearts. Lord Salisbury reported that they would not
+let the Franchise Bill through till they got the Redistribution Bill
+from the Commons. Meanwhile, all sorts of mysterious negotiations were
+going on between the "moderate" men on both sides; and it was known that
+Gladstone dared not dissolve on the old franchise, as he was sure to be
+beaten in the Boroughs. His only hope was in the agricultural
+labourers. Then, acting under pressure which is not known but can be
+easily guessed, he suddenly announced, on the 17th of November, that he
+was prepared to introduce the Redistribution Bill before the Lords went
+into Committee on the Franchise Bill. It was the point for which the
+Tories had been contending all along, and by conceding it, Gladstone
+made an absolute surrender. All the sound and fury of the last six
+months had been expended in protesting that we could never do what now
+we meekly did. It was the beginning of troubles which have lasted to
+this day. The House of Lords learned the welcome lesson that, when the
+Liberal Party railed, they only had to sit still; and the lesson learnt
+in 1884 was applied in each succeeding crisis down to August 1911. It
+has always been to me an amazing instance of Gladstone's powers of
+self-deception that to the end of his life he spoke of this pernicious
+surrender as a signal victory.
+
+
+Early in 1885, it became my duty to receive at the Local Government
+Board a deputation of the Unemployed, who then were beginning to agitate
+the habitual calm of the well-fed and the easy-going. It was a curious
+experience. The deputation consisted of respectable-looking and
+apparently earnest men, some of whom spoke the language of _Alton
+Locke_, while others talked in a more modern strain of dynamite, Secret
+Societies, and "a life for a life." The most conspicuous figure in the
+deputation was an engineer called John Burns,[40] and those who are
+interested in political development may find something to their mind in
+the report of the deputation in _The Times_ of February 17th, 1885.
+There they will read that, after leaving Whitehall, the crowd adjourned
+to the Embankment, where the following resolution was carried, and
+despatched to the President of the Local Government Board:
+
+
+     "That this meeting of the unemployed, having heard the answer given
+     by the Local Government Board to their deputation, considers the
+     refusal to start public works to be a sentence of death on
+     thousands of those out of work, and the recommendation to bring
+     pressure to bear on the local bodies to be a direct incitement to
+     violence; further, it will hold Mr. G. W. E. Russell and the
+     members of the Government, individually and collectively, guilty of
+     the murder of those who may die in the next few weeks, and whose
+     lives would have been saved had the suggestion of the deputation
+     been acted on.
+
+     (Signed)        JOHN BURNS, _Engineer_.
+                     JOHN E. WILLIAMS, _Labourer_.
+                     WILLIAM HENRY, _Foreman_.
+                     JAMES MACDONALD, _Tailor_."
+
+
+The threats with which the leaders of the Unemployed regaled us derived
+a pleasing actuality from the fact that on the 24th of January
+simultaneous explosions had occurred at the Tower and in the House of
+Commons. I did not see the destruction at the Tower, but I went straight
+across from my office to the House of Commons, and saw a curious
+object-lesson in scientific Fenianism. In Westminster Hall there was a
+hole in the pavement six feet wide, and another in the roof. I had
+scarcely done examining these phenomena when another crash shook the
+whole building, and we found that an infernal machine had been exploded
+in the House of Commons, tearing the doors off their hinges, wrecking
+the galleries, and smashing the Treasury Bench into matchwood. The
+French Ambassador, M. Waddington, entered the House with me, and for a
+while stood silent and amazed. At length he said, "There's no other
+country in the world where this could happen." Certainly it must be
+admitted that at that moment our detective organization was not at its
+best.
+
+However, neither mock-heroics nor actual outrage could obscure the fact
+that during the spring of 1885 there Was an immense amount of
+unemployment, and consequent suffering, among the unskilled labourers. I
+suggested that we should issue from the Local Government Board a
+Circular Letter to all the Local Authorities in London, asking them, not
+to invent work, but to push forward works which, owing to the rapid
+extension of London into the suburbs, were becoming absolutely
+necessary. But the President of the Board, a bond slave of Political
+Economy, would not sanction even this very mild departure from the
+precepts of the Dismal Science. The distress was peculiarly acute at the
+Docks, where work is precarious and uncertain in the highest degree.
+Some well-meaning people at the West End instituted a plan of "Free
+Breakfasts" to be served at the Dock-Gates to men who had failed to
+obtain employment for the day. On one of these occasions--and very
+pathetic they were--I was the host, and the _Saturday Review_ treated me
+to some not unkindly ridicule.
+
+
+     Child of the Whigs whose name you flout,
+       Slip of the tree you fain would fell;
+     Your colleagues own, I cannot doubt,
+       Your plan, George Russell, likes them well,
+     "What will regain," you heard them cry,
+       "That popular praise we once enjoyed?"
+     And instant was your smart reply,
+       "Free Breakfasts to the Unemployed."
+
+
+And then, after six more verses of rhythmical chaff, this prophetic
+stanza:
+
+
+     And howsoe'er profusely flow
+       The tea and coffee round the board,
+     The hospitality you show
+       Shall nowise lack its due reward.
+     For soon, I trust, our turn 'twill be,
+       With joy by no regret alloyed,
+     To give the present Ministry
+       A Breakfast for the Unemployed.
+
+
+The Parliamentary work of 1885 was Redistribution. The principles had
+been settled in secret conclave by the leaders on both sides; but the
+details were exhaustively discussed in the House of Commons. By this
+time we had become inured to Tory votes of censure on our Egyptian
+policy, and had always contrived to escape by the skin of our teeth;
+but we were in a disturbed and uneasy condition. We knew--for there was
+an incessant leakage of official secrets--that the Cabinet was rent by
+acute dissensions. The Whiggish section was in favour of renewing the
+Irish Crimes Act. The Radicals wished to let it expire, and proposed to
+conciliate Ireland by a scheme of National Councils. Between the middle
+of April and the middle of May, nine members of the Cabinet, for one
+cause or another, contemplated resignation. After one of these disputes
+Gladstone said to a friend: "A very fair Cabinet to-day--only three
+resignations." Six months later, after his Government had fallen, he
+wrote: "A Cabinet does not exist out of office, and no one in his senses
+could covenant to call _the late Cabinet_ together." The solution of
+these difficulties came unexpectedly. The Budget introduced by Hugh
+Childers on the 30th of April proposed to meet a deficit by additional
+duties on beer and spirits; and was therefore extremely unpopular.
+Silently and skilfully, the Tories, the Irish, and the disaffected
+Liberals laid their plans. On Sunday, June 7th, Lord Henry Lennox--a
+leading Tory--told me at luncheon that we were to be turned out on the
+following day, and so, sure enough, we were, on an amendment to the
+Budget moved by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach.[41] It was thought at the time
+that the Liberal wirepullers welcomed this defeat, as a way out of
+difficulties. Certainly no strenuous efforts were made to avert it. The
+scene in the House when the fatal figures were announced has been often
+described, and in my mind's eye I see clearly the image of Lord Randolph
+Churchill, dancing a kind of triumphant hornpipe on the bench which for
+five momentous years had been the seat of the Fourth Party. On the 24th
+of June Lord Salisbury became Prime Minister for the first time.
+
+The break-up of the Government revealed to all the world the fact that
+the Liberal Party was cleft in twain. The Whig section was led by Lord
+Hartington, and the Radical section by Mr. Chamberlain. Gladstone did
+his best to mediate between the two, and so to present an unbroken front
+to the common foe. But the parting of the ways soon became painfully
+apparent. The fall of the Government involved, of course, the return of
+Lord Spencer from Ireland, and some of his friends resolved, after the
+manner of admiring Englishmen, to give him a public dinner. The current
+phrase was that we were to "Dine Spencer for coercing the Irish." As he
+had done that thoroughly for the space of three years, and, at the risk
+of his own life, had destroyed a treasonable and murderous conspiracy,
+he was well entitled to all the honours which we could give him. So it
+was arranged that the dinner was to take place at the Westminster Palace
+Hotel on the 24th of July. Shortly before the day arrived, Mr.
+Chamberlain said to me: "I think you had better not attend that dinner
+to Spencer. I am not going, nor is D----. Certainly Spencer has done his
+duty, and shown capital pluck; but I hope we should all have done the
+same, and there's no reason to mark it by a dinner. And, after all,
+coercion is not a nice business for Liberals, though we may be forced
+into it." However, as I had greatly admired Lord Spencer's
+administration, and as his family and mine had been politically
+associated for a century, I made a point of attending, and a capital
+evening we had. There was an enthusiastic and representative company of
+two hundred Liberals. Lord Hartington presided, and extolled Lord
+Spencer to the skies; and Lord Spencer justified the Crimes Act by
+saying that, when it was passed, there was an organization of thirty
+thousand Fenians, aided by branches in Scotland and England, and by
+funds from America, defying the law of the land in Ireland. Not a word
+in all this about Home Rule, or the Union of Hearts, but we cheered it
+to the echo, little dreaming what the next six months had in store for
+us.
+
+Though I was thoroughly in favour of resolute dealing with murder and
+outrage, I was also--and this was a combination which sorely puzzled
+_The Spectator_--an enthusiastic Radical, and specially keen on the side
+of social reform. My views on domestic politics were substantially the
+same as those set forth with extraordinary vigour and effect in a long
+series of speeches by Mr. Chamberlain, who was now unmuzzled, and was
+making the fullest use of his freedom. He was then at the very zenith of
+his powers, and the scheme of political and social reform which he
+expounded is still, in my opinion, the best compendium of Radical
+politics; but it tended in the direction of what old-fashioned people
+called Socialism, and this was to Gladstone an abomination. One day, to
+my consternation, he asked me if it was true that Socialism had made
+some way among the younger Liberals, of whom I was then one.
+Endeavouring to parry a question which must have revealed my own guilt,
+I feebly asked if by Socialism my venerable Leader meant the practice of
+taking private property for public uses, or the performance by the State
+of what ought to be left to the individual; whereupon he replied, with
+startling emphasis: "I mean both, but I reserve my worst Billingsgate
+for the attack on private property."
+
+On the 18th of September Gladstone issued his Address to the Electors of
+Midlothian--an exceedingly long-winded document, which seemed to commit
+the Liberal Party to nothing in particular. _Verbosa et grandis
+epistola_, said Mr. John Morley. "An old man's manifesto," wrote the
+_Pall Mall_. By contrast with this colourless but authoritative
+document, Mr. Chamberlain's scheme became known as "The Unauthorized
+Programme," and of that programme I was a zealous promoter.
+
+As soon as the Franchise Bill and the Redistribution Bill had passed
+into law, it was arranged that the dissolution should take place in
+November. The whole autumn was given up to electioneering. The
+newly-enfranchised labourers seemed friendly to the Liberal cause, but
+our bewildered candidates saw that their leaders were divided into two
+sections--one might almost say, two camps. This was a condition of
+things which boded disaster to the Liberal Party; but Gladstone never
+realized that Chamberlain was a power which it was madness to alienate.
+
+On the 2nd of October I went on a visit to Hawarden, and the next day
+Gladstone opened a conversation on the state of the Party and the
+prospects of the Election. He said: "I believe you are in Chamberlain's
+confidence. Can you tell me what he means?" I replied that I was not the
+least in Chamberlain's confidence, though he had always been very
+friendly to me, and I admired his Programme. "But," I said, "I think
+that what he means is quite clear. He has no thought of trying to oust
+you from the Leadership of the Liberal Party; but he is determined that,
+when you resign it, he, and not Hartington, shall succeed you." This
+seemed to give the Chief some food for reflection, and then I ventured
+to follow up my advantage. "After all," I said, "Chamberlain has been
+your colleague for five years. Surely your best plan would be to invite
+him here, and ascertain his intentions from himself." If I had
+suggested that my host should invite the Sultan or the Czar, he could
+not have looked more surprised. "I have always made a point," he said,
+"of keeping this place clear of political transactions. We never invite
+anyone except private friends." "Well," I said, "but we are within six
+weeks of the Election, and it will never do for us to go to the country
+with you and Chamberlain professing two rival policies."
+
+Backed by Mrs. Gladstone, I carried my point, and with my own hand wrote
+the telegram inviting Mr. Chamberlain. Unfortunately I had to leave
+Hawarden on the 6th of October, so I was not present at the meeting
+which I had brought about; but a few days later I had a letter from Mr.
+Chamberlain saying that, though his visit had been socially pleasant, it
+had been politically useless. He had not succeeded in making Gladstone
+see the importance of the Unauthorized Programme, and "if I were to drop
+it now," he said, "the stones would immediately cry out."
+
+What then ensued is matter of history. Parliament was dissolved on the
+18th of November. When the elections were finished, the Liberal Party
+was just short of the numerical strength which was requisite to defeat
+a combination of Tories and Parnellites. Lord Salisbury, therefore,
+retained office, but the life of his administration hung by a thread.
+
+On the 24th of November, 1884, the great Lord Shaftesbury, moved by the
+spirit of prophecy, had written: "In a year or so we shall have Home
+Rule disposed of (at all hazards) to save us from daily and hourly
+bores." On the 17th of December, 1885, the world was astonished by an
+anonymous announcement in two newspapers--and the rest followed suit
+next day--that, if Gladstone were returned to power, he would be
+prepared to deal, in a liberal spirit, with the demand for Home Rule.
+This announcement was an act of folly not easy to explain or condone. We
+now know whose act it was, and we know that it was committed without
+Gladstone's privity. As Lord Morley says: "Never was there a moment when
+every consideration of political prudence more imperatively counselled
+silence." But now every political tongue in the United Kingdom was set
+wagging, and Gladstone could neither confirm nor deny. Our bewilderment
+and confusion were absolute. No one knew what was coming next; who was
+on what side; or whither his party--or, indeed, himself--was tending.
+One point only was clear: if Gladstone meant what he seemed to mean, the
+Parnellites would support him, and the Tories would be turned out. The
+new Parliament met on the 21st of January, 1886. On the--, the
+Government were defeated on an amendment to the Address, in favour of
+Municipal Allotments, and Lord Salisbury resigned. It was a moment of
+intense excitement, and everyone tasted for a day or two "the joy of
+eventful living."
+
+On the 29th of January, I dined with Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone. The host
+was in a grim mood of suppressed excitement, anger, and apprehension.
+All day long he had been expecting a summons from the Queen, and it had
+not arrived. "It begins to look," he said, "as if the Government meant
+after all to ignore the vote of the House of Commons, and go on. All I
+can say is that, if they do, the Crown will be placed in a worse
+position than it has ever occupied in my lifetime." But after the party
+had broken up, Sir Henry Ponsonby arrived with the desired message from
+the Queen; and on the 1st of February Gladstone kissed hands, as Prime
+Minister for the third time.
+
+"When Gladstone runs down a steep place, his immense majority, like the
+pigs in Scripture but hoping for a better issue, will go with him,
+roaring in grunts of exultation." This was Lord Shaftesbury's prediction
+in the previous year; but it was based on an assumption which proved
+erroneous. It took for granted the unalterable docility of the Liberal
+Party. I knew little at first hand of the transactions and tumults which
+filled the spring and early summer of 1886. At the beginning of February
+I was laid low by serious illness, resulting from the fatigue and
+exposure of the Election; and when, after a long imprisonment, I was out
+of bed, I went off to the seaside for convalescence. But even in the
+sick-room I heard rumours of the obstinate perversity with which the
+Liberal Government was rushing on its fate, and the admirably effective
+resistance to Home Rule engineered by Lord Hartington and Mr.
+Chamberlain. The Liberal leaders ran down the steep place, but an
+important minority of the pigs refused to follow them. The Home Rule
+Bill was thrown out on the 8th of June. Parliament was immediately
+dissolved. The General Election gave a majority of more than a hundred
+against Home Rule; the Government retired and Lord Salisbury again
+became Prime Minister.
+
+In those distant days, there was a happy arrangement by which once a
+year, when my father was staying with me, Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone dined
+with me to meet him. My father and Gladstone had both entered public
+life at the General Election of 1832, and my father loved to describe
+him as he appeared riding in Hyde Park on a grey Arabian mare, "with his
+hat, narrow-brimmed, high up on the centre of his head, sustained by a
+crop of thick, curly hair," while a passer-by said: "That's Gladstone.
+He is to make his maiden speech to-night. It will be worth hearing." The
+annual rencounter took place on the 21st of July, 1886. After dinner,
+Gladstone drew me into a window and said: "Well, this Election has been
+a great disappointment." I replied that we could certainly have wished
+it better, but that the result was not unexpected. To my amazement,
+Gladstone replied that it was completely unexpected. "The experts
+assured me that we should sweep the country." (I always wish that I
+could have had an opportunity of speaking my mind to those "experts.")
+Pursuing the subject, Gladstone said that the Queen had demurred to a
+second election in six months, and that some of his colleagues had
+recommended more moderate courses. "But I said that, if we didn't
+dissolve, we should be showing the white feather."
+
+It is no part of my purpose to trace the dismal history of the Liberal
+Party between 1886 and 1892. But one incident in that time deserves to
+be recorded. I was dining with Lord and Lady Rosebery on the 4th of
+March, 1889; Gladstone was of the company, and was indulging in
+passionate diatribes against Pitt. One phrase has always stuck in my
+memory. "There is no crime recorded in history--I do not except the
+Massacre of St. Bartholomew--which will compare for a moment with the
+means by which the Union was brought about." When the party was breaking
+up, one of the diners said: "I hope Mr. Gladstone won't draw that
+parallel, between the Union and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, on a
+public platform, or we shall stand even less well with the thinking
+public than we do now."
+
+Parliament was dissolved in June, 1892, and, when the elections were
+over, it was found that the Liberal Party, including the Irish, had only
+a majority of 40. When Gladstone knew the final figures, he saw the
+impossibility of forcing Home Rule through the Lords, and exclaimed: "My
+life's work is done." However, as we all remember, he took the
+Premiership for a fourth time, and during the Session of 1893 passed a
+Home Rule Bill through the House of Commons. The Lords threw it out by
+419 to 41, the minority being mainly wage-receivers. Other troubles
+there were, both inside the Government and outside it; Mr. Gladstone
+told his friends that the Naval Estimates demanded by the Admiralty were
+"mad and drunk"; and people began to suspect that the great change was
+at hand.
+
+On the 1st of March, 1894, Gladstone made his last speech in the House
+of Commons. In that speech he bequeathed to his party the legacy of a
+nobly-worded protest against the irresponsible power of the "Nominated
+Chamber"; and then, having accomplished sixty-one years of Parliamentary
+service, he simply disappeared, without ceremony or farewell. In my
+mind's eye I see him now, upright as ever, and walking fast, with his
+despatch-box dangling from his right hand, as he passed the Speaker's
+Chair, and quitted the scene of his life's work for ever.
+
+In spite of warnings and anticipations, the end had, after all, come
+suddenly; and, with a sharp pang of regretful surprise, we woke to the
+fact that "our master was taken away from our head to-day." Strong men
+were shaken with emotion and hard men were moved to unaccustomed tears,
+as we passed out of the emptied House in the dusk of that gloomy
+afternoon.
+
+On the 6th of March, 1894, Gladstone wrote to me as follows, in reply to
+my letter of farewell:
+
+"My speculative view into the future shows me a very mixed spectacle,
+and a doubtful atmosphere. I am thankful to have borne a part in the
+emancipating labours of the last sixty years; but entirely uncertain
+how, had I now to begin my life, I could face the very different
+problems of the next sixty years. Of one thing I am, and always have
+been, convinced--it is not by the State that man can be regenerated, and
+the terrible woes of this darkened world effectually dealt with. In
+some, and some very important, respects, I yearn for the impossible
+revival of the men and the ideas of my first twenty years, which
+immediately followed the first Reform Act. But I am stepping out upon a
+boundless plain.
+
+"May God give you strength of all kinds to perform your appointed work
+in the world."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[37] The British troops entered Cairo on the 14th of September, 1882.
+
+[38] Better known as "Billy Johnson," the famous Eton Tutor.
+
+[39] The Right Hon. J. W. Lowther.
+
+[40] Afterwards the Right Hon. John Burns, M.P., President of the Local
+Government Board.
+
+[41] Afterwards Lord St. Aldwyn.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+ORATORY
+
+
+     [Greek: esti d' ouch ho logos tou rhêtoros, Aischinê, timion, oud'
+     ho tonos tês phônês, alla to tauta proaireisthai tois pollois, kai
+     to tous autous misein kai philein, housper an hê patris.]
+                                              DEMOSTHENES. _De Corona_.
+
+     The important thing in public speaking is neither the diction nor
+     the voice. What is important is that the speaker should have the
+     same predilections as the majority, and that his country's friends
+     and foes should be also his own.
+
+
+I hope that I shall not be reproached with either Pedantry or Vanity
+(though I deserve both) if, having begun so classically, I here
+introduce some verses which, when I was a boy at Harrow, my kind Head
+Master addressed to my Father. The occasion of these verses was that the
+recipient of them, who was then Sergeant-at-Arms in the House of Commons
+and was much exhausted by the long Session which passed the first Irish
+Land Act, had said in his haste that he wished all mankind were dumb.
+This petulant ejaculation drew from Dr. Butler the following
+remonstrance:
+
+
+     Semper ego auditor? Requies data nulla loquelæ
+       Quæ miseras aures his et ubique premit?
+     Tot mala non tulit ipse Jobas, cui constat amicos
+       Septenos saltem conticuisse dies.
+     "Si mihi non dabitur talem sperare quietem,
+       Sit, precor, humanum sit sine voce genus!"
+     Mucius[42] hæc secum, sortem indignatus iniquam,
+       (Tum primum proavis creditus esse minor)
+     Seque malis negat esse parem: cui Musa querenti,
+       "Tu genus humanum voce carere cupis?
+     Tene adeo fatis diffidere! Non tibi Natus
+       Quem jam signavit Diva Loquela suum?
+     En! ego quæ vindex 'mutis quoque piscibus' adsum,
+       Donatura cycni, si ferat hora, sonos,
+     Ipsa loquor vates: Patriæ decus addere linguæ
+       Hic sciet, ut titulis laus eat aucta tuis.
+     Hunc sua fata vocant; hunc, nostro numine fretum,
+       Apta jubent aptis ponere verba locis.
+     Hunc olim domus ipsa canet, silvæque paternæ,
+       Curiaque, et felix vatibus Herga parens.
+     Nec lingua caruisse voles, quo vindice vestræ
+       Gentis in æternum fama superstes erit."
+                                              H. M. B.,
+                                               Aug., 1870.
+
+
+The prophecy has scarcely been fulfilled; but it is true that from my
+earliest days I have had an inborn love of oratory. The witchery of
+words, powerful enough on the printed page, is to me ten times more
+powerful when it is reinforced by voice and glance and gesture. Fine
+rhetoric and lofty declamation have always stirred my blood; and yet I
+suppose that Demosthenes was right, and that, though rhetoric and
+declamation are good, still the most valuable asset for a public speaker
+is a complete identification with the majority of his countrymen, in
+their prejudices, their likings, and their hatreds.
+
+If Oratory signifies the power of speaking without premeditation,
+Gladstone stands in a class by himself, far above all the public
+speakers whom I have ever heard. The records of his speaking at Eton and
+Oxford, and the reports of his earliest performances in Parliament,
+alike give proof that he had, as Coleridge said of Pitt, "a premature
+and unnatural dexterity in the combination of words"; and this developed
+into "a power of pouring forth, with endless facility, perfectly
+modulated sentences of perfectly chosen language, which as far surpassed
+the reach of a normal intellect as the feats of an acrobat exceed the
+capacities of a normal body."
+
+His voice was flexible and melodious (in singing it was a baritone);
+though his utterance was perceptibly marked by a Lancastrian "burr"; his
+gestures were free and graceful, though never violent; every muscle of
+his face seemed to play its part in his nervous declamation; and the
+flash of his deep-set eyes revealed the fiery spirit that was at work
+within. It may be remarked in passing that he considered a moustache
+incompatible with effective speaking--"Why should a man hide one of the
+most expressive features of his face?" With regard to the still more
+expressive eyes, Lecky ruefully remarked that Gladstone's glance was
+that of a bird of prey swooping on its victim.
+
+Lord Chief Justice Coleridge told me that he had once asked Gladstone if
+he ever felt nervous in public speaking. "In opening a subject," said
+Gladstone, "often; in reply never," and certainly his most triumphant
+speeches were those in which, when winding up a debate, he recapitulated
+and demolished the hostile arguments that had gone before. One writes
+glibly of his "most triumphant" speeches; and yet, when he was among us,
+he always delivered each Session at least one speech, of which we all
+used to say, with breathless enthusiasm, "That's the finest speech he
+ever made." On the platform he was incomparable. His fame as an orator
+was made within the walls of Parliament; but, when he ceased to
+represent the University of Oxford, and was forced by the conditions of
+modern electioneering to face huge masses of electors in halls and
+theatres and in the open air, he adapted himself with the utmost ease to
+his new environment, and captivated the constituencies as he had
+captivated the House. His activities increased as his life advanced. He
+diffused himself over England and Wales and Scotland. In every
+considerable centre, men had the opportunity of seeing and hearing this
+supreme actor of the political stage; but Midlothian was the scene of
+his most astonishing efforts. When, on the 2nd of September, 1884, he
+spoke on the Franchise Bill in the Waverley Market at Edinburgh, it was
+estimated that he addressed thirty thousand people.
+
+
+     "Beneath his feet the human ocean lay,
+     And wave on wave flowed into space away,
+     Methought no clarion could have sent its sound
+     Even to the centre of the hosts around;
+     And, as I thought, rose the sonorous swell,
+     As from some church-tower swings the silvery bell.
+     Aloft and clear, from airy tide to tide,
+     It glided, easy as a bird may glide;
+     To the last verge of that vast audience sent,
+     It played with each wild passion as it went;
+     Now stirred the uproar, now the murmur stilled:
+     And sobs or laughter answered as it willed:"[43]
+
+
+It is painful to descend too abruptly from such a height as that: but
+one would be giving a false notion of Gladstone's speaking if one
+suggested that it was always equally effective. Masterly in his appeal
+to a popular audience, supernaturally dexterous in explaining a
+complicated subject to the House of Commons, supremely solemn and
+pathetic in a Memorial Oration, he was heard to least advantage on a
+social or festive occasion. He would use a Club-dinner or a
+wedding-breakfast, a flower-show or an Exhibition, for the utterance of
+grave thoughts which had perhaps been long fermenting in his mind; and
+then his intensity, his absorption in his theme, and his terrible
+gravity, disconcerted hearers who had expected a lighter touch. An
+illustration of this piquant maladroitness recurs to my memory as I
+write. In 1882 I was concerned with a few Radical friends in founding
+the National Liberal Club.[44] We certainly never foresaw the palatial
+pile of terra-cotta and glazed tiles which now bears that name.[45] Our
+modest object was to provide a central meeting-place for Metropolitan
+and provincial Liberals, where all the comforts of life should be
+attainable at what are called "popular prices." Two years later,
+Gladstone laid the foundation-stone of the present Club-house, and, in
+one of his most austere orations, drew a sharp contrast between our poor
+handiwork and those "Temples of Luxury and Ease" which gaze in haughty
+grandeur on Pall Mall. We had hoped to provide what might seem like
+"luxury" to the unsophisticated citizen of Little Pedlington; and, at
+the least, we meant our Club to be a place of "ease" to the Radical
+toiler. But Gladstone insisted that it was to be a workshop dedicated to
+strenuous labour; and all the fair promises of our Prospectus were
+trodden under foot.[46]
+
+I have often heard Gladstone say that, in the nature of things, a speech
+cannot be adequately reported. You may get the words with literal
+precision, but the loss of gesture, voice, and intonation, will
+inevitably obscure the meaning and impede the effect. Of no one's
+speaking is this more true than of his own. Here and there, in the
+enormous mass of his reported eloquence, you will come upon a fine
+peroration, a poetic image, a verse aptly cited, or a phrase which can
+be remembered. But they are few and far between--_oases_ in a wilderness
+of what reads like verbiage. Quite certainly, his speeches, in the mass,
+are not literature, as those found to their cost who endeavoured to
+publish them in ten volumes.
+
+For speeches which are literature we must go to John Bright; but then
+Bright's speaking was not spontaneous, and therefore, according to the
+definition suggested above, could not be reckoned as Oratory. Yet, when
+delivered in that penetrating voice, with its varied emphasis of scorn
+and sympathy and passion; enforced by the dignity of that noble head,
+and punctuated by the aptest gesture, they sounded uncommonly like
+oratory. The fact is that Bright's consummate art concealed the
+elaborate preparation which went to make the performance. When he was
+going to make a speech, he was encompassed by safeguards against
+disturbance and distraction, which suggested the rites of Lucina. He was
+invisible and inaccessible. No bell might ring, no door might bang, no
+foot tread too heavily. There was a crisis, and everyone in the house
+knew it; and when at length the speech had been safely uttered, there
+was the joy of a great reaction.
+
+My Father, unlike most of the Whigs, had a warm admiration for Bright;
+and Bright showed his appreciation of this feeling by being extremely
+kind to me. Early in my Parliamentary career, he gave me some hints on
+the art of speech-making, which are interesting because they describe
+his own practice. "You cannot," he said, "over-prepare the substance of
+a speech. The more completely you have mastered it, the better your
+speech will be. But it is very easy to over-prepare your words. Arrange
+your subject, according to its natural divisions, under three or four
+heads--not more. Supply each division with an 'island'; by which I mean
+a carefully-prepared sentence to clinch and enforce it. You must trust
+yourself to swim from one 'island' to another, without artificial aids.
+Keep your best 'island'--your most effective passage--for your
+peroration; and, when once you have uttered it, sit down at once. Let no
+power induce you to go on."
+
+Anyone who studies Bright's speeches will see that he exactly followed
+his own rule. The order and symmetry are perfect. The English is simple
+and unadorned. Each department of the speech has its notable phrase; and
+the peroration is a masterpiece of solemn rhetoric. And yet after all
+what Demosthenes said is true of these two great men--the Twin Stars of
+Victorian Oratory. Each had all the graces of voice and language, and
+yet each failed conspicuously in practical effect whenever he ran
+counter to the predilections and passions of his countrymen. Gladstone
+succeeded when he attacked the Irish Church, and denounced the
+abominations of Turkish misrule: he failed when he tried to palliate his
+blunders in Egypt, and to force Home Rule down the throat of the
+"Predominant Partner." Bright succeeded when he pleaded for the Repeal
+of the Corn Laws and the extension of the Suffrage: he failed when he
+opposed the Crimean War, and lost his seat when he protested against our
+aggression on China. It must often fall to the lot of the patriotic
+orator thus to set himself against the drift of national sentiment, and
+to pay the penalty. No such perils beset the Demagogue.
+
+I should not ascribe the title of orator to Mr. Chamberlain. He has
+nothing of the inspiration, the poetry, the "vision splendid," the
+"faculty divine," which make the genuine orator. But as a speaker of the
+second, and perhaps most useful, class, he has never been surpassed.
+His speaking was the perfection of clearness. Each argument seemed
+irresistible, each illustration told. His invective was powerful, his
+passion seemed genuine, his satire cut like steel and froze like ice.
+His perception of his hearers' likes and dislikes was intuitive, and was
+heightened by constant observation. His friends and his enemies were
+those whom he esteemed the friends and the enemies of England; and he
+never committed the heroic but perilous error of setting himself against
+the passing mood of national feeling. He combined in rare harmony the
+debating instinct which conquers the House of Commons, with the power of
+appeal to popular passion which is the glory of the Demagogue.
+
+The word with which my last sentence closed recalls inevitably the
+tragic figure of Lord Randolph Churchill. The adroitness, the courage,
+and the persistency with which between 1880 and 1885 he sapped
+Gladstone's authority, deposed Northcote, and made himself the most
+conspicuous man in the Tory Party, have been described in his Biography,
+and need not be recapitulated here. Mr. Chamberlain, who was exactly
+qualified to resist and abate him, had not yet acquired a commanding
+position in the House of Commons; and on the platform Churchill could
+not be beaten. In these two men each party possessed a Demagogue of the
+highest gifts, and it would have puzzled an expert to say which was the
+better exponent of his peculiar art. In January, 1884, Churchill made a
+speech at Blackpool, and thus attacked his eminent rival--"Mr.
+Chamberlain a short time ago attempted to hold Lord Salisbury up to the
+execration of the people as one who enjoyed great riches for which he
+had neither toiled nor spun, and he savagely denounced Lord Salisbury
+and his class. As a matter of fact, Lord Salisbury from his earliest
+days has toiled and spun in the service of the State, and for the
+advancement of his countrymen in learning, in wealth, and in prosperity;
+but no Radical ever yet allowed himself to be embarrassed by a question
+of fact. Just look, however, at what Mr. Chamberlain himself does; he
+goes to Newcastle, and is entertained at a banquet there, and procures
+for the president of the feast a live Earl--no less a person than the
+Earl of Durham. Now, Lord Durham is a young person who has just come of
+age, who is in the possession of immense hereditary estates, who is well
+known on Newmarket Heath, and prominent among the gilded youth who
+throng the doors of the Gaiety Theatre; but he has studied politics
+about as much as Barnum's new white elephant, and the idea of rendering
+service to the State has not yet commenced to dawn on his ingenuous
+mind. If by any means it could be legitimate, and I hold it is
+illegitimate, to stigmatize any individual as enjoying great riches for
+which he has neither toiled nor spun, such a case would be the case of
+the Earl of Durham; and yet it is under the patronage of the Earl of
+Durham, and basking in the smiles of the Earl of Durham, and bandying
+vulgar compliments with the Earl of Durham, that this stern patriot,
+this rigid moralist, this unbending censor, the Right Honourable Joseph
+Chamberlain, flaunts his Radical and levelling doctrines before the
+astonished democrats of Newcastle. 'Vanity of Vanities,' saith the
+preacher, 'all is vanity.' 'Humbug of Humbugs,' says the Radical, 'all
+is humbug.'"
+
+And with that most characteristic specimen of popular eloquence, we may
+leave the two great demagogues of the Victorian Age.
+
+At the period of which I am speaking the House of Commons contained two
+or three orators surviving from a class which had almost died away.
+These were men who, having no gift for extempore speaking, used to study
+the earlier stages of a debate, prepare a tremendous oration, and then
+deliver it by heart. Such, in days gone by, had been the practice of
+Bulwer-Lytton, and, as far as one can see, of Macaulay. In my day it was
+followed by Patrick Smyth, Member for Tipperary, and by Joseph Cowen,
+Member for Newcastle. Both were real rhetoricians. Both could compose
+long discourses, couched in the most flowery English, interlarded with
+anecdotes and decorated with quotations; and both could declaim these
+compositions with grace and vigour. But the effect was very droll. They
+would work, say, all Tuesday and Wednesday at a point which had been
+exhausted by discussion on Monday, and then on Thursday they would burst
+into the debate just whenever they could catch the Speaker's eye, and
+would discharge these cascades of prepared eloquence without the
+slightest reference to time, fitness, or occasion.
+
+My uncle, Lord Russell, who entered Parliament in 1813, always said that
+the first Lord Plunket was, on the whole, the finest speaker he had ever
+heard, because he combined a most cogent logic with a most moving
+eloquence; and these gifts descended to Plunket's grandson, now Lord
+Rathmore, and, in the days of which I am speaking, Mr. David Plunket,
+Member for the University of Dublin. Voice, manner, diction, delivery,
+were all alike delightful; and, though such finished oratory could
+scarcely be unprepared, Mr. Plunket had a great deal too much of his
+nation's tact to produce it except when he knew that the House was
+anxious to receive it. In view of all that has happened since, it is
+curious to remember that Mr. Arthur Balfour was, in those days, a
+remarkably bad speaker. No one, I should think, was ever born with less
+of the orator's faculty, or was under heavier obligations to the
+Reporters' Gallery. He shambled and stumbled, and clung to the lapels of
+his coat, and made immense pauses while he searched for the right word,
+and eventually got hold of the wrong one. In conflict with Gladstone, he
+seemed to exude the very essence of acrimonious partisanship, and yet he
+never exactly scored. As Lord Beaconsfield said of Lord Salisbury, "his
+invective lacked finish."
+
+A precisely opposite description might befit Sir Robert Peel, the
+strangely-contrasted son of the great Free Trader. Peel was naturally an
+orator. He could make the most slashing onslaughts without the
+appearance of ill-temper, and could convulse the House with laughter
+while he himself remained to all appearance unconscious of the fun. His
+voice, pronounced by Gladstone the most beautiful he ever heard in
+Parliament, was low, rich, melodious, and flexible. His appearance was
+striking and rather un-English, his gestures were various and animated,
+and he enforced his points with beautifully shaped hands. If voice and
+manner could make a public speaker great, Sir Robert Peel might have led
+the Tory Party; but Demosthenes was right after all. The graces of
+oratory, though delightful for the moment, have no permanent effect. The
+perfection of Parliamentary style is to utter cruel platitudes with a
+grave and informing air; and, if a little pomposity be superadded, the
+House will instinctively recognize the speaker as a Statesman. I have
+heard Sir William Harcourt say, "After March, comes April," in a tone
+which carried conviction to every heart.
+
+A word must be said about speakers who read their speeches. I do not
+think I shall be contradicted if I say that in those distant days Sir
+William Harcourt, Sir George Trevelyan, and Mr. Gibson, now Lord
+Ashbourne, wrote every word, and delivered their speeches from the
+manuscript. In late years, when Harcourt had to pilot his famous Budget
+through Committee, he acquired a perfect facility in extempore speech;
+but at the beginning it was not so. The Irish are an eloquent nation,
+and we are apt to send them rather prosy rulers. "The Honourable Member
+for Bletherum was at that time perambulating the district with very
+great activity, and, I need not say, with very great ability." Such a
+sentence as that, laboriously inscribed in the manuscript of a Chief
+Secretary's speech, seems indeed to dissipate all thoughts of oratory.
+Mr. Henry Richard, a "Stickit Minister" who represented Merthyr, was the
+worst offender against the Standing Order which forbids a Member to read
+his speech, though it allows him to "refresh his memory with notes"; and
+once, being called to order for his offence, he palliated it by saying
+that he was ready to hand his manuscript to his censor, and challenged
+him to read a word of it.
+
+The least oratorical of mankind was the fifteenth Lord Derby, whose
+formal adhesion to the Liberal Party in 1882 supplied _Punch_ with an
+admirable cartoon of a female Gladstone singing in impassioned strain--
+
+
+     "Always the same, Derby my own!
+     Always the same to your old Glad-stone."
+
+
+Lord Derby wrote every word of his speeches, and sent them in advance to
+the press. It was said that once he dropped his manuscript in the
+street, and that, being picked up, it was found to contain such entries
+as "Cheers," "Laughter," and "Loud applause," culminating in "'But I am
+detaining you too long.' (Cries of 'No, no,' and 'Go on.')"
+
+The mention of Lord Derby reminds me of the much-criticized body to
+which he belonged. When I entered Parliament, the Chief Clerk of the
+House of Commons was Sir Thomas Erskine May, afterwards Lord
+Farnborough--an hereditary friend. He gave me many useful hints, and
+this among the rest--"Always go across to the House of Lords when they
+are sitting, even if you only stop five minutes. You may often happen on
+something worth hearing; and on no account ever miss one of their
+full-dress debates." I acted on the advice, and soon became familiar
+with the oratory of "the Gilded Chamber," as Pennialinus calls it. I
+have spoken in a former chapter of the effect produced on me as a boy by
+the predominance of Disraeli during the debates on the Reform Bill of
+1867. He had left the House of Commons before I entered it, but that
+same mysterious attribute of predominance followed him to the House of
+Lords, and indeed increased with his increasing years. His strange
+appearance--un-English features, corpse-like pallor, blackened locks,
+and piercing eyes--marked him out as someone quite aloof from the common
+population of the House of Lords. When he sat, silent and immovable, on
+his crimson bench, everyone kept watching him as though they were
+fascinated. When he rose to speak, there was strained and awe-stricken
+attention. His voice was deep, his utterance slow, his pronunciation
+rather affected. He had said in early life that there were two models of
+style for the two Houses of Parliament--for the Commons, _Don Juan_: for
+the Lords, _Paradise Lost_. As the youthful Disraeli, he had out-Juaned
+Juan; when, as the aged Beaconsfield, he talked of "stamping a
+deleterious doctrine with the reprobation of the Peers of England," he
+approached the dignity of the Miltonic Satan. It was more obviously true
+of him than of most speakers that he "listened to himself while he
+spoke"; and his complete mastery of all the tricks of speech
+countervailed the decay of his physical powers. He had always known the
+value of an artificial pause, an effective hesitation, in heralding the
+apt word or the memorable phrase; and just at the close of his life he
+used the method with a striking though unrehearsed effect. On the 4th of
+March, 1881, he was speaking in support of Lord Lytton's motion
+condemning the evacuation of Kandahar. "My Lords," he said, "the Key of
+India is not Merv, or Herat, or,"--here came a long pause, and rather
+painful anxiety in the audience; and then the quiet resumption of the
+thread--"It is not the place of which I cannot recall the name--the Key
+of India is London."
+
+At a dinner at Lord Airlie's in the previous month Lord Beaconsfield,
+talking to Matthew Arnold, had described the great (that is, the
+fourteenth) Lord Derby as having been "a man full of nerve, dash, fire,
+and resource, who carried the House irresistibly along with him." Bishop
+Samuel Wilberforce was reckoned by Mr. Gladstone as one of the three men
+who, of all his acquaintance, had the greatest natural gift of public
+speaking.[47] Both the Bishop and the Statesman found, each in the
+other, a foeman worthy of his steel; but both had passed beyond these
+voices before I entered Parliament, leaving only tantalizing
+traditions--"Ah! but you should have heard Derby on the Irish Church,"
+or "It was a treat to hear 'Sam' trouncing Westbury." Failing those
+impossible enjoyments, I found great pleasure in listening to Lord
+Salisbury. I should reckon him as about the most interesting speaker I
+ever heard. His appearance was pre-eminently dignified: he looked,
+whether he was in or out of office, the ideal Minister of a great
+Empire--
+
+
+     "With that vast bulk of chest and limb assigned
+     So oft to men who subjugate their kind;
+     So sturdy Cromwell pushed broad-shouldered on;
+     So burly Luther breasted Babylon;
+     So brawny Cleon bawled his agora down;
+     And large-limb'd Mahomed clutched a Prophet's crown."
+
+
+In public speaking, Lord Salisbury seemed to be thinking aloud, and to
+be quite unconscious of his audience. Though he was saturated with his
+subject there was apparently no verbal preparation. Yet his diction was
+peculiarly apt and pointed. He never looked at a note; used no gesture;
+scarcely raised or lowered his voice. But in a clear and penetrating
+monotone he uttered the workings of a profound and reflective mind, and
+the treasures of a vast experience. Though massive, his style was never
+ponderous: and it was constantly lightened by the sallies of a pungent
+humour. In the debate on the Second Reading of the Home Rule Bill of
+1893, Lord Ribblesdale, then recently converted from Unionism to
+Gladstonianism, and Master of the Buckhounds in the Liberal government,
+had given the history of his mental change. In replying, Lord Salisbury
+said, "The next speech, my lords, was a confession. Confessions are
+always an interesting form of literature--from St. Augustine to
+Rousseau, from Rousseau to Lord Ribblesdale." The House laughed, and the
+Master of the Buckhounds laughed with it.
+
+One of the most vigorous orators whom I have ever heard, in the House of
+Lords or out of it, was Dr. Magee, Bishop of Peterborough, and
+afterwards Archbishop of York. He had made his fame by his speech on the
+Second Reading of the Irish Church Bill, and was always at his best when
+defending the temporal interests of ecclesiastical institutions. No
+clergyman ever smacked so little of the pulpit. His mind was essentially
+legal--clear, practical, logical, cogent. No one on earth could make a
+better case for a bad cause; no one could argue more closely, or
+declaim more vigorously. When his blood was up, he must either speak or
+burst; but his indignation, though it found vent in flashing sarcasms,
+never betrayed him into irrelevancies or inexactitudes.
+
+A fine speaker of a different type--and one better fitted for a
+Churchman--was Archbishop Tait, whose dignity of speech and bearing,
+clear judgment, and forcible utterance, made him the worthiest
+representative of the Church in Parliament whom these latter days have
+seen. To contrast Tait's stately calm with Benson's fluttering
+obsequiousness[48] or Temple's hammering force, was to perceive the
+manner that is, and the manners that are not, adapted to what Gladstone
+called "the mixed sphere of Religion and the _Sæculum_."
+
+By far the greatest orator whom the House of Lords has possessed in my
+recollection was the late Duke of Argyll. I have heard that Lord
+Beaconsfield, newly arrived in the House of Lords and hearing the Duke
+for the first time, exclaimed, "And has this been going on all these
+years, and I have never found it out?" It is true that the Duke's
+reputation as an administrator, a writer, a naturalist, and an amateur
+theologian, distracted public attention from his power as an orator; and
+I have been told that he himself did not realize it. Yet orator indeed
+he was, in the highest implication of the term. He spoke always under
+the influence of fiery conviction, and the live coal from the altar
+seemed to touch his lips. He was absolute master of every mood of
+oratory--pathos, satire, contemptuous humour, ethical passion, noble
+wrath; and his unstudied eloquence flowed like a river through the
+successive moods, taking a colour from each, and gaining force as it
+rolled towards its close.
+
+On the 6th of September, 1893, I heard the Duke speaking on the Second
+Reading of the Home Rule Bill. He was then an old man, and in broken
+health; the speech attempted little in the way of argument, and was
+desultory beyond belief. But suddenly there came a passage which lifted
+the whole debate into a nobler air. The orator described himself
+standing on the Western shores of Scotland, and gazing across towards
+the hills of Antrim: "We can see the colour of their fields, and in the
+sunset we can see the glancing of the light upon the windows of the
+cabins of the people. This is the country, I thought the other day when
+I looked on the scene--this is the country which the greatest English
+statesman tells us must be governed as we govern the Antipodes." And he
+emphasized the last word with a downward sweep of his right hand, which
+in a commonplace speaker would have been frankly comic, but in this
+great master of oratory was a master-stroke of dramatic art.
+
+Before I close this chapter, I should like to recall a word of
+Gladstone's which at the time when he said it struck me as memorable. In
+August, 1895, I was staying at Hawarden. Gladstone's Parliamentary life
+was done, and he talked about political people and events with a freedom
+which I had never before known in him. As perhaps was natural, we fell
+to discussing the men who had been his colleagues in the late Liberal
+Ministry. We reviewed in turn Lord Spencer, Sir William Harcourt, Lord
+Rosebery, Mr. John Morley, Sir George Trevelyan, and Mr. Asquith. It is
+perhaps a little curious, in view of what happened later on, that Sir
+Henry Campbell-Bannerman was not mentioned; but, with regard to the
+foregoing names, I perfectly recollect, though there is no need to
+repeat, the terse and trenchant judgment passed on each. When we had
+come to the end of my list, the ex-Premier turned on me with one of
+those compelling glances which we knew so well, and said with emphasis,
+"But you haven't mentioned the most important man of all." "Who is
+that?" "Edward Grey--there is the man with the real Parliamentary gift."
+I am happy to make the Foreign Secretary a present of this handsome
+compliment.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[42] Mucius Scævola per multos annos "Princeps Senatûs."
+
+[43] Bulwer-Lytton, _St. Stephen's_.
+
+[44] Mr. A. J. Willams, Mr. A. G. Symond, Mr. Walter Wren, Mr. W. L.
+Bright, and Mr. J. J. Tylor were some of them; and we used to meet in
+Mr. Bright's rooms at Storey's Gate.
+
+[45] "It is an extraordinary big club done in a bold, wholesale, shiny,
+marbled style, richly furnished with numerous paintings, steel
+engravings, busts, and full-length statues of the late Mr.
+Gladstone."--H. G. Wells, _The New Machiavelli_.
+
+[46] "Speaking generally, I should say there could not be a less
+interesting occasion than the laying of the foundation-stone of a Club
+in London. For, after all, what are the Clubs of London? I am afraid
+little else than temples of luxury and ease. This, however, is a club of
+a very different character."
+
+[47] The others were the late Duke of Argyll and the eighth Lord Elgin.
+
+[48] "I had to speak in the House of Lords last night. It is a really
+terrible place for the unaccustomed. Frigid impatience and absolute
+goodwill, combined with a thorough conviction of the infallibility of
+laymen (if not too religious) on all sacred subjects, are the tone,
+_morale_, and reason, of the House as a living being. My whole
+self-possession departs, and ejection from the House seems the best
+thing which could happen to one."--Archbishop Benson to the Rev. B. F.
+Westcott, March 22, 1884.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+LITERATURE
+
+
+     There was Captain Sumph, an ex-beau, still about town, and related
+     in some indistinct manner to Literature and the Peerage. He was
+     said to have written a book once, to have been a friend of Lord
+     Byron, to be related to Lord Sumphington.... This gentleman was
+     listened to with great attention by Mrs. Bungay; his anecdotes of
+     the Aristocracy, of which he was a middle-aged member, delighted
+     the publisher's lady.
+                                     W. M. THACKERAY, _Pendennis_.
+
+
+When I am writing Reminiscences, I always feel dreadfully like Captain
+Sumph; but, in order to make the resemblance quite exact, I must devote
+a chapter to Literature.
+
+I seem, from my earliest conscious years, to have lived in a world of
+books; and yet my home was by no means "bookish." I was trained by
+people who had not read much, but had read thoroughly; who regarded good
+literature with unfeigned admiration; and who, though they would never
+have dreamt of forcing or cramming, yet were pleased when they saw a boy
+inclined to read, and did their best to guide his reading aright. As I
+survey my early life and compare it with the present day, one of the
+social changes which impresses me most is the general decay of
+intellectual cultivation. This may sound paradoxical in an age which
+habitually talks so much about Education and Culture; but I am persuaded
+that it is true. Dilettantism is universal, and a smattering of
+erudition, infinitely more offensive than honest and manly ignorance,
+has usurped the place which was formerly occupied by genuine and liberal
+learning. A vast deal of specialism, "mugged up," as boys say, at the
+British Museum or the London Library, may coexist with a profound
+ignorance of all that is really worth knowing. It sounds very
+intellectual to chatter about the authorship of the Fourth Gospel, or to
+scoff at St. John's "senile iterations and contorted metaphysics"; but,
+when a clergyman read St. Paul's eulogy on Charity, instead of an
+address, at the end of a fashionable wedding, one of his hearers said,
+"How very appropriate that was! Where did you get it from?" Everyone can
+patter nonsense about the traces of Bacon's influence in _The Merry
+Wives of Windsor_, and can ransack their family histories for the
+original of "Mr. W. H." But, when _Cymbeline_ was put on the stage,
+Society was startled to find that the principal part was not a woman's.
+When some excellent scenes from Jane Austen were given in a Belgravian
+drawing-room, a lady of the highest notoriety, enthusiastically praising
+the performance, enquired who was the author of the dialogue between Mr.
+and Mrs. John Dashwood, and whether he had written anything else. I have
+known a Lord Chief Justice who had never seen the view from Richmond
+Hill; a publicist who had never heard of Lord Althorp; and an authoress
+who did not know the name of Izaak Walton.
+
+Perhaps these curious "ignorances," as the Prayer Book calls them,
+impressed me the more forcibly because I was born a Whig, and brought up
+in a Whiggish society; for the Whigs were rather specially the allies of
+learning; and made it a point of honour to know, though never to parade,
+the best that has been thought and written. Very likely they had no
+monopoly of culture: the Tories may have been just as well-informed. But
+a man "belongs to his belongings"; one can only describe what one has
+seen; and here the contrast between Past and Present is palpable
+enough. I am not thinking of professed scholars and students, such as
+Lord Stanhope the Historian, and Sir Edward Bunbury the Senior Classic;
+or of professed blue-stockings, such as Barbarina, Lady Dacre, and
+Georgiana, Lady Chatterton; but of ordinary men and women of good family
+and good position, who had received the usual education of their class,
+and had profited by it.
+
+Mr. Gladstone used to say that, in his schooldays at Eton, a boy might
+learn much, or learn nothing; but he could not learn superficially. A
+similar remark would have applied to the attainments of people who were
+old when I was young. They might know much, or they might know nothing;
+but they did not know superficially. What they professed to know, that
+you could be sure they knew. The affectation of culture was despised;
+and ignorance, where it existed, was avowed. For example, everyone knew
+Italian, but no one pretended to know German. I remember men who had
+never been at a University, but had passed straight from a Public School
+to a Cavalry Regiment or the House of Commons, and who yet could quote
+Horace as easily as the present generation quotes Kipling. These people
+inherited the traditions of Mrs. Montagu, who "vindicated the genius of
+Shakespeare against the calumnies of Voltaire," and they knew the
+greatest poet of all time with an absolute ease and familiarity. They
+did not trouble themselves about various readings, and corrupt texts,
+and difficult passages. They had nothing in common with that true father
+of all Shakespearean criticism, Mr. Curdle, in _Nicholas Nickleby_, who
+had written a treatise on the question whether Juliet's nurse's husband
+was really "a merry man," or whether it was only his widow's
+affectionate partiality that induced her so to report him. But they knew
+the whole mass of the Plays with a natural and unforced intimacy; their
+speech was saturated with the immortal diction, and Hamlet's
+speculations were their nearest approach to metaphysics. Pope was quoted
+whenever the occasion suggested him, and Johnson was esteemed the Prince
+of Critics. Broadly speaking, all educated people knew the English poets
+down to the end of the eighteenth century. Byron and Moore were enjoyed
+with a sort of furtive and fearful pleasure; Wordsworth was tolerated,
+and Tennyson was "coming in." Everyone knew Scott's novels by heart, and
+had his or her favourite heroine and hero.
+
+I said in a former chapter that I had from my earliest days free access
+to an excellent library; and, even before I could read comfortably by
+myself, my interest in books was stimulated by listening to my elders as
+they read aloud. The magic of words and cadence--the purely sensuous
+pleasure of melodious sound--stirred me from the time when I was quite a
+child. Poetry, of course, came first; but prose was not much later. I
+had by nature a good memory, and it retained, by no effort on my part,
+my favourite bits of Macaulay and Scott. _The Battle of Lake Regillus_
+and _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_, the impeachment of Warren Hastings
+and the death of Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, are samples of the literature
+with which my mind was stored. Every boy, I suppose, attempts to imitate
+what he admires, and I was eternally scribbling. When I was eleven, I
+began a novel, of which the heroine was a modern Die Vernon. At twelve,
+I took to versification, for which the swinging couplets of _English
+Bards and Scotch Reviewers_ supplied the model. Fragments of prose and
+verse came thick and fast. When I was thirteen, I made my first
+appearance in print; with a set of verses on a Volunteer Encampment,
+which really were not at all bad; and at fourteen I published
+(anonymously) a religious tract, which had some success in Evangelical
+circles.
+
+The effect of Harrow was both to stimulate and to discipline my taste
+for literature. It was my good fortune to be taught my Sophocles and
+Euripides, Tacitus and Virgil, by scholars who had the literary sense,
+and could enrich school-lessons with all the resources of a generous
+culture. My sixteenth and seventeenth years brought me a real and
+conscious growth in the things of the mind, and with that period of my
+life I must always gratefully associate the names of Frederic Farrar,
+Edward Bowen, and Arthur Watson.[49]
+
+Meanwhile I was not only learning, but also practising. My teachers with
+one accord incited me to write. Essay-writing formed a regular part of
+our work in school and pupil-room, and I composed a great deal for my
+own amusement. I wrote both prose and verse, and verse in a great many
+metres; but it was soon borne in upon me--conclusively after I had been
+beaten for the Prize Poem[50]--that the Muse of Poetry was not mine. In
+prose, I was more successful. My work for _The Harrovian_ gave me
+constant practice, and I twice won the School-Prize for an English
+Essay. In writing, I indulged to the full my taste for resonant and
+rolling sound; and my style was ludicrously rhetorical. The subject for
+the Prize Essay in 1872 was "Parliamentary Oratory: its History and
+Influence," and the discourse which I composed on that attractive theme
+has served me from that day to this as the basis of a popular lecture.
+The "Young Lion" of the _Daily Telegraph_ thus "roared" over my
+performance--
+
+"The English Essay now takes a higher place on Speech Day than it did in
+the old season; and the essay which was crowned yesterday was notable
+alike for the theme, the opinions, and the literary promise of the
+writer. The young author bore the historical name of Russell, and he was
+really reviewing the forerunners and the fellow-workers of his own
+ancestors, in describing the rhetorical powers of the elder and the
+younger Pitt, Fox, Burke, Sheridan, Canning and Grey.... The well-known
+Constitutional note of Lord Russell was heard in every page, and the
+sonorous English was such as the Earl himself might have written fifty
+years ago, if the undergraduates of that day had been able to copy a
+Macaulay. The essayist has read the prose of that dangerous model until
+he has imitated the well-known and now hackneyed devices of the great
+rhetorician with a closeness which perilously brought to mind the show
+passages of the 'Essays' and the 'History.' Mr. Russell has caught the
+trick of cutting up his paragraphs into rolling periods, and short,
+sharp, and disjointed sentences; but he will go to more subtle and more
+simple masters of style than Macaulay, when he shall have passed the
+rhetorical stage of youth."
+
+This prophecy was soon fulfilled, and indeed the process of fulfilment
+had already begun. In the Sixth Form, we naturally were influenced by
+Dr. Butler, who, though he certainly did not despise fine rhetoric,
+wrote a beautifully simple style, and constantly instructed us in the
+difference between eloquence and journalese. "Let us leave _commence_
+and _partake_ to the newspapers," was an admonition often on his lips.
+Our Composition Masters were Edward Young, an exquisite scholar of the
+Eton type, and the accomplished Henry Nettleship, who detested
+flamboyancy, and taught us to admire Newman's incomparable easiness and
+grace. And there was Matthew Arnold living on the Hill, generously
+encouraging every bud of literary promise, and always warning us against
+our tendency to "Middle-class Macaulayese."
+
+At Oxford, the chastening process went on apace. Newman became my
+master, as far as language was concerned; and I learned to bracket him
+with Arnold and Church as possessing "The Oriel style." Thackeray's
+Latinized constructions began to fascinate me; and, though I still loved
+gorgeous diction, I sought it from Ruskin instead of Macaulay.
+
+All this time I was writing--in a very humble and obscure way,
+certainly, but still writing. I wrote in local newspapers and Parish
+Magazines. I published anonymous comments on current topics. I
+contributed secretly to ephemeral journals. I gave lectures and printed
+them as pamphlets. It was all very good exercise; but the odd part of it
+seems to me, in looking back, that I never expected pay, but rather
+spent my own money in printing what I wrote. That last infirmity of
+literary minds I laid aside soon after I left Oxford. I rather think
+that the first money which I made with my pen was payment for a
+character-study of my uncle, Lord Russell, which I wrote for _The
+World_; thereby eliciting from Matthew Arnold the urbane remark, "Ah, my
+dear George, I hear you have become one of Yates's hired stabbers."
+
+After I entered Parliament, opportunities of writing, and of writing for
+profit, became more frequent. I contributed to the _Quarterly_, the _New
+Quarterly_, the _Nineteenth Century_, the _Fortnightly_, the
+_Contemporary_, the _Spectator_, and the _Pall Mall_. Yet another
+magazine recurs pleasantly to my mind, because of the warning which was
+inscribed on one's proof-sheet--"The cost of _corrigenda_ will be
+deducted from _honoraria_." What fine language! and what a base economy!
+
+It did not take me long to find that the society in which I habitually
+lived, and which I have described in a former chapter, was profoundly
+ignorant. A most amusing law-suit between a Duchess and her maid took
+place about the time of which I am writing, and the Duchess's
+incriminated letter, beginning in the third person, wandering off into
+the first, and returning with an effort to the third, was indeed an
+object-lesson in English composition. A young sprig of fashion once said
+to me, in the tone of a man who utters an accepted truth, "It is so
+much more interesting to talk about people than things"--even though
+those "things" were the literary triumphs of humour or tragedy. In one
+great house, Books were a prohibited subject, and the word "Books" was
+construed with such liberal latitude that it seemed to include
+everything except Bradshaw. Even where people did not thus truculently
+declare war against literature, they gave it an uncommonly wide berth,
+and shrank with ill-concealed aversion from such names as Meredith and
+Browning. "Meredith," said Oscar Wilde, "is a prose-Browning--and so is
+Browning." And both those forms of prose were equally eschewed by
+society.
+
+Of course, when one is surveying a whole class, one sees some
+conspicuous exceptions to the prevailing colour; and here and there one
+had the pleasure of meeting in society persons admirably accomplished. I
+have already mentioned Lord Houghton, poet, essayist, pamphleteer,
+book-lover, and book-collector, who was equally at home in the world of
+society and the world of literature. Nothing that was good in books,
+whether ancient or modern, escaped his curious scrutiny, and at his
+hospitable table, which might truly be called a "Festive Board,"
+authors great and small rubbed shoulders with dandies and diplomats and
+statesmen. On the 16th of June, 1863, Matthew Arnold wrote--"On Sunday I
+dined with Monckton Milnes,[51] and met all the advanced Liberals in
+religion and politics, and a Cingalese in full costume.... The
+philosophers were fearful! George Lewes, Herbert Spencer, a sort of
+pseudo-Shelley called Swinburne, and so on. Froude, however, was there,
+and Browning, and Ruskin."
+
+The mention of Matthew Arnold reminds me that, though I had admired and
+liked him in a reverent sort of way, when I was a Harrow boy and he was
+a man, I found him even more fascinating when I met him on the more even
+terms of social life in London. He was indeed the most delightful of
+companions; a man of the world entirely free from worldliness, and a man
+of letters without the faintest trace of pedantry. He walked through the
+world enjoying it and loving it; and yet all the time one felt that his
+"eyes were on the higher loadstars" of the intellect and the spirit. In
+those days I used to say that, if one could fashion oneself, I should
+wish to be like Matthew Arnold; and the lapse of years has not altered
+my desire.
+
+Of Robert Browning, as he appeared in society, I have already spoken;
+but here let me add an instance which well illustrates his tact and
+readiness. He once did me the honour of dining with me, and I had
+collected a group of eager disciples to meet him. As soon as dinner was
+over, one of these enthusiasts led the great man into a corner, and
+began cross-examining him about the identity of _The Lost Leader_ and
+the meaning of _Sordello_. For a space Browning bore the catechism with
+admirable patience; and then, laying his hand on the questioner's
+shoulder, he exclaimed, "But, my dear fellow, this is too bad. _I_ am
+monopolizing _you_," and skipped out of the corner.
+
+Lord Tennyson was scarcely ever to be encountered in society; but I was
+presented to him at a garden-party by Mr. James Knowles, of the
+_Nineteenth Century_. He was, is, and always will be, one of the chief
+divinities of my poetical heaven; but he was more worshipful at a
+distance than at close quarters, and I was determined not to dispel
+illusion by a too near approach to the shrine. J. A. Froude was a man of
+letters whom from time to time one encountered in society. No one could
+doubt his cleverness; but it was a cleverness which rather repelled than
+attracted. With his thin lips, his cold smile, and his remorseless,
+deliberate, way of speaking, he always seemed to be secretly gloating
+over the hideous scene in the hall of Fotheringay, or the last agonies
+of a disembowelled Papist. Lord Acton was, or seemed to be, a man of the
+world first and foremost; a politician and a lover of society; a gossip,
+and, as his "Letters" show, not always a friendly gossip.[52] His
+demeanour was profoundly sphinx-like, and he seemed to enjoy the sense
+that his hearers were anxious to learn what he was able but unwilling to
+impart. His knowledge and accomplishments it would, at this time of day,
+be ridiculous to question; and on the main concerns of human
+life--Religion and Freedom--I was entirely at one with him. All the more
+do I regret that in society he so effectually concealed his higher
+enthusiasms, and that, having lived on the vague fame of his "History of
+Liberty," he died leaving it unwritten.
+
+I am writing of the years when I first knew London socially, and I may
+extend them from 1876 to 1886. All through those years, as through many
+before and since, the best representative of culture in society was Mr.,
+now Sir, George Trevelyan--a poet, a scholar to his finger-tips, an
+enthusiast for all that is best in literature, ancient or modern, and
+author of one of the six great Biographies in the English language.
+There is no need to recapitulate Sir George's services to the State, or
+to criticize his performances in literature. It is enough to record my
+lively and lasting gratitude for the unbroken kindness which began when
+I was a boy at Harrow, and continues to the present hour.
+
+I have spoken, so far, of literary men who played a more or less
+conspicuous part in society; but, as this chapter is dedicated to
+Literature, I ought to say a word about one or two men of Letters who
+always avoided society, but who, when one sought them out in their own
+surroundings, were delightful company. Foremost among these I should
+place James Payn.
+
+Payn was a man who lived in, for, and by Literature. He detested
+exercise. He never travelled. He scarcely ever left London. He took no
+holidays. If he was forced into the country for a day or two, he used
+the exile as material for a story or an essay. His life was one
+incessant round of literary activity. He had published his first book
+while he was an Undergraduate at Trinity, and from first to last he
+wrote more than a hundred volumes. _By Proxy_ has been justly admired
+for the wonderful accuracy of its local colour, and for a masterly
+knowledge of Chinese character; but the writer drew exclusively from
+encyclopædias and books of travel. In my judgment, he was at his best in
+the Short Story. He practised that difficult art long before it became
+popular, and a book called originally _People, Places, and Things_, but
+now _Humorous Stories_, is a masterpiece of fun, invention, and
+observation. In 1874, he became "Reader" to Messrs. Smith and Elder, and
+in that capacity had the happiness of discovering _Vice Versa_, and the
+less felicitous experience of rejecting _John Inglesant_ as unreadable.
+
+It was at this period of his life that I first encountered Payn, and I
+fell at once under his charm. His was not a faultless character, for he
+was irritable, petulant, and prejudiced. He took the strongest dislikes,
+sometimes on very slight grounds; was unrestrained in expressing them,
+and was apt to treat opinions which he did not share very cavalierly.
+But none of these faults could obscure his charm. He was the most
+tender-hearted of human beings, and the sight, even the thought, of
+cruelty set his blood on fire. But, though he was intensely humane, he
+was absolutely free from mawkishness; and a wife-beater, or a
+child-torturer, or a cattle-maimer would have had short shrift at his
+hands. He was genuinely sympathetic, especially towards the hopes and
+struggles of the young and the unbefriended. Many an author, once
+struggling but now triumphant, could attest this trait. But his chief
+charm was his humour. It was absolutely natural; bubbled like a
+fountain, and danced like light. Nothing escaped it, and solemnity only
+stimulated it to further activities. He had the power, which Sydney
+Smith described, of "abating and dissolving pompous gentlemen with the
+most successful ridicule;" and, when he was offended, the ridicule had a
+remarkably sharp point. It was of course, impossible that all the humour
+of a man who joked incessantly could be equally good. Sometimes it was
+rather boyish, playing on proper names or personal peculiarities; and
+sometimes it descended to puns. But, for sheer rapidity, I have never
+known Payn's equal. When a casual word annoyed him, his repartee
+flashed out like lightning. I could give plenty of instances, but to
+make them intelligible I should have to give a considerable amount of
+introduction, and that would entirely spoil the sense of flashing
+rapidity. There was no appreciable interval of time between the
+provoking word and the repartee which it provoked.
+
+Another great element of charm in Payn was his warm love of Life,
+
+
+     "And youth, and bloom, and this delightful world."
+
+
+While he hated the black and savage and sordid side of existence with a
+passionate hatred, he enjoyed all its better--which he believed to be
+its larger--part with an infectious relish. Never have I known a more
+blithe and friendly spirit; never a nature to which Literature and
+Society--books and men--yielded a more constant and exhilarating joy. He
+had unstinted admiration for the performances of others, and was wholly
+free from jealousy. His temperament indeed was not equable. He had ups
+and downs, bright moods and dark, seasons of exaltation and seasons of
+depression. The one succeeded the other with startling rapidity, but the
+bright moods triumphed, and it was impossible to keep him permanently
+depressed. His health had always been delicate, but illness neither
+crushed his spirit nor paralysed his pen. Once he broke a blood-vessel
+in the street, and was conveyed home in an ambulance. During the
+transit, though he was in some danger of bleeding to death, he began to
+compose a narrative of his adventure, and next week it appeared in the
+_Illustrated London News_.
+
+During the last two years of his life he was painfully crippled by
+arthritic rheumatism, and could no longer visit the Reform Club, where
+for many years he had every day eaten his luncheon and played his
+rubber. Determining that he should not completely lose his favourite, or
+I should rather say his only, amusement, some members of the Club banded
+themselves together to supply him with a rubber in his own house twice a
+week; and this practice was maintained to his death. It was a striking
+testimony to the affection which he inspired. In those years I was a
+pretty frequent visitor, and, on my way to the house, I used to bethink
+me of stories which might amuse him, and I used even to note them down
+between one visit and another, as a provision for next time. One day
+Payn said, "A collection of your stories would make a book, and I think
+Smith and Elder would publish it." I thought my anecdotage scarcely
+worthy of so much honour; but I promised to make a weekly experiment in
+the _Manchester Guardian_. My _Collections and Recollections_ ran
+through the year 1897, and appeared in book-form at Easter, 1898. But
+Payn died on the 25th of the previous March; and the book, which I had
+hoped to put in his hand, I could only inscribe to his delightful
+memory.
+
+Another remarkable man of letters, wholly remote from the world, was
+Richard Holt Hutton, for thirty-six years (1861-1897) the honoured
+Editor of _The Spectator_. Hutton was a "stickit minister" of the
+Unitarian persuasion, who had been led, mainly by the teaching of F. D.
+Maurice, to the acceptance of orthodox Christianity; and who devoted all
+the rest of his life to the inculcation of what he conceived to be moral
+and religious truth, through the medium of a weekly review. He lived, a
+kind of married hermit, on the edge of Windsor Forest, and could hardly
+be separated, even for a week's holiday, from his beloved _Spectator_.
+His output of work was enormous and incessant, and was throughout
+critical and didactic. The style was pre-eminently characteristic of
+the man--tangled, untidy, ungraceful, disfigured by "trailing relatives"
+and accumulated epithets; and yet all the time conveying the sense of
+some real and even profound thought that strove to express itself
+intelligibly. As the style, so the substance. "_The Spectator_," wrote
+Matthew Arnold in 1865, "is all very well, but the article has Hutton's
+fault of seeing so very far into a mill-stone." And, two years later,
+"_The Spectator_ has an article in which Hutton shows his strange
+aptitude for getting hold of the wrong end of the stick." Both were
+sound criticisms. When Hutton addressed himself to a deep topic of
+abstract speculation, he "saw so very far into it" that even his most
+earnest admirers could not follow the visual act. When he handled the
+more commonplace subjects of thought or action with which ordinary men
+concern themselves, he seemed to miss the most obvious and palpable
+points. He was a philosophical thinker, with a natural bent towards the
+abstract and the mystical--a Platonist rather than an Aristotelian. He
+saw things invisible to grosser eyes; he heard voices not audible to
+ordinary ears; and, when he was once fairly launched in speculation on
+such a theme as Personal Identity or the Idea of God, he "found no end,
+in wandering mazes lost."
+
+But the very quality of aloofness from other men and their ways of
+thinking, which made it impossible for him to be the exponent of a
+system or the founder of a school, made him a peculiarly interesting
+friend. In homely phrase, you never knew where to have him; he was
+always breaking out in a fresh place. Whatever subject he handled, from
+impaled Bulgarians to the credibility of miracles, was certain to be
+presented in a new and unlooked-for aspect. He was as full of splendid
+gleams as a landscape by Turner, and as free from all formal rules of
+art and method. He was an independent thinker, if ever there was one,
+and as honest as he was independent. In his belief, truth was the most
+precious of treasures, to be sought at all hazards, and, when acquired,
+to be safeguarded at all costs. His zeal for truth was closely allied
+with his sense of justice. His mind came as near absolute fairness as is
+possible for a man who takes any part in live controversies. He never
+used an unfair argument to establish his point, nor pressed a fair
+argument unduly. He was scrupulously careful in stating his adversary's
+case, and did all in his power to secure a judicial and patient hearing
+even for the causes with which he had least sympathy. His own
+convictions, which he had reached through stern and self-sacrificing
+struggles, were absolutely solid. By the incessant writing of some forty
+years, he enforced the fundamental truth of human redemption through God
+made Man on the attention of people to whom professional preachers speak
+in vain, and he steadily impressed on his fellow-Christians those
+ethical duties of justice and mercy which should be, but sometimes are
+not, the characteristic fruits of their creed. It was a high function,
+excellently fulfilled.
+
+The transition is abrupt, but no catalogue of the literary men with whom
+I was brought in contact could be complete without a mention of Mr.
+George Augustus Sala. He was the very embodiment of Bohemia; and, alike
+in his views and in his style, the fine flower of such journalism as is
+associated with the name of the _Daily Telegraph_. His portrait,
+sketched with rare felicity, may be found in Letter XII. of that
+incomparable book, _Friendship's Garland_. "Adolescens Leo" thus
+describes him--"Sala, like us his disciples, has studied in the book of
+the world even more than in the world of books. But his career and
+genius have given him somehow the secret of a literary mixture novel and
+fascinating in the last degree: he blends the airy epicureanism of the
+_salons_ of Augustus with the full-bodied gaiety of our English
+cider-cellar. With our people and country, _mon cher_, this mixture is
+now the very thing to go down; there arises every day a larger public
+for it; and we, Sala's disciples, may be trusted not willingly to let it
+die."
+
+That was written in 1871; and, when sixteen years had elapsed, I thought
+it would be safe, and I knew it would be amusing, to bring Sala and
+Matthew Arnold face to face at dinner. For the credit of human nature
+let it be recorded that the experiment was entirely successful; for, as
+Lord Beaconsfield said, "Turtle makes all men equal," and vindictiveness
+is exorcised by champagne.
+
+The Journalist of Society in those days was Mr. T. H. S. Escott, who was
+also Editor of the _Fortnightly_ and leader-writer of the _Standard_. I
+should be inclined to think that no writer in London worked so hard; and
+he paid the penalty in shattered health. It is a pleasure to me, who in
+those days owed much to his kindness, to witness the renewal of his
+early activities, and to welcome volume after volume from his prolific
+pen. Mr. Kegan Paul, essayist, critic, editor, and ex-clergyman, was
+always an interesting figure; and his successive transitions from
+Tractarianism to Latitudinarianism, and from Agnosticism to
+Ultramontanism, gave a peculiar piquancy to his utterances on religion.
+He deserves remembrance on two quite different scores--one, that he was
+the first publisher to study prettiness in the production of even cheap
+books; and the other, that he was an early and enthusiastic worker in
+the cause of National Temperance. It was my privilege to be often with
+him in the suffering and blindness of his last years, and I have never
+seen a trying discipline more bravely borne.
+
+More than once in these chapters I have referred to "Billy Johnson," as
+his pupils and friends called William Cory in remembrance of old times.
+He was from 1845 to 1872 the most brilliant tutor at Eton: an
+astonishing number of eminent men passed through his hands, and retained
+through life the influence of his teaching. After leaving Eton, he
+changed his name from Johnson to Cory, and established himself on the
+top of the hill at Hampstead, where he freely imparted the treasures of
+his exquisite scholarship to all who cared to seek them, and not least
+willingly to young ladies. He was a man of absolutely original mind;
+paradoxical, prejudiced, and intellectually independent to the point of
+eccentricity. His range was wide, his taste infallible, and his love of
+the beautiful a passion. He lived, from boyhood to old age, the life of
+the Intellect; and yet posterity will know him only as having written
+one thin book of delightful verse;[53] a fragmentary History of England;
+and some of the most fascinating letters in the language.
+
+A friend and brother-Scholar of mine at Oxford was "Willy" Arnold, son
+of Mr. Thomas Arnold, and nephew of Matthew. After taking his degree, he
+joined the staff of the _Manchester Guardian_, and before long became
+one of the first journalists of his time. He was not merely a
+journalist, but also a publicist, and could have made his mark in public
+life by his exceptional knowledge of European politics. We had not seen
+one another for a good many years, when we met casually at dinner in the
+summer of 1887. To that chance meeting I owed my introduction to the
+_Manchester Guardian_. My first contribution to it was a description of
+the Jubilee Garden-Party at Buckingham Palace on the 29th of June,
+1887; so I can reckon almost a quarter of a century of association with
+what I am bold to call (defying all allusion to the fabled Tanner) the
+best newspaper in Great Britain.
+
+But journalism, though now practised on a more dignified level, was only
+a continuation and development of a life-long habit; whereas, though I
+had been scribbling ever since I was a boy, I had never written a book.
+In 1890 Messrs. Sampson Low started a series of _The Queen's Prime
+Ministers_. Froude led off, brilliantly, with Lord Beaconsfield; and the
+editor[54] asked me to follow with Mr. Gladstone. Before acceding to
+this proposal, I thought it right to ask whether Gladstone had any
+objection; and, supposing that he had not, whether he would give me any
+help. His reply was eminently characteristic,--
+
+"When someone proposed to write a book about Harry Phillpotts, Bishop of
+Exeter, the Bishop procured an Injunction in Chancery to stop him. I
+shall not seek an Injunction against you--but that is all the help I can
+give you."
+
+Thus encouraged, or rather, I should say, not discouraged, I addressed
+myself to the task, and the book came out in July, 1891. I was told
+that Gladstone did not read it, and this assurance was in many respects
+a relief. But someone told him that I had stated, on the authority of
+one of his school-fellows, that he played no games at Eton. The next
+time I met him, he referred to this point; declared that I had been
+misinformed; and affirmed that he played both cricket and football, and
+"was in the Second Eleven at Cricket." In obedience to his request, I
+made the necessary correction in the Second Edition; but _a priori_ I
+should not have been inclined to suspect my venerated leader of having
+been a cricketer.
+
+It is no part of my plan to narrate my own extremely humble performances
+in the way of authorship. The heading of the chapter speaks not of
+Book-making, but of Literature; and for a man to say that he has
+contributed to Literature would indeed be to invite rebuff. I am
+thinking now, not of what I have done, but of what I have received; and
+my debt to Literature is great indeed. I do not know the sensation of
+dulness, but, like most human beings, I know the sensation of sorrow;
+and with a grateful heart I record the fact that the darkest hours of my
+life have been made endurable by the Companionship of Books.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[49] To Mr. Watson I owed my introduction to Matthew Arnold's _Essays in
+Criticism_--a real event in one's mental life.
+
+[50] By Sir Walter Strickland; whose poem on William Tyndale was justly
+admired.
+
+[51] Richard Monckton Milnes was created Lord Houghton, August 20, 1863.
+
+[52] It is only fair to observe that those "Letters" were written in the
+strictest confidence.
+
+[53] Ionica.
+
+[54] Mr. Stuart J. Reid.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+SERVICE
+
+
+     May He "in knowledge of Whom standeth our eternal life, Whose
+     service is perfect freedom"--_Quem nosse vivere, Cui servire
+     regnare est_--teach us the rules and laws of that eternal service,
+     which is now beginning on the scene of time.
+                     R. W. CHURCH, _Human Life and its Conditions_.
+
+
+It was my happiness to be born and brought up in a home where Religion
+habitually expressed itself in Social Service. I cannot remember a time
+when those nearest to me were not actively engaged in ministering to the
+poor, the sick, the underfed, and the miserable. The motive of all this
+incessant ministration was the Christian Faith, and its motto was
+_Charitas Christi urget nos_. The religion in which the children of an
+Evangelical home were reared was an intensely vivid and energetic
+principle, passionate on its emotional side, definite in its theory,
+imperious in its demands, practical, visible, and tangible in its
+effects. If a boy's heart--
+
+
+     "Were less insensible than sodden clay
+     In a sea-river's bed at ebb of tide,"
+
+
+it could scarcely fail to carry with it into the world outside the
+impressions stamped by such a training. I can remember quite clearly
+that, even in my Harrow days, the idea of Life as Service was always
+present to my mind: and it was constantly enforced by the preaching of
+such men as Butler, Westcott, and Farrar.
+
+"Here you are being educated either for life or for fashion. Which is
+it? What is your ambition? Is it to continue, with fewer restrictions,
+the amusements which have engrossed you here? Is it to be favourite or
+brilliant members of a society which keeps want and misery at a
+distance? Would this content you? Is this your idea of life? Or may we
+not hope that you will have a nobler conception of what a Christian
+manhood may be made in a country so rich in opportunities as our own now
+presents?"[55]
+
+In Dr. Butler's sermons our thoughts were directed to such subjects as
+the Housing of the Working Classes, Popular Education, and the contrast
+between the lot of the rich and the lot of the poor. "May God never
+allow us to grow proud, or to grow indolent, or to be deaf to the cry of
+human suffering." "Pray that God may count you worthy to be foremost in
+the truly holy and heroic work of bringing purity to the homes of the
+labouring classes, and so hastening the coming of the day when the
+longing of our common Lord shall be accomplished." "Forget not the
+complaints, and the yet more fatal silence, of the poor, and pray that
+the ennobling of your own life, and the gratification of your own
+happiness, may be linked hereafter with some public Christian labour."
+
+Thus the influences of school co-operated with the influences of home to
+give one, at the most impressionable age, a lively interest in Social
+Service; and that interest found a practical outlet at Oxford. When
+young men first attempt good works, they always begin with teaching; and
+a Sunday School at Cowley and a Night School at St. Frideswide's were
+the scenes of my (very unsuccessful) attempts in that direction. Through
+my devotion to St. Barnabas', I became acquainted with the homes and
+lives of the poor in the then squalid district of "Jericho"; and the
+experience thus acquired was a valuable complement to the knowledge of
+the agricultural poor which I had gained at home. It was at this time
+that I first read _Yeast_ and _Alton Locke_. The living voice of Ruskin
+taught us the sanctity of work for others. A fascinating but awful book
+called _Modern Christianity a Civilized Heathenism_ laid compelling
+hands on some young hearts; and in 1875 Dr. Pusey made that book the
+subject of a sermon before the University, in which he pleaded the cause
+of the poor with an unforgettable solemnity.[56]
+
+For two or three years, illness and decrepitude interfered with my
+active service, but the ideal was still enthroned in my heart; and, as
+health returned, the shame of doing nothing for others became
+intolerable. Return to activity was a very gradual process, and, if one
+had ever "despised the day of small things," one now learned to value
+it. When I came up to London, two or three of us, who had been
+undergraduate friends at Oxford, formed a little party for
+workhouse-visiting. One of the party has since been a Conservative
+Minister, one a Liberal Minister, and one a high official of the Central
+Conservative Association. Sisters joined their brothers, and we used to
+jog off together on Saturday afternoons to the Holborn Workhouse,
+which, if I remember right, stood in a poetically-named but
+prosaic-looking street called "Shepherdess Walk." The girls visited the
+women, and we the men. We used to take oranges and flowers to the wards,
+give short readings from amusing books, and gossip with the bedridden
+about the outside world. We always had the kindest of welcomes from our
+old friends; and great was their enthusiasm when they learned that two
+of their visitors had been returned to Parliament at the General
+Election of 1880. As one of the two was a Conservative and one a
+Liberal, the political susceptibilities of the ward were not offended,
+and we both received congratulations from all alike. One quaint incident
+is connected with these memories. Just outside the Workhouse was a sort
+of booth, or "lean-to," where a very respectable woman sold daffodils
+and wall-flowers, which we used to buy for our friends inside. One day,
+when one of the girls of our party was making her purchase, the
+flower-seller said, "Would your Ladyship like to go to the Lady
+Mayoress's Fancy Dress Ball? If so, I can send you and your brother
+tickets. You have been good customers to me, and I should be very glad
+if you would accept them." The explanation was that the flower-seller
+was sister to the Lady Mayoress, whom the Lord Mayor had married when he
+was in a humbler station. The tickets were gratefully accepted; and,
+when we asked the giver if she was going to the Ball, she replied, with
+excellent sense and taste, "Oh, no. My sister, in her position, is
+obliged to give these grand parties, but I should be quite out of place
+there. You must tell me all about it next time you come to the
+Workhouse."
+
+
+Meanwhile, during this "day of small things" a quiet but momentous
+revolution had been going on all round us, in the spheres of thought and
+conscience; and the earlier idea of individual service had been, not
+swamped by, but expanded into, the nobler conception of corporate
+endeavour.
+
+It had been a work of time. The Christian Socialism of 1848--one of the
+finest episodes in our moral history--had been trampled underfoot by the
+wickedness of the Crimean War. To all appearance, it fell into the
+ground and died. After two years of aimless bloodshed, peace was
+restored in 1856, and a spell of national prosperity succeeded. The
+Repeal of the Corn Laws had done its work; food was cheaper; times were
+better; the revenue advanced "by leaps and bounds." But commercialism
+was rampant. It was the heyday of the Ten Pound Householder and the
+Middle Class Franchise. Mr. Podsnap and Mr. Gradgrind enounced the
+social law. Bright and Cobden dominated political thinking. The
+Universities were fast bound in the misery and iron of Mill and Bain.
+Everywhere the same grim idols were worshipped--unrestricted
+competition, the survival of the fittest, and universal selfishness
+enthroned in the place which belonged to universal love. "The Devil take
+the hindermost" was the motto of industrial life. "In the huge and
+hideous cities, the awful problem of Industry lay like a bad dream; but
+Political Economy warned us off that ground. We were assured that the
+free play of competitive forces was bound to discover the true
+equipoise. No intervention could really affect the inevitable outcome.
+It could only hinder and disturb."[57] The Church, whose pride it had
+been in remoter ages to be the Handmaid of the Poor, was bidden to leave
+the Social Problem severely alone; and so ten years rolled by, while the
+social pressure on labour became daily more grievous to be borne. But
+meanwhile the change was proceeding underground, or at least out of
+sight. Forces were working side by side which knew nothing of each
+other, but which were all tending to the same result. The Church, boldly
+casting aside the trammels which had bound her to wealth and culture,
+went down into the slums; brought the beauty and romance of Worship to
+the poorest and the most depraved, and compelled them to come in.
+Whenever such a Church as St. Alban's, Holborn, or St. Barnabas, Oxford,
+was established in the slums of a populous city, it became a centre not
+only of religious influence, but of social, physical, and educational
+reform. Ruskin's many-coloured wisdom, long recognized in the domain of
+Art, began to win its way through economic darkness, and charged
+cheerfully against the dismal strongholds of Supply and Demand. _Unto
+this Last_ became a handbook for Social Reformers. The teaching of
+Maurice filtered, through all sorts of unsuspected channels, into
+literature and politics and churchmanship. In the intellectual world,
+Huxley transformed "the Survival of the Fittest," by bidding us devote
+ourselves to the task of fitting as many as possible to survive. At
+Oxford, the "home" not of "lost" but of victorious "causes," T. H.
+Green, wielding a spiritual influence which reached farther than that of
+many bishops, taught that Freedom of Contract, if it is to be anything
+but a callous fraud, implies conditions in which men are really free to
+contract or to refuse; and insisted that all wholesome competition
+implies "adequate equipment for the competitors."
+
+It is impossible to say exactly how all these influences intertwined and
+co-operated. One man was swayed by one force; another by another; and,
+after long years of subterranean working, a moment came, as it comes to
+the germinating seed deep-hidden in the furrow, when it must pierce the
+superincumbent mass, and show its tiny point of life above ground.[58]
+The General Election of 1880, by dethroning Lord Beaconsfield and
+putting Gladstone in power, had fulfilled the strictly political objects
+which during the preceding three years my friends and I had been trying
+to attain. So we, who entered Parliament at that Election, were set
+free, at the very outset of our public career, to work for the Social
+Reform which we had at heart. We earnestly desired to make the lives of
+our fellow-men healthier, sweeter, brighter, and more humane; and it was
+an ennobling and invigorating ambition, lifting the pursuit of politics,
+out of the vulgar dust of office-seeking and wire-pulling, into the
+purer air of unselfish endeavour. To some of us it was much more; for it
+meant the application of the Gospel of Christ to the practical business
+of modern life. But the difficulties were enormous. The Liberal party
+still clung to its miserable old mumpsimus of _Laissez-faire_, and
+steadily refused to learn the new and nobler language of Social Service.
+Alone among our leading men, Mr. Chamberlain seemed to apprehend the
+truth that political reform is related to social reform as the means to
+the end, and that Politics, in its widest sense, is the science of human
+happiness.
+
+But, in spite of all discouragements, we clung to "a Social Philosophy
+which, however materialistic some of its tendencies might have become,
+had been allied with the spiritual Hegelianism with which we had been
+touched. It took its scientific shape in the hands of Karl Marx, but it
+also floated to us, in dreams and visions, using our own Christian
+language, and invoking the unity of the Social Body, as the Law of
+Love, and the Solidarity of Humanity."[59]
+
+At the sound of these voices the old idols fell--_Laissez-faire_ and
+_Laissez-aller_, Individualism and Self-content, Unrestricted
+Competition and the Survival of the Fittest. They all went down with a
+crash, like so many dishonoured Dagons; and, before their startled
+worshippers had time to reinstate them, yet another voice of warning
+broke upon our ears. _The Bitter Cry of Outcast London_, describing the
+enormous amount of preventable misery caused by over-crowding, startled
+men into recognizing the duty of the State to cope with the evil. Then
+came Henry George with his _Progress and Poverty_, and, as Dr. Holland
+says, he "forced us on to new thinking." That "new thinking" took
+something of this form--"Here are the urgent and grinding facts of human
+misery. The Political Economy of such blind guides as Ricardo and
+Bastiat and Fawcett has signally failed to cure or even mitigate them.
+Now comes a new prophet with his gospel of the Single Tax. He may, or
+may not, have found the remedy, but at any rate he has shown us more
+clearly than ever the immensity of the evil, and our responsibility for
+suffering it to continue. We profess and call ourselves Christians. Is
+it not about time that, casting aside all human teachings, whether
+Economic or Socialistic, we tried to see what the Gospel says about the
+subject, and about our duty in regard to it?"
+
+Out of this stress of mind and heart arose "The Christian Social Union."
+It was founded in Lent, 1889, and it set forth its objects in the
+following statement--
+
+
+     "This Union consists of Churchmen who have the following objects at
+     heart:--
+
+     (i) To claim for the Christian Law the ultimate authority to rule
+     social practice.
+
+     (ii) To study in common how to apply the moral truths and
+     principles of Christianity to the social and economic difficulties
+     of the present time.
+
+     (iii) To present CHRIST in practical life as the Living Master and
+     King, the enemy of wrong and selfishness, the power of
+     righteousness and love."
+
+
+The Christian Social Union, originating with some Oxford men in London,
+was soon reinforced from Cambridge, which had fallen under the inspiring
+though impalpable influence of Westcott's teaching. Westcott was, in
+some sense, the continuator of Mauricianism; and so, when Westcott
+joined the Union, the two streams, of Mauricianism and of the Oxford
+Movement, fused. Let Dr. Holland, with whom the work began, tell the
+rest of the story--"We founded the C. S. U. under Westcott's
+presidentship, leaving to the Guild of St. Matthew their old work of
+justifying God to the People, while we devoted ourselves to converting
+and impregnating the solid, stolid, flock of our own church folk within
+the fold.... We had our work cut out for us in dislodging the horrible
+cast-iron formulæ, which were indeed wholly obsolete, but which seemed
+for that very reason to take tighter possession of their last refuge in
+the bulk of the Church's laity."
+
+
+     "Let no man think that sudden in a minute
+       All is accomplished and the work is done;--
+     Though with thine earliest dawn thou shouldst begin it,
+       Scarce were it ended in thy setting sun."[60]
+
+
+The spirit which created the Christian Social Union found, in the same
+year, an unexpected outlet in the secular sphere. In the Session of
+1888, the Conservative Ministry, noting the general disgust which had
+been aroused by the corrupt misgovernment of Greater London, passed the
+"Local Government Act," which, among other provisions, made London into
+a County, gave it a "County Council," and endowed that Council with
+far-reaching powers. To social reformers this was a tremendous event.
+For forty years they had been labouring to procure something of the
+sort, and now it dropped down from the skies, and seemed at first almost
+too good to be true. Under the shock of the surprise, London suddenly
+awoke to the consciousness of a corporate life. On every side men were
+stirred by an honest impulse to give the experiment a good start; to
+work the new machine for all it was worth; and to make the
+administration of Greater London a model for all lesser municipalities.
+The Divisions of London, for the purposes of its new Council, were the
+same as its Parliamentary Divisions, but each constituency returned two
+members, and the City four. Every seat (except those for St. George's,
+Hanover Square) was contested, and there were often as many as six or
+seven candidates for one division. It was said at the time that "the
+uncertainty of the issues, the multitude of candidates, and the
+vagueness of parties made it impossible to tabulate the results with the
+same accuracy and completeness which are possible in the case of the
+House of Commons." Some candidates stood professedly as Liberals, and
+others as Conservatives. The majority, however, declared themselves to
+be "strictly non-political." Some leading objects, such as Better
+Housing of the Poor, Sanitary Reform, and the abolition of jobbery and
+corruption, were professed by all alike; and the main issues in dispute
+were the control of the Police by the Council, the reform of the
+Corporation of London and of the City Guilds, the abolition of dues on
+coal coming into the Port of London, and the taxation of ground-rents.
+
+In such projects as these it was easy to discern the working of the new
+spirit. Men were trying, earnestly though amid much confusion, to
+translate the doctrines of Social Reform into fact. "Practicable
+Socialism" became the ideal of the reforming party, who styled
+themselves "Progressives." Their opponents got the unfortunate name of
+"Moderates"; and between the ideas roughly indicated by those two names
+the battle was fought. The Election took place in January, 1889. The
+result was that 71 candidates labelled "Progressive" were returned, and
+47 "Moderates." The Act empowered the Council to complete its number by
+electing 19 Aldermen. Of these, 18 were Progressives, and one was a
+Moderate; so the total result was a "Progressive" majority of 41.
+
+By the time of which I write I had become, by habitual residence, a
+Londoner; and I hope I was as keen on Social Reform as anyone in London,
+or outside it. But, after what I said in an earlier chapter, it will
+surprise no one that I declined to be a candidate for the London County
+Council. My dislike of electioneering is so intense that nothing on
+earth except the prospect of a seat in Parliament would tempt me to
+undertake it; so to all suggestions that I should stand in the
+Progressive interest I turned a resolutely deaf ear. But, when the
+election was over and the Progressive majority had to choose a list of
+Aldermen, I saw my opportunity and volunteered my services. By the
+goodwill of my friends on the Council, I was placed on the "Progressive
+List," and on the 5th of February I was elected an Alderman for six
+years. Among my colleagues were Lord Meath, Lord Lingen, Lord Hobhouse,
+Mr. Quintin Hogg, Sir Thomas Farrer, and Mr. Frederic Harrison. Lord
+Meath was accepted by the Progressive party, in recognition of his
+devoted services to the cause of social amelioration, especially in the
+matter of Public Gardens and Open Spaces; but, with this sole
+exception, the list was frankly partisan. The Progressives had got a
+majority on the new "Parliament of London," and had no notion of
+watering it down.
+
+Before the Council was created, the governing body for Greater London
+had been the "Metropolitan Board of Works," which had its dwelling in
+Spring Gardens. The old building had to be adapted to its new uses, and,
+while the reconstruction was in progress, the County Council was
+permitted by the Corporation to meet in the Guildhall. There we
+assembled on the 12th of February, a highly-diversified, and, in some
+respects, an interesting company. A careful analysis of our quality and
+occupations gave the following results: Peers, 4; M.P.'s and ex-M.P.'s,
+9; Clergymen, 2; Barristers, 14; Solicitors, 3; Soldiers, 4; Doctors, 5;
+Tutors, 2; Architects, 2; Builders, 4; Engineers, 3; Journalists, 4;
+Publisher, 1; Bankers, 5; Stock-Exchange men, 5; Auctioneers, 3; Brewer,
+1; Clothiers, 2; Confectioner, 1; Drapers, 2; Grocers, 2; Mineral
+Water-maker, 1; Optician, 1; Shoemaker, 1; Merchants, 22; Manufacturers,
+13; Gentlemen at large, 8; "Unspecified," 10. And to these must be added
+three ladies, who had been illegally elected and were soon unseated. A
+current joke of the time represented one of our more highly-cultured
+Councillors saying to a colleague drawn from another rank,--"The
+acoustics of this Hall seem very defective"--to which the colleague,
+after sniffing, replies--"Indeed? I don't perceive anything unpleasant."
+Which things were an allegory; but conveyed a true impression of our
+social and educational diversities.
+
+The first business which we had to transact was the election of a
+Chairman. Lord Rosebery was elected by 104 votes to 17; and so began the
+most useful portion of his varied career. The honorary office of
+Vice-Chairman was unanimously conferred on Sir John Lubbock, afterwards
+Lord Avebury; and for the Deputy Chairmanship, a salaried post of
+practical importance, the Council chose Mr. J. F. B. Firth, who had made
+his name as an exponent of the intricacies of Metropolitan Government.
+
+To watch the methods of Lord Rosebery's chairmanship was an interesting
+study. After much experience of public bodies and public meetings, I
+consider him the best chairman but one under whom I ever sat. The best
+was Mr. Leonard Courtney, now Lord Courtney of Penwith, who to the gifts
+of accuracy, promptness, and mastery of detail, added the rarer grace
+of absolute impartiality. Lord Rosebery had the accuracy, the
+promptness, and the mastery, but he was not impartial. He was inclined
+to add the functions of Leader of the House to those of Speaker, which
+were rightly his. When a subject on which he felt strongly was under
+discussion, and opinion in the Council was closely balanced, Lord
+Rosebery would intervene just at the close of the debate, with a short,
+strong, and emphatic speech, and so influence the division in favour of
+his own view. This practice is, in my judgment, inconsistent with ideal
+chairmanship, but in the early days of the Council it was not without
+its uses.
+
+We had to furnish ourselves with a constitution, to distribute our
+various powers, to frame rules of debate, and to create an order of
+business. To do all this in a full Council of 137 members, most of them
+quite unversed in public life, many of them opinionated, all articulate,
+and not a few vociferous, was a work of the utmost difficulty, and Lord
+Rosebery engineered it to perfection. He was suave and courteous;
+smoothed acrid dissensions with judicious humour; used sarcasm
+sparingly, but with effect; and maintained a certain dignity of bearing
+which profoundly impressed the representatives of the Great Middle
+Class. "By Jove, how these chaps funk Rosebery!" was the candid
+exclamation of Sir Howard Vincent; and his remark applied quite equally
+to his own "Moderate" friends and to my "Progressives." It was
+characteristic of these gentry that they longed to call Lord Rosebery
+"My Lord," and were with difficulty induced to substitute "Mr.
+Chairman." The one member of the Council who stands out in my memory as
+not having "funked" the Chairman is Mr. John Burns, whose action and
+bearing in the Council formed one of my most interesting studies. The
+events of February, 1885, were still present to my memory, though the
+Councillor for Battersea had probably forgotten them. The change which
+four years had wrought was extraordinary. He spoke constantly and
+effectively, but always with moderation, good feeling, and common sense.
+At the same time, he maintained a breezy independence, and, when he
+thought that the Chair ought to be defied, defied it. This was awkward,
+for the Chairman had no disciplinary powers, and there was no executive
+force to compel submission to his rulings. As far as I could observe,
+Mr. Burns never gave way, and yet he soon ceased to enter into conflict
+with the Chair. What was the influence which tamed him? I often
+wondered, but never knew.
+
+The Council had got itself duly divided into Committees, and it was
+noticeable that there was an enormous rush of Councillors anxious to
+serve on the Housing Committee. The "Bitter Cry of Outcast London" had
+not been raised in vain, and every man in the Council seemed anxious to
+bear his part in the work of redressing an intolerable wrong. The weekly
+Session of the Council was fixed for Tuesday afternoon, to the disgust
+of some Progressives who hankered after the more democratic hour of 7
+p.m. The main part of the business was the discussion of the Reports
+brought up from the various Committees, and, when those were disposed
+of, abstract motions could be debated. Some earnest Liberals were always
+trying to raise such questions as Home Rule, Land Law, Enfranchisement
+of Leaseholds, and other matters which lay outside the purview of the
+Council; and it was delightful to see Lord Rosebery damping down these
+irregular enthusiasms, and reminding his hearers of the limits which
+Parliament had set to their activities. Those limits were, in all
+conscience, wide enough, and included in their scope Housing, Asylums,
+Bridges, Fire-Brigades, Highways, Reformatory Schools, Main Drainage,
+Parks, Theatres, and Music-Halls, besides the complicated system of
+finance by which all our practice was regulated. The Committees dealing
+with these subjects, and several others of less importance, were manned
+by able, zealous, and conscientious servants of the public, who gave
+ungrudgingly of their time (which in many cases was also money),
+thought, and labour. The Council as a whole displayed a voracious
+appetite for work, and rendered, without fee or reward, a service to
+Greater London which no money could have purchased.
+
+In the autumn of this year--1889--some correspondence appeared in
+newspapers and reviews about what was called "The New Liberalism." By
+that title was meant a Liberalism which could no longer content itself
+with the crudities of official politics, but longed to bear its part in
+the social regeneration of the race. In an article in the _Nineteenth
+Century_, I commented on the insensibility of the Liberal Leaders to
+this new inspiration. "Who would lead our armies into Edom?" I confess
+that I thought of Lord Rosebery as our likeliest champion; but I put the
+cause above the man. "Wherever our leader may come from, I am confident
+that the movement will go on. _Ça ira! Ça ira! Malgré les mutins, tout
+réussira!_ The cause of Social Service arouses that moral enthusiasm
+which cannot be bought and cannot be resisted, and which carries in
+itself the pledge of victory. The terrible magnitude and urgency of the
+evils with which we have to cope cannot be overstated. Those who set out
+to fight them will have to encounter great and manifold
+difficulties--ignorance, stupidity, prejudice, greed, cruelty,
+self-interest, instincts of class, cowardly distrust of popular
+movements, 'spiritual wickedness in high places.' And, in the face of
+these opposing forces, it is cheering to think that, after long years of
+single-handed striving, the good cause now has its workers everywhere.
+And to none does it make a more direct or a more imperious appeal than
+to us Liberal politicians. If we are worthy of the name, we must be in
+earnest about a cause which promises happiness, and health, and length
+of days to those who by their daily labour of hand and head principally
+maintain the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon race. We must be impatient of
+a state of society in which healthy dwellings and unadulterated food and
+pure water and fresh air are made the monopolies of the rich. We must be
+eager to do our part towards abolishing filth and eradicating disease,
+and giving free scope to those beneficent laws of Nature which, if only
+we will obey them, are so manifestly designed to promote the welfare and
+the longevity of man. If we believe that every human being has equally
+and indefeasibly the right to be happy, we must find our chief interest
+and most satisfying occupation in Social Service. Our aim is, first, to
+lighten the load of existence for those thronging thousands of the human
+family whose experience of life is one long suffering, and then to 'add
+sunshine to daylight by making the happy happier.' The poor, the
+ignorant, the weak, the hungry, the over-worked, all call for aid; and,
+in ministering to their wants, the adherent of the New Liberalism knows
+that he is fulfilling the best function of the character which he
+professes, and moreover is helping to enlarge the boundaries of the
+Kingdom of God."
+
+When those words were written, the London County Council had just begun
+its work. I served on it till March, 1895; and during those six years it
+had proved in practice what a right-minded Municipality can do towards
+brightening and sweetening human life. It cut broad roads through
+squalid slums, letting in light and air where all had been darkness and
+pollution. It cleared wide areas of insanitary dwellings, where only
+vice could thrive, and re-housed the dispossessed. It broke up the
+monotony of mean streets with beautiful parks and health-giving
+pleasure-grounds. It transfigured the Music-Halls, and showed that, by
+the exercise of a little firmness and common sense, the tone and
+character of the "Poor Man's Theatre" could be raised to the level of
+what would be applauded in a drawing-room. By forbidding the sale of
+refreshments in the auditorium, it crushed the old-fashioned
+superstition that public entertainment and alcoholic drink are
+inseparably connected. In some of these good works it was my privilege
+to bear a part; and, in that matter of the purification of the
+Music-Halls, I was proud to follow the lead of Sir John McDougall, who
+has since been Chairman of the Council, and who, at the time of which I
+am writing, fearlessly exposed himself to unbounded calumny, and even
+physical violence, in his crusade for the moral purity of popular
+amusement. Those were six years of fruitful service; and, though a long
+time has elapsed since I left the Council, I have constantly watched its
+labours, and can heartily assent to the eulogy pronounced by my friend
+Henry Scott Holland, when he was quitting his Canonry at St. Paul's for
+his Professorship at Oxford:
+
+"As for London, my whole heart is still given to the lines of the
+Progressive policy on the County Council. I still think that this has
+given London a soul; and that it has been by far the most effective work
+that one has watched happening.... The hope of London lies with the
+County Council."
+
+Before I say goodbye to this portion of my "Autobiography," let me
+record the fact that the London County Council produced a poet of its
+own. The first Council came to an end in March, 1892, and the second,
+elected on the 5th of that month, gave the Progressives a greatly
+increased majority. One of the newly-elected Councillors uttered his
+triumphant joy in song.
+
+
+     "Here then you have your answer, you that thought
+         To find our London unawakened still,
+         A sleeping plunder for you, thought to fill
+     The gorge of private greed, and count for naught
+     The common good. Time unto her has brought
+         Her glorious hour, her strength of public will
+         Grown conscious, and a civic soul to thrill
+     The once dull mass that for your spoil you sought.
+     Lo, where the alert majestic city stands,
+         Dreaming her dream of golden days to be,
+     With shaded eyes beneath her arching hands
+         Scanning the forward pathway, like a seer
+         To whom the riven future has made clear
+     The marvel of some mighty destiny."[61]
+
+
+Moved by the desire to gratify a young ambition, I introduced the poet
+to Mr. Gladstone, and that great man, who never damned with faint
+praise, pronounced that this was the finest thing written about London
+since Wordsworth's Sonnet "Composed upon Westminster Bridge."
+
+In August, 1892, Gladstone became Prime Minister for the fourth time. He
+gave me a place in his Government; and for the next three years my
+activities were limited to North Bedfordshire, which I then represented,
+the House of Commons, and Whitehall. I was restored to liberty by the
+dissolution of July, 1895. In my chapter about Oxford, I spoke of the
+Rev. E. S. Talbot, then Warden of Keble, and now Bishop of Winchester,
+as one of those whose friendship I had acquired in undergraduate days.
+After serving for a while as Vicar of Leeds, he was appointed in 1895 to
+the See of Rochester, which then included South London. Soon after he
+had entered on his new work, he said to me, "Men of leisure are very
+scarce in South London. Will you come across the Thames, and lend us a
+hand?"
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[55] Dr. Butler's Harrow Sermons. Series II.
+
+[56] "Christianity without the Cross a Corruption of the Gospel of
+Christ."
+
+[57] Rev. H. Scott Holland, D.D.
+
+[58] Honourable mention ought here to be made of "The Guild of St.
+Matthew," founded by the Rev. Stewart Headlam in 1877. Its object was
+"To justify God to the People," and it prepared the way for later
+organizations.
+
+[59] The Rev. H. S. Holland, D.D.
+
+[60] F. W. H. Myers.
+
+[61] F. Henderson, _By the Sea, and other poems_.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+ECCLESIASTICA
+
+
+     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.
+                               J. H. SHORTHOUSE, _John Inglesant_.
+
+
+Mr. Shorthouse, like most people who have come over to the Church from
+Dissent, set an inordinate value on the principle of Establishment. He
+seemed (and in that particular he resembled Archbishop Tait) incapable
+of conceiving the idea of a Church as separate from, and independent of,
+the State. The words "as established by the law of England" in the
+passage which stands at the head of this chapter appear to suggest a
+doubt whether the English Church, if she ceased to be "established,"
+could still discharge her function as the divinely-appointed dispenser
+of sacramental grace to the English people. Those who, like Mr.
+Gladstone, believe that no change in her worldly circumstances could
+"compromise or impair her character as the Catholic and Apostolic Church
+of this country," would omit Mr. Shorthouse's qualifying words, and
+would say, simply, that the English Church, whether established or not,
+offers the Supernatural to all who choose to come, and that she is, has
+been, and always will be, "historically the same institution through
+which the Gospel was originally preached to the English Nation." But
+this is not the place for theorization; so, for the moment, I am content
+to take Mr. Shorthouse's statement as it stands, and to say that a
+loving pride in the English Church has been the permanent passion of my
+life. I hold with Dean Church, a man not given to hyperbole, that "in
+spite of inconsistencies and menacing troubles, she is still the most
+glorious Church in Christendom."
+
+I was baptized in the Parish Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Woburn,
+formerly a chapel dependent on the Cistercian Abbey hard by, which the
+first Earl of Bedford received as a gift from Henry VIII.[62] This truly
+interesting church was destroyed, to please an innovating incumbent, in
+1864; but my earliest impressions of public worship are connected with
+it, and in my mind's eye I can see it as clearly as if it were still
+standing. It had never been "restored "; but had been decorated by my
+grandfather, who inherited the ecclesiastical rights of the Abbots of
+Woburn, and whose "Curate" the incumbent was.[63] My grandfather was a
+liberal giver, and did his best, according to his lights, to make the
+Church beautiful. He filled the East Window with stained glass, the
+central subject being his own coat of arms, with patriarchs and saints
+grouped round it in due subordination. Beneath the window was a fine
+picture, by Carlo Maratti, of the Holy Family. The Holy Table was a
+table indeed, with legs and drawers after the manner of a writing-table,
+and a cover of red velvet. The chancel was long; and the south side of
+it was engrossed by "the Duke's Pew," which was enclosed within high
+walls and thick curtains, and contained a fireplace. The north side of
+the chancel was equally engrossed by a pew for the Duke's servants. The
+choir, male and female after their kind, surrounded the organ in a
+gallery at the West End. The whole Church was pewed throughout, and
+white-washed, the chancel being enriched with plaster mouldings. On the
+capital of each pillar was a scutcheon, bearing the arms of some family
+allied to our own. The largest and most vivid presentment of the Royal
+Arms which I have ever seen crowned the chancel-arch.
+
+Our clerical staff consisted of the incumbent (who became a "Vicar" by
+Act of Parliament in 1868) and a curate. Our list of services was as
+follows: Sunday--11 a.m., Morning Prayer, Litany, Table-prayers, and
+Sermon; 6 p.m., Evening Prayer and Sermon. There was Evening Prayer with
+a sermon on Thursdays, and a prayer-meeting in the schoolroom on Tuesday
+evenings. There were no extra services in Lent or Advent, nor on any
+Holy Days except Good Friday and Ascension Day. The Holy Communion was
+administered after Morning Service on the first Sunday of the month, and
+on Christmas and Easter Days; and after Evening Service on the third
+Sunday. The black gown was, of course, worn in the pulpit, and I
+remember a mild sensation caused by the disuse of bands. The prayers
+were preached; the Psalms were read; and the hymn-book in use was "The
+Church and Home Metrical Psalter and Hymnal"--a quaint compilation which
+I have never seen elsewhere. It would not be easy to describe the
+dreariness of the services; and the preaching corresponded to them.
+This is curious, for Evangelical preaching generally was rousing and
+effective. I remember that we heard preaching of that type from
+strangers who occasionally "took duty" or "pleaded for Societies"; but
+our own pastors always expatiated on Justification by Faith only. I
+cannot recall any other subject; and, even in enforcing this,
+"Pulpit-eloquence," topical allusions, and illustrations whether from
+nature or from books, were rigidly eschewed. "As dull as a sermon" is a
+proverbial saying which for me in early boyhood had an awful truth.
+
+It has been stated in an earlier chapter that I discovered the
+Sacramental System of the Church by the simple method of studying the
+Prayer Book. Certainly I got no help in that direction from my spiritual
+pastors. The incumbent was, I should think, the Lowest Churchman who
+ever lived. He was a Cambridge man; a thorough gentleman; well-read;
+wholly devoted to his sacred calling; and fearless in his assertion of
+what he believed to be right. (He once refused to let Jowett preach in
+our pulpit, though the noble patron made the request.) He was entirely
+insensible to poetry, beauty, romance, and enthusiasm; but his mind was
+essentially logical, and he followed his creed to its extremest
+consequences. Baptismal grace, of course, he absolutely denied. He
+prepared me for Confirmation, and he began his preparation by assailing
+my faith in the Presence and the Succession. He defined Confirmation as
+"a coming of age in the things of the soul." I perfectly remember a
+sermon preached on "Sacrament Sunday," which ended with some such words
+as these, "I go to yonder table to-day; not expecting to meet the Lord,
+because I know He will not be there." I have seldom heard the doctrine
+of the Real Absence stated with equal frankness.
+
+All my religious associations were with the Evangelical school, of which
+my parents were devoted adherents. My uncle, the Rev. Lord Wriothesley
+Russell (1804-1886), had been a disciple of Charles Simeon at Cambridge,
+but had completely discarded such fragments of Churchmanship as lingered
+in his master's teaching. My mother (1810-1884) had been in early life
+closely allied with "the Clapham Sect"; and our friendship with the last
+survivor of that sect, Miss Marianne Thornton (1797-1887), linked us to
+the Wilberforces, the Venns, and the Macaulays. My acquaintance with
+Lord Shaftesbury (1801-1885) I have always esteemed one of the chief
+honours of my life. He combined in a singular degree the gifts which
+make a Leader. He had an imperious will, a perfervid temper, unbounded
+enthusiasm, inexhaustible energy. Any movement with which he was
+connected he controlled. He brooked neither opposition nor criticism.
+His authority was reinforced by advantages of aspect and station; by a
+stately manner, by a noble and commanding eloquence. But all these gifts
+were as nothing when compared with the power of his lifelong
+consistency. When he was a boy at Harrow, a brutal scene at a pauper's
+funeral awoke his devotion to the cause of the poor and helpless.
+Seventy years later, when he lay on his deathbed, his only regret was
+that he must leave the world with so much misery in it. From first to
+last, he was an Evangelical of the highest and purest type, displaying
+all the religious and social virtues of that school in their perfection.
+Yet he left it on record that he had been more harshly treated by the
+Evangelical party than by any other. Perhaps the explanation is that
+those excellent people were only kicking against the pricks of a
+too-absolute control.
+
+Such were the religious associations of my early life; and I am deeply
+thankful for them. I have found, by much experiment, that there is no
+foundation on which the superstructure of Catholic religion can be more
+securely built than on the Evangelical confession of man's utter
+sinfulness, and of the free pardon purchased by the Blood of Christ. A
+man trained in that confession may, without sacrificing a jot of his
+earlier creed, learn to accept all that the Catholic Church teaches
+about Orders and Sacraments; but to the end he will retain some
+characteristic marks of his spiritual beginnings. For my own part, I
+hold with Mr. Gladstone that to label oneself with an ecclesiastical
+nickname would be to compromise "the first of earthly blessings--one's
+mental freedom[64]"; but if anyone chose to call me a "Catholic
+Evangelical," I should not quarrel with the designation.
+
+I said in an earlier chapter that I had an inborn fondness for Catholic
+ceremonial, and this, I suppose, was part of my general love of material
+beauty. Amid such surroundings as I have described, it was a fondness
+not easily indulged. When I was twelve years old, I was staying at
+Leamington in August, and on a Holy Day I peeped into the Roman Church
+there, and saw for the first time the ceremonies of High Mass; and from
+that day on I longed to see them reproduced in the Church of England.
+During one of our periodical visits to London, I discovered the
+beautiful church in Gordon Square where the "Adherents of a Restored
+Apostolate" celebrate Divine Worship with bewildering splendour. The
+propinquity of our house to Westminster Abbey enabled me to enter into
+the more chastened, yet dignified, beauty of the English rite. At Harrow
+the brightness and colour of our School-Chapel struck my untutored eye
+as "exceeding magnifical"; and the early celebrations in the Parish
+Church had a solemnity which the Chapel lacked.
+
+But the happiest memory of all is connected with a little Church[65]
+about two miles from my home. It is a tiny structure of one aisle, with
+the altar fenced off by a screen of carved oak. It served a group of
+half a dozen houses, and it stood amid green fields, remote from
+traffic, and scarcely visible except to those who searched for it. There
+an enthusiastic and devoted priest spent five and twenty years of an
+isolated ministry; and there, for the first time in our communion, I saw
+the Divine Mysteries celebrated with the appropriate accessories.
+
+My walks to that secluded altar, in the fresh brightness of summer
+mornings, can never be forgotten until the whole tablet is blotted. On
+the sky-line, the great masses of distant woodland, half-veiled in mist,
+lay like a blue cloud. Within, there was "the fair white linen cloth
+upon the wooden table, with fresh flowers above, and the worn slabs
+beneath that record the dim names of the forgotten dead"; and there
+"amid the faint streaks of the early dawn, the faithful, kneeling round
+the oaken railing, took into their hands the worn silver of the Grail--
+
+
+     "The chalice of the Grapes of God."[66]
+
+
+Perhaps it was just as well for a boy that these glimpses of beautiful
+worship were few and far between. One was saved from the perils of a
+mere externalism, and was driven inward on the unseen realities which
+ceremonial may sometimes obscure. And then, when one got up to Oxford,
+one found all the splendours of the sanctuary in rich abundance, and
+enjoyed them with a whole-hearted self-abandonment. I need not repeat
+what I have already said about St. Barnabas and Cowley and the other
+strongholds of Catholic worship. I am eternally their debtor, and the
+friends with whom I shared them have helped to shape my life.
+
+But, in spite of all these enjoyments, religious life at Oxford between
+1872 and 1876 was not altogether happy. A strong flood of Romanism burst
+upon the University, and carried some of my best friends from my side;
+and, concurrently with this disturbance, an American teacher attacked
+our faith from the opposite quarter. He taught an absolute disregard of
+all forms and rites, and, not content with the ordinary doctrine of
+instantaneous conversion, preached the absolute sinlessness of the
+believer. The movement which, in 1874, he set on foot was marked by
+disasters, of which the nature can best be inferred from a
+characteristic saying, "The believer's conflict with Sin is all stuff."
+This teaching had its natural consequences, and the movement issued in
+spiritual tragedy.
+
+In the following year we were touched by the much more wholesome
+enterprise of Messrs. Moody and Sankey. Their teaching was wholly free
+from the perilous stuff which had defiled the previous mission; and
+though it shook the faith of some who had cultivated the husk rather
+than the kernel of ritualism, still all could join in the generous
+tribute paid by Dr. Liddon on Whitsun Day, 1876:
+
+"Last year two American preachers visited this country, to whom God had
+given, together with earnest belief in some portions of the gospel, a
+corresponding spirit of fearless enterprise. Certainly they had no such
+credentials of an Apostolic Ministry as a well-instructed and believing
+Churchman would require.... And yet, acting according to the light which
+God had given them, they threw themselves on our great cities with the
+ardour of Apostles; spoke of a higher world to thousands who pass the
+greater part of life in dreaming only of this; and made many of us feel
+that we owe them at least the debt of an example, which He Who breatheth
+where He listeth must surely have inspired them to give us."[67]
+
+When I came up to London after leaving Oxford, "the world was all before
+me where to choose," and I made a pretty wide survey before deciding on
+my habitual place of worship. St. Paul's Cathedral had lately awoke from
+its long sleep, and, under the wise guidance of Church, Gregory, and
+Liddon, was beginning to show the perfection of worship on the strict
+line of the English Prayer-Book.
+
+Being by temperament profoundly Gothic, I hold (with Sir William
+Richmond) that Westminster Abbey is the most beautiful church in the
+world. But it had nothing to offer in the way of seemly worship; and,
+while Liddon was preaching the Gospel at St. Paul's, Dean Stanley at
+Westminster was delivering the fine rhetoric and dubious history which
+were his substitutes for theology, and with reference to which a Jewish
+lady said to me, "I have heard the Dean preach for eighteen years, and I
+have never heard a word from him which I could not accept." At the
+Temple, Dr. Vaughan was at the height of his vogue, and Sunday after
+Sunday was teaching the lawyers the effective grace of a nervous and
+finished style.
+
+All Saints, Margaret Street, St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, and St.
+Barnabas, Pimlico, showed a type of worship refined, artistic, and
+rather prim. St. Alban's, Holborn, "the Mother and Mistress" of all
+ritualistic churches, combined Roman ceremonial with the passionately
+Evangelical teaching of the greatest extempore preacher I have ever
+heard, Arthur Stanton. St. Michael's, Shoreditch, and St. Peter's,
+London Docks, were outposts of the ritualistic army. The Low Church
+congregated at Portman Chapel, and Belgrave Chapel, and Eaton Chapel
+(all since demolished), at St. Michael's, Chester Square, and St.
+John's, Paddington. Broad Churchmen, as a rule, were hidden in holes and
+corners; for the bizarre magnificence of Holy Trinity, Sloane Street,
+had not yet superseded the humble structure in which Henry Blunt had
+formerly preached into the Duchess of Beaufort's[68] ear-trumpet; and
+St. Margaret's, Westminster, had only just begun to reverberate the
+rolling eloquence of Dr. Farrar. At St. Peter's, Eaton Square, amid
+surroundings truly hideous, George Wilkinson, afterward Bishop of St.
+Andrews, dominated, sheerly by spiritual force, a congregation which,
+having regard to the numbers, wealth, and importance of the men who
+composed it, was the most remarkable that I have ever seen. Cabinet
+Ministers, great noblemen, landed proprietors, Members of Parliament,
+soldiers, lawyers, doctors, and "men about town," were the clay which
+this master-potter moulded at his will.
+
+Then, as now, Society loved to be scolded, and the more Mr. Wilkinson
+thundered, the more it crowded to his feet. "Pay your bills." "Get up
+when you are called." "Don't stay at a ball till two, and then say you
+are too delicate for early services." "Eat one dinner a day instead of
+three, and try to earn that one." "Give up champagne for the season, and
+what you save on your wine-merchant's bill send to the Mission-Field."
+"You are sixty-five years old, and have never been confirmed. Never too
+late to mend. Join a Confirmation Class at once, and try to remedy, by
+good example now, the harm you have done your servants or your
+neighbours by fifty years' indifference." "Sell that diamond cross which
+you carry with you into the sin-polluted atmosphere of the Opera, give
+the proceeds to feed the poor, and wear the only real cross--the cross
+of self-discipline and self-denial." These are echoes, faint, indeed,
+but not, I think, unfaithful, of St. Peter's pulpit in its days of
+glory.
+
+When I look back upon the Church in London as it was when I first knew
+it, and when I compare my recollections with what I see now, I note, of
+course, a good many changes, and not all of them improvements. The
+Evangelicals, with their plain teaching about sin and forgiveness, are
+gone, and their place is taken by the professors of a flabby
+latitudinarianism, which ignores sin--the central fact of human
+life--and therefore can find no place for the Atonement. Heresy is
+preached more unblushingly than it was thirty years ago; and when it
+tries to disguise itself in the frippery of æsthetic Anglicanism, it
+leads captive not a few. In the churches commonly called Ritualistic, I
+note one great and significant improvement. English Churchmen have
+gradually discovered that they have an indigenous ritual of their
+own--dignified, expressive, artistic, free from fuss and fidgets--and
+that they have no need to import strange rites from France or Belgium.
+The evolution of the English Rite is one of the wholesome signs of the
+times. About preaching, I am not so clear. The almost complete disuse of
+the written sermon is in many ways a loss. The discipline of the paper
+protects the flock alike against shambling inanities, and against a too
+boisterous rhetoric. No doubt a really fine extempore sermon is a great
+work of art; but for nine preachers out of ten the manuscript is the
+safer way.
+
+As regards the quality of the clergy, the change is all to the good.
+When I was a boy at Harrow, Dr. Vaughan, preaching to us on our
+Founder's Day, spoke with just contempt of "men who choose the Ministry
+because there is a Family Living waiting for them; or because they think
+they can make that profession--that, and none other--compatible with
+indolence and self-indulgence; or because they imagine that a scantier
+talent and a more idle use of it can in that one calling be made to
+suffice." "These notions," he added, "are out of date, one Act of
+Disestablishment would annihilate them." That Act of Disestablishment
+has not come yet, but the change has come without waiting for it. Even
+the "Family Living" no longer attracts. Young men seek Holy Orders
+because they want work. Clerical dreams of laziness or avarice,
+self-seeking or self-indulgence, have gone out for ever; and the English
+Church has in her commissioned service a band of men whose devotion and
+self-sacrifice would be a glory to any Church in Christendom.
+
+An active politician, as I was thirty years ago, has not much leisure;
+but all through my parliamentary work I sought to bear in mind that Life
+is Service. I helped to found the White Cross League, and worked hard
+for the cause which it represents. I bore a hand in Missions and
+Bible-classes. I was a member of a Diocesan Conference. I had ten years
+of happy visiting in Hospitals, receiving infinitely more than I could
+ever give. And I should think that no man of my age has spoken on so
+many platforms, or at so many Drawing Room meetings. But all this was
+desultory business, and I always desired a more definite obligation.
+
+On St. Luke's Day, 1895, my loved and honoured friend, Edward Talbot,
+formerly Warden of Keble, was consecrated 100th Bishop of Rochester; and
+the diocese at that time included all South London. As soon as he
+established himself there, the new Bishop, so I have already stated,
+asked me to come across the Thames, and do some definite work in South
+London. At first, that work consisted of service on a Public Morals
+Committee, and of lecturing on ecclesiastical topics; but gradually the
+field contracted in one direction and expanded in another.
+
+It was in 1891 that Dr. Temple, then Bishop of London, and afterwards
+Archbishop of Canterbury, being anxious to lighten the burden of
+preaching which lies so heavily on hardworked clergy, determined to
+license lay-readers to speak in consecrated buildings. It was a bold
+step, and of doubtful legality; but the Bishop characteristically
+declared that he would chance the illegality, feeling sure that, when
+the Vicar and Churchwardens invited a lay-reader to speak, no one would
+be churlish enough to raise legal objections. The result proved that the
+Bishop was perfectly right, and the Diocese of London has now a band of
+licensed lay-preachers who render the clergy a great deal of valuable
+aid. I was from the first a good deal attracted by the prospect of
+joining this band, but Parliament and Office left me no available
+leisure. When Dr. Talbot became Bishop of Rochester, he at once took in
+hand the work of reorganizing the body of Lay-Readers in his Diocese;
+and before long had determined to follow the example set by Bishop
+Temple, and to license some of his readers to speak at extra services in
+consecrated buildings. He made it quite clear from the first--and the
+point has subsequently been established by Convocation--that there was
+no idea of reviving the Minor Orders. The lay-reader was to be, in every
+sense, a layman; and, while he might speak, under proper restrictions,
+in a consecrated building, he still would speak not "as one having
+authority," but simply as brother-man to brother-men.
+
+I was admitted to the office of a Diocesan Lay-Reader, in the Private
+Chapel of the Bishop's House at Kennington, on the 15th of January,
+1898, and have been permitted to spend fifteen years of happy service in
+this informal ministry.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[62] Cf. Froude's "Short Studies in Great Subjects."
+
+[63] It may perhaps be worth noting that my parents were married, in
+1834, by a Special License issued by my grandfather as Abbot of Woburn.
+
+[64] _Letters on the Church and Religion._ Vol. I., p. 385.
+
+[65] Pottesgrove.
+
+[66] J. H. Shorthouse--Introduction to George Herbert's _Temple_.
+
+[67] _Influences of the Holy Spirit._ University Sermons, Series II.
+
+[68] Charlotte Sophia, Duchess of Beaufort, a leader of the Evangelical
+party, died 1854--aged eighty-four.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography, by 
+George William Erskine Russell
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+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Fifteen Chapters Of Autobiography, by George W. E. Russell.
+    </title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography, by 
+George William Erskine 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: Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography
+
+Author: George William Erskine Russell
+
+Release Date: May 27, 2007 [EBook #21624]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIFTEEN CHAPTERS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Martin Pettit and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+
+<h1>FIFTEEN CHAPTERS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY</h1>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3><i>UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME.</i></h3>
+
+<table border='0' cellspacing='0' cellpadding='5' summary='uniform with this volume'>
+  <tr>
+    <td>THE GREAT BOER WAR.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>Arthur Conan Doyle.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>COLLECTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>G. W. E. Russell.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>FROM THE CAPE TO CAIRO.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>E. S. Grogan.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>SPURGEON'S SERMONS.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>Sir W. Robertson Nicoll, LL.D.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>SIR FRANK LOCKWOOD.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>Augustine Birrell, K.C., M.P.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>THE MAKING OF A FRONTIER.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>Colonel Durand.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>LIFE OF RICHARD COBDEN.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>Lord Morley.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>LIFE OF PARNELL.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>R. Barry O'Brien.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>MEMORIES GRAVE AND GAY.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>Dr. John Kerr.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>A BOOK ABOUT ROSES.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>S. Reynolds Hole.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>RANDOM REMINISCENCES.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>Charles Brookfield.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>AT THE WORKS.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>Lady Bell.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>MEXICO AS I SAW IT.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>Mrs. Alec Tweedie.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>PARIS TO NEW YORK BY LAND.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>Harry de Windt.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>LIFE OF LEWIS CARROLL.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>Stuart Dodgson Collingwood.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>THE MANTLE OF THE EAST.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>Edmund Candler.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>LETTERS OF DR. JOHN BROWN.</td>
+    <td class="right"></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>JUBILEE BOOK OF CRICKET.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>Prince Ranjitsinhji.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>BY DESERT WAYS TO BAGHDAD.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>Louisa Jebb.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>SOME OLD LOVE STORIES.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>T. P. O'Connor.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>FIELDS, FACTORIES, &amp; WORKSHOPS.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>Prince Kropotkin.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>PROBLEMS OF POVERTY.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>Dr. Chalmers.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>M. E. Durham.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>LIFE AND LETTERS OF LORD MACAULAY.&mdash;I. &amp; II.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>Sir George O. Trevelyan, Bart.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>Hon. Maurice Baring.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>WILD ENGLAND OF TO-DAY.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>C. J. Cornish.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>THROUGH FINLAND IN CARTS.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>Mrs. Alec Tweedie.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>THE VOYAGE OF THE "DISCOVERY."&mdash;I. &amp; II.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>Captain Scott.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>FELICITY IN FRANCE.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>Constance E. Maud.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>MY CLIMBS IN THE ALPS AND CAUCASUS.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>A. F. Mummery.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>JOHN BRIGHT.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>R. Barry O'Brien.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>POVERTY.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>B. Seebohm Rowntree.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>SEA WOLVES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>Commander E. Hamilton Currey, R.N.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>A. Hilliard Atteridge.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>THE CRUISE OF THE "FALCON."</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>E. F. Knight.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>A.K.H.B. (A Volume of Selections).</td>
+    <td class="right"></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>Jack London.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>GRAIN OR CHAFF?</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>A. Chichele Plowden.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>LIFE AT THE ZOO.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>C. J. Cornish.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>THE FOUR MEN.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>Hilaire Belloc.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>CRUISE OF THE "ALERTE."</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>E. F. Knight.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>FOUR FRENCH ADVENTURERS.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>Stoddard Dewey.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>A REAPING.</td>
+    <td class="right"><i>E. F. Benson.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Etc., etc.</i></p>
+
+<h4><i>Others to follow.</i></h4>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
+
+<h1>Fifteen Chapters</h1>
+
+<h2>of</h2>
+
+<h1>Autobiography</h1>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>BY THE RIGHT HON.</h3>
+
+<h2>GEORGE W. E. RUSSELL</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><img src="images/003.png" width='101' height='150' alt="Publishers logo" /></p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h4>THOMAS NELSON AND SONS<br />
+LONDON, EDINBURGH, DUBLIN<br />
+AND NEW YORK</h4>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3><i>NOTE.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="center"><i>This book was originally published under the title of "One Look Back."</i></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p>
+
+<h4>TO</h4>
+
+<h3>HENRY SCOTT HOLLAND</h3>
+
+<h4>IN HONOUR OF THE BEST GIFT<br />
+WHICH OXFORD GAVE ME</h4>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<div class="index">
+<ul>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#I">I.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Beginnings</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#II">II.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Harrow</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#III">III.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Harroviana</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#IV">IV.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Oxford</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#V">V.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Oxoniana</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#VI">VI.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Home</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#VII">VII.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">London</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#VIII">VIII.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Hospitality</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#IX">IX.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Electioneering</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#X">X.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Parliament</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#XI">XI.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Politics</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#XII">XII.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Oratory</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#XIII">XIII.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Literature</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#XIV">XIV.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Service</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#XV">XV.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Ecclesiastica</span></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
+
+<h1>FIFTEEN CHAPTERS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY.</h1>
+
+<hr class="smler" />
+
+<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2>
+
+<h3>BEGINNINGS</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>One look back&mdash;as we hurry o'er the plain,</div>
+<div class="i2">Man's years speeding us along&mdash;</div>
+<div>One look back! From the hollow past again,</div>
+<div class="i2">Youth, come flooding into song!</div>
+<div>Tell how once, in the breath of summer air,</div>
+<div class="i2">Winds blew fresher than they blow;</div>
+<div>Times long hid, with their triumph and their care,</div>
+<div class="i2">Yesterday&mdash;many years ago!</div>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<div class="i12"><span class="smcap">E. E. Bowen.</span></div>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>The wayfarer who crosses Lincoln's Inn Fields perceives in the midst of
+them a kind of wooden temple, and passes by it unmoved. But, if his
+curiosity tempts him to enter it, he sees, through an aperture in the
+boarded floor, a slab of stone bearing this inscription:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center">"On this spot was beheaded<br />
+William Lord Russell,<br />A lover of constitutional liberty,<br />
+21st July, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 1683."<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>
+
+<p>Of the martyr thus temperately eulogized I am the
+great-great-great-great-grandson, and I agree with The Antiquary, that
+"it's a shame to the English language that we have not a less clumsy way
+of expressing a relationship of which we have occasion to think and
+speak so frequently."</p>
+
+<p>Before we part company with my ill-fated ancestor, let me tell a story
+bearing on his historical position. When my father was a cornet in the
+Blues, he invited a brother-officer to spend some of his leave at Woburn
+Abbey. One day, when the weather was too bad for any kind of sport, the
+visitor was induced to have a look at the pictures. The Rembrandts, and
+Cuyps, and Van Dykes and Sir Joshuas bored him to extremity, but
+accidentally his eye lit on Hayter's famous picture of Lord Russell's
+trial, and,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> with a sudden gleam of intelligence, he exclaimed, "Hullo!
+What's this? It looks like a trial." My father answered, with modest
+pride&mdash;"It is a trial&mdash;the trial of my ancestor, William, Lord Russell."
+"Good heavens! my dear fellow&mdash;an ancestor of yours tried? What a
+shocking thing! <i>I hope he got off.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>So much for our Family Martyr.</p>
+
+<p>In analysing one's nationality, it is natural to regard one's four
+grand-parents as one's component parts. Tried by this test, I am half an
+Englishman, one quarter a Highlander, and one quarter a Welshman, for my
+father's father was wholly English; my father's mother wholly Scotch; my
+mother's father wholly Welsh; and my mother's mother wholly English. My
+grandfather, the sixth Duke of Bedford, was born in 1766 and died in
+1839. He married, as his second wife, Lady Georgiana Gordon, sister of
+the last Duke of Gordon, and herself "the last of the Gordons" of the
+senior line. She died just after I was born, and from her and the "gay
+Gordons" who preceded her, I derive my name of George. It has always
+been a comfort to me, when rebuked for ritualistic tendencies, to recall
+that I am great-great-nephew of that undeniable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> Protestant, Lord George
+Gordon, whose icon I daily revere. My grandmother had a numerous family,
+of whom my father was the third. He was born in Dublin Castle, his
+father being then Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in the Ministry of "All the
+Talents." My grandfather had been a political and personal friend of
+Charles James Fox, and Fox had promised to be godfather to his next
+child. But Fox died on the 13th of September, 1806, and my father did
+not appear till the 10th of February, 1807. Fox's nephew, Henry Lord
+Holland, took over the sponsorship, and bestowed the names of "Charles
+James Fox" on the infant Whig, who, as became his father's viceregal
+state, was christened by the Archbishop of Dublin, with water from a
+golden bowl.</p>
+
+<p>The life so impressively auspicated lasted till the 29th of June, 1894.
+So my father, who remembered an old Highlander who had been out with
+Prince Charlie in '45, lived to see the close of Mr. Gladstone's fourth
+Premiership. He was educated at Rottingdean, at Westminster, where my
+family had fagged and fought for many generations, and at the University
+of Edinburgh, where he boarded with that "paltry Pillans," who,
+according to Byron, "traduced his friend." From Edinburgh he passed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>
+into the Blues, then commanded by Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, and thence
+into the 52nd Regiment. In 1832 he was returned to the first Reformed
+Parliament as Whig Member for Bedfordshire. He finally retired in 1847,
+and from that date till 1875 was Sergeant-at-Arms attending the House of
+Commons. He married in 1834, and had six children, of whom I was the
+youngest by eight years, being born on the 3rd of February, 1853.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+
+<p>My birthplace (not yet marked with a blue and white medallion) was 16,
+Mansfield Street; but very soon afterwards the official residences at
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> Palace of Westminster were finished, and my father took possession
+of the excellent but rather gloomy house in the Speaker's Court, now
+(1913) occupied by Sir David Erskine.</p>
+
+<p>Here my clear memories begin. I have indeed some vague impressions of a
+visit to the widow of my mother's grandfather&mdash;Lady Robert Seymour&mdash;who
+died in her ninety-first year when I was two years old; though, as those
+impressions are chiefly connected with a jam-cupboard, I fancy that they
+must pertain less to Lady Robert than to her housekeeper. But two
+memories of my fourth year are perfectly defined. The first is the fire
+which destroyed Covent Garden Theatre on the 5th of March, 1856. "During
+the operatic recess, Mr. Gye, the lessee of the Theatre, had sub-let it
+to one Anderson, a performer of sleight-of-hand feats, and so-called
+'Professor.' He brought his short season to a close by an entertainment
+described as a 'Grand Carnival Complimentary Benefit and Dramatic Gala,
+to commence on Monday morning, and terminate with a <i>bal masqu&eacute;</i> on
+Tuesday night.' At 3 on the Wednesday morning, the Professor thought it
+time to close the orgies. At this moment the gasfitter discovered the
+fire issuing from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> cracks of the ceiling, and, amid the wildest
+shrieking and confusion, the drunken, panic-stricken masquers rushed to
+the street. The flames burst through the roof, sending high up into the
+air columns of fire, which threw into bright reflection every tower and
+spire within the circuit of the metropolis, brilliantly illuminating the
+whole fabric of St. Paul's, and throwing a flood of light across
+Waterloo Bridge, which set out in bold relief the dark outline of the
+Surrey hills." That "flood of light" was beheld by me, held up in my
+nurse's arms at a window under "Big Ben," which looks on Westminster
+Bridge. When in later years I have occasionally stated in a mixed
+company that I could remember the burning of Covent Garden Theatre, I
+have noticed a general expression of surprised interest, and have been
+told, in a tone meant to be kind and complimentary, that my hearers
+would hardly have thought that my memory went back so far. The
+explanation has been that these good people had some vague notions of
+<i>Rejected Addresses</i> floating through their minds, and confounded the
+burning of Covent Garden Theatre in 1856 with that of Drury Lane Theatre
+in 1809. Most people have no chronological sense.</p>
+
+<p>Our home was at Woburn, in a house belonging<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> to the Duke of Bedford,
+but given by my grandfather to my parents for their joint and several
+lives. My father's duties at the House of Commons kept him in London
+during the Parliamentary Session, but my mother, who detested London and
+worshipped her garden, used to return with her family to Woburn, in time
+to superintend the "bedding-out." My first memory is connected with my
+home in London; my second with my home in the country, and the
+rejoicings for the termination of the Crimean War.</p>
+
+<p>Under the date of May 29, 1856, we read in <i>Annals of Our Time</i>,
+"Throughout the Kingdom, the day was marked by a cessation from work,
+and, during the night, illuminations and fireworks were all but
+universal." The banners and bands of the triumphal procession which
+paraded the streets of our little town&mdash;scarcely more than a village in
+dimensions&mdash;made as strong an impression on my mind as the conflagration
+which had startled all London in the previous March.</p>
+
+<p>People who have only known me as a double-dyed Londoner always seem to
+find a difficulty in believing that I once was a countryman; yet, for
+the first twenty-five years of my life, I lived almost entirely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> in the
+country. "We could never have loved the earth so well, if we had had no
+childhood in it&mdash;if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up
+again every spring, that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as we
+sat lisping to ourselves on the grass&mdash;the same hips and haws on the
+autumn hedgerows.... One's delight in an elderberry bush overhanging the
+confused leafage of a hedgerow bank, as a more gladdening sight than the
+finest cistus or fuchsia spreading itself on the softest undulating
+turf, is an entirely unjustifiable preference to a Nursery-Gardener. And
+there is no better reason for preferring this elderberry bush than that
+it stirs an early memory&mdash;that it is no novelty in my life, speaking to
+me merely through my present sensibilities to form and colour, but the
+long companion of my existence, that wove itself into my joys when joys
+were vivid."</p>
+
+<p>I had the unspeakable advantage of being reared in close contact with
+Nature, in an aspect beautiful and wild. My father's house was
+remarkable for its pretty garden, laid out with the old-fashioned
+intricacy of pattern, and blazing, even into autumn, with varied colour.
+In the midst of it, a large and absolutely symmetrical cedar "spread its
+dark green layers of shade," and supplied us in summer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> with a kind of
+<i>al fresco</i> sitting-room. The background of the garden was formed by the
+towering trees of Woburn Park; and close by there were great tracts of
+woodland, which stretch far into Buckinghamshire, and have the character
+and effect of virgin forest.</p>
+
+<p>Having no boy-companions (for my only brother was ten years older than
+myself), of course I played no games, except croquet. I was brought up
+in a sporting home, my father being an enthusiastic fox-hunter and a
+good all-round sportsman. I abhorred shooting, and was badly bored by
+coursing and fishing. Indeed, I believe I can say with literal truth
+that I have never killed anything larger than a wasp, and that only in
+self-defence. But Woburn is an ideal country for riding, and I spent a
+good deal of my time on an excellent pony, or more strictly, galloway.
+An hour or two with the hounds was the reward of virtue in the
+schoolroom; and cub-hunting in a woodland country at 7 o'clock on a
+September morning still remains my most cherished memory of physical
+enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>"That things are not as ill with you and me as they might have been is
+half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and now
+rest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> in unvisited tombs." Most true: and among that faithful number I
+must remember our governess,&mdash;Catherine Emily Runciman&mdash;who devoted
+forty years of her life, in one capacity or another, to us and to our
+parents. She was what boys call "jolly out of school," but rather
+despotic in it; and, after a few trials of strength, I was emancipated
+from her control when I was eight. When we were in London for the
+Session of Parliament, I attended a Day School, kept by two sisters of
+John Leech, in a curious little cottage, since destroyed, at the bottom
+of Lower Belgrave Street. Just at the age when, in the ordinary course,
+I should have gone to a boarding-school, it was discovered that I was
+physically unfit for the experiment; and then I had a series of tutors
+at home. To one of these tutors my father wrote&mdash;"I must warn you of
+your pupil's powers of conversation, and tact in leading his teachers
+into it."</p>
+
+<p>But I was to a great extent self-taught. We had an excellent, though
+old-fashioned, library, and I spent a great deal of my time in
+miscellaneous reading. The Waverley Novels gave me my first taste of
+literary enjoyment, and <i>Pickwick</i> (in the original green covers) came
+soon after. Shakespeare and <i>Don Quixote</i> were imposed by paternal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>
+authority. Jeremy Taylor, Fielding, Smollett, Swift, Dryden, Pope,
+Byron, Moore, Macaulay, Miss Edgeworth, Bulwer-Lytton, were among my
+earliest friends, and I had an insatiable thirst for dictionaries and
+encyclop&aelig;dias. Tennyson was the first poet whom I really loved, but I
+also was fond of Scott's poetry, the <i>Lays of Ancient Rome</i>, the <i>Lays
+of the Scottish Cavaliers</i>, and <i>The Golden Treasury</i>. Milton, Shelley,
+Wordsworth, and Matthew Arnold came later, but while I was still a boy.
+George Eliot, Thackeray, Ruskin, and Trollope came when I was at Oxford;
+and I am not sure that Browning ever came. On the whole, I owe my chief
+enjoyment to Scott, Dickens, Wordsworth, and Tennyson, and to <i>Pickwick</i>
+more than to any single book. But I think the keenest thrill of
+intellectual pleasure which I ever felt passed through me when, as a boy
+at Harrow, I first read Wordsworth's "Daffodils."</p>
+
+<p>Our home, in its outward aspects, was extremely bright and cheerful. We
+had, as a family, a keen sense of fun, much contempt for convention, and
+great fluency of speech; and our material surroundings were such as to
+make life enjoyable. Even as a child, I used to say to myself, when
+cantering among Scotch firs and rhododendrons, "The lines<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> are fallen
+unto me in pleasant places." A graver element was supplied by a good
+deal of ill-health, by bereavements, and, in some sense, by our way of
+religion. My home was intensely Evangelical, and I lived from my
+earliest days in an atmosphere where the salvation of the individual
+soul was the supreme and constant concern of life. No form of
+worldliness entered into it, but it was full of good works, of social
+service, and of practical labour for the poor. All life was lived, down
+to its minutest detail, "as ever in the great task-Master's eye." From
+our very earliest years we were taught the Bible, at first orally; and
+later on were encouraged to read it, by gifts of handsomely bound
+copies. I remember that our aids to study were Adam Clarke's Commentary,
+Nicholl's <i>Help to Reading the Bible</i>, and a book called <i>Light in the
+Dwelling</i>. Hymns played a great part in our training. As soon as we
+could speak, we learned "When rising from the bed of death," and
+"Beautiful Zion, built above." "Rock of Ages" and "Jesu, Lover of my
+soul" were soon added. The Church Catechism we were never taught. I was
+confirmed without learning it. It was said to be too difficult; it
+really was too sacramental. By way of an easier exercise, I was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
+constrained to learn "The Shorter Catechism of the General Assembly of
+Divines at Westminster." We had Family Prayers twice every day. My
+father read a chapter, very much as the fancy took him, or where the
+Bible opened of itself; and he read without note or comment. I recall a
+very distinct impression on my infant mind that the passages of the Old
+Testament which were read at prayers had no meaning, and that the public
+reading of the words, without reference to sense, was an act of piety.
+After the chapter, my father read one of Henry Thornton's Family
+Prayers, replaced in later years by those of Ashton Oxenden.</p>
+
+<p>While we were still very young children, we were carefully incited to
+acts of practical charity. We began by carrying dinners to the sick and
+aged poor; then we went on to reading hymns and bits of Bible to the
+blind and unlettered. As soon as we were old enough, we became teachers
+in Sunday schools, and conducted classes and cottage-meetings. From the
+very beginning we were taught to save up our money for good causes. Each
+of us had a "missionary box," and I remember another box, in the
+counterfeit presentment of a Gothic church, which received contributions
+for the Church Pastoral Aid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> Society. When, on an occasion of rare
+dissipation, I won some shillings at "The Race-Game," they were
+impounded for the service of the C.M.S., and an aunt of mine, making her
+sole excursion into melody, wrote for the benefit of her young friends:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"Would you like to be told the best use for a penny?</div>
+<div>I can tell you a use which is better than any&mdash;</div>
+<div>Not on toys or on fruit or on sweetmeats to spend it,</div>
+<div>But over the seas to the heathen to send it."</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>I learned my religion from my mother, the sweetest, brightest, and most
+persuasive of teachers, and what she taught I received as gospel.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"Oh that those lips had language! Life has past</div>
+<div>With me but roughly since I heard thee last."</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><i>Sit anima mea cum Sanctis.</i> May my lot be with those Evangelical saints
+from whom I first learned that, in the supreme work of salvation, no
+human being and no created thing can interpose between the soul and the
+Creator. Happy is the man whose religious life has been built on the
+impregnable rock of that belief.</p>
+
+<p>So much for the foundation. The superstructure was rather accidental
+than designed.</p>
+
+<p>From my very earliest days I had a natural love of pomp and pageantry;
+and, though I never saw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> them, I used to read of them with delight in
+books of continental travel, and try to depict them in my sketch-books,
+and even enact them with my toys. Then came Sir Walter Scott, who
+inspired me, as he inspired so many greater men, with the love of
+ecclesiastical splendour, and so turned my vague love of ceremony into a
+definite channel. Another contribution to the same end was made, all
+unwittingly, by my dear and deeply Protestant father. He was an
+enthusiast for Gothic architecture, and it was natural to enquire the
+uses of such things as piscinas and sedilia in fabrics which he taught
+me to admire. And then came the opportune discovery (in an idle moment
+under a dull sermon) of the Occasional Offices of the Prayer Book. If
+language meant anything, those Offices meant the sacramental system of
+the Catholic Church; and the impression derived from the Prayer Book was
+confirmed by Jeremy Taylor and <i>The Christian Year</i>. I was always
+impatient of the attempt, even when made by the most respectable people,
+to pervert plain English, and I felt perfect confidence in building the
+Catholic superstructure on my Evangelical foundation.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as I had turned fourteen, I was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>confirmed by the Bishop of Ely
+(Harold Browne), and made my first Communion in Woburn Church on Easter
+Day, April 21, 1867.</p>
+
+<p>After the Easter Recess, I went with my parents to London, then seething
+with excitement over the Tory Reform Bill, which created Household
+Suffrage in towns. My father, being Sergeant-at-Arms, could give me a
+seat under the Gallery whenever he chose, and I heard some of the most
+memorable debates in that great controversy. In the previous year my
+uncle, Lord Russell, with Mr. Gladstone as Leader of the House of
+Commons, had been beaten in an attempt to lower the franchise; but the
+contest had left me cold. The debates of 1867 awoke quite a fresh
+interest in me. I began to understand the Democratic, as against the
+Whig, ideal; and I was tremendously impressed by Disraeli, who seemed to
+tower by a head and shoulders above everyone in the House. Gladstone
+played a secondary and ambiguous part; and, if I heard him speak, which
+I doubt, the speech left no dint in my memory.</p>
+
+<p>At this point of the narrative it is necessary to make a passing
+allusion to Doctors, who, far more than Premiers or Priests or any other
+class of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> men, have determined the course and condition of my life. I
+believe that I know, by personal experience, more about Doctors and
+Doctoring than any other man of my age in England. I am, in my own
+person, a monument of medical practice, and have not only seen, but
+felt, the rise and fall of several systems of physic and surgery. To
+have experienced the art is also to have known the artist; and the
+portraits of all the practitioners with whom at one time or another I
+have been brought into intimate relations would fill the largest album,
+and go some way towards furnishing a modest Picture-Gallery. Broadly
+speaking, the Doctors of the 'fifties and 'sixties were as Dickens drew
+them. The famous consultant, Dr. Parker Peps; the fashionable physician,
+Sir Tumley Snuffim; the General Practitioner, Mr. Pilkins; and the
+Medical Officer of the Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life
+Insurance Company, Dr. Jobling; are in the highest degree representative
+and typical; but perhaps the Doctor&mdash;his name, unfortunately, has
+perished&mdash;who was called to the bedside of little Nell, and came with "a
+great bunch of seals dangling below a waistcoat of ribbed black satin,"
+is the most carefully finished portrait. Such, exactly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> were the Family
+Physicians of my youth. They always dressed in shiny black,&mdash;trousers,
+neckcloth, and all; they were invariably bald, and had shaved upper lips
+and chins, and carefully-trimmed whiskers. They said "Hah!" and "Hum!"
+in tones of omniscience which would have converted a Christian
+Scientist; and, when feeling one's pulse, they produced the largest and
+most audibly-ticking gold watches producible by the horologist's art.
+They had what were called "the courtly manners of the old school"; were
+diffuse in style, and abounded in periphrasis. Thus they spoke of "the
+gastric organ" where their successors talk of the stomach, and referred
+to brandy as "the domestic stimulant." When attending families where
+religion was held in honour, they were apt to say to the lady of the
+house, "We are fearfully and wonderfully made"; and, where classical
+culture prevailed, they not infrequently remarked&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>Crescit indulgens sibi dirus hydrops.</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>By the way, my reference to "the domestic stimulant" reminds me that on
+stimulants, domestic and other, this school of Physicians relied with an
+unalterable confidence. For a delicate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> child, a glass of port wine at
+11 was the inevitable prescription, and a tea-spoonful of bark was often
+added to this generous tonic. In all forms of languor and debility and
+enfeebled circulation, brandy-and-water was "exhibited," as the phrase
+went; and, if the dose was not immediately successful, the brandy was
+increased. I myself, when a sickly boy of twelve, was ordered by a
+well-known practitioner, called F. C. Skey, to drink mulled claret at
+bedtime; and my recollection is that, as a nightcap, it beat bromide and
+sulphonal hollow. In the light of more recent science, I suppose that
+all this alcoholic treatment was what Milton calls "the sweet poyson of
+misus&eacute;d wine," and wrought havoc with one's nerves, digestion, and
+circulation. It certainly had this single advantage, that when one grew
+to man's estate, and passed from "that poor creature, small beer," to
+the loaded port and fiery sherry of a "Wine" at the University, it was
+impossible to make one drunk. And thereby hangs a tale. I was once
+writing the same sentiment in the same words for a medical journal, and
+the compositor substituted "disadvantage" for "advantage," apparently
+thinking that my early regimen had deprived me of a real happiness in
+after-life.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p><p>Such were the Doctors of my youth. By no sudden wrench, no violent
+transition, but gently, gradually, imperceptibly, the type has
+transformed itself into that which we behold to-day. No doubt an inward
+continuity has been maintained, but the visible phenomena are so
+radically altered as to suggest to the superficial observer the idea of
+a new creation; and even we, who, as Matthew Arnold said, "stand by the
+Sea of Time, and listen to the solemn and rhythmical beat of its waves,"
+even we can scarcely point with confidence to the date of each
+successive change. First, as to personal appearance. When did doctors
+abandon black cloth, and betake themselves (like Newman, when he seceded
+to the Church of Rome) to grey trousers? Not, I feel pretty sure, till
+the 'seventies were well advanced. Quite certainly the first time that I
+ever fell into the hands of a moustached Doctor was in 1877. Everyone
+condemned the hirsute appendage as highly unprofessional, and when, soon
+after, the poor man found his way into a Lunatic Asylum, the
+neighbouring Doctors of the older school said that they were not
+surprised; that "there was a bad family history"; and that he himself
+had shown marked signs of eccentricity. That meant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> the moustache, and
+nothing else. Then, again, when was it first recognized as possible to
+take a pulse without the assistance of a gold chronometer? History is
+silent; but I am inclined to assign that discovery to the same date as
+the clinical thermometer, a toy unknown to the Doctors of my youth, who,
+indeed, were disposed to regard even the stethoscope as new-fangled.
+Then "the courtly manners of the old school"&mdash;when did they go out? I do
+not mean to cast the slightest aspersion on the manners of my present
+doctor, who is as polite and gentlemanlike a young fellow as one could
+wish to meet. But his manners are not "courtly," nor the least "of the
+old school." He does not bow when he enters my room, but shakes hands
+and says it's an A1 day and I had better get out in the motor. Whatever
+the symptoms presented to his observation, he never says "Hah!" or
+"Hum!" and he has never once quoted the Bible or Horace, though I have
+reason to believe that he has read both. Then, again, as a mere matter
+of style, when did Doctors abandon the majestic "We," which formerly
+they shared with Kings and Editors? "We shall be all the better when we
+have had our luncheon and a glass of sherry," said Sir Tumley Snuffim.
+"We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> will continue the bark and linseed," murmured Dr. Parker Peps, as
+he bowed himself out. My Doctor says, "Do you feel as if you could
+manage a chop? It would do you pounds of good"; and "I know the peroxide
+dressing is rather beastly, but I'd stick it another day or two, if I
+were you." Medical conversation, too, is an art which has greatly
+changed. In old days it was thought an excellent method of lubricating
+the first interview for the Doctor to ask where one's home was, and to
+state, quite irrespective of the fact, that he was born in the same
+neighbourhood; having ascertained that one was, say, a Yorkshireman, to
+remark that he would have known it from one's accent; to enlarge on his
+own connexions, especially if of the territorial caste; to describe his
+early travels in the South of Europe or the United States; and to
+discourse on water-colour drawing or the flute. "We doctors, too, have
+our hobbies; though, alas! the demands of a profession in which <i>Ne
+otium quidem otiosum est</i> leave us little time to enjoy them."</p>
+
+<p>Quite different is the conversation of the modern doctor. He does not
+lubricate the interview, but goes straight to business&mdash;enquires,
+examines, pronounces, prescribes&mdash;and then, if any time is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> left for
+light discourse, discusses the rival merits of "Rugger" and "Soccer,"
+speculates on the result of the Hospital Cup Tie, or observes that the
+British Thoroughbred is not deteriorating when he can win with so much
+on his back; pronounces that the Opera last night was ripping, or that
+some much-praised play is undiluted rot. Not thus did Dr. Parker Peps
+regale Mrs. Dombey, or Sir Tumley Snuffim soothe the shattered nerves of
+Mrs. Wititterly. The reaction against alcoholic treatment can, I
+believe, be definitely dated from the 10th of January, 1872, when the
+heads of the medical profession published their opinion that "alcohol,
+in whatever form, should be prescribed with as much care as any powerful
+drug, and the directions for its use should be so framed as not to be
+interpreted as a sanction for excess." This was a heavy blow and deep
+discouragement to the school of Snuffim and Pilkins, and the system of
+port at 11, and "the domestic stimulant" between whiles, died hard.</p>
+
+<p>But this is a long digression. I return to the Family Physician who
+prescribed for my youth. He was Dr. T. Somerset Snuffim, son of the
+celebrated Sir Tumley, and successor to his lucrative practice. His
+patients believed in him with an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>unquestioning and even passionate
+faith, and his lightest word was law. It was he who in 1862 pronounced
+me physically unfit for a Private School, but held out hopes that, if I
+could be kept alive till I was fourteen, I might then be fit for a
+Public School. Four years passed, and nothing particular happened. Then
+the time arrived when the decision had to be made between Public School
+and Private Tutor. After a vast amount of stethoscoping and
+pulse-feeling, Snuffim decided peremptorily against a Public School. My
+parents had a strong and just detestation of "private study" and its
+products, and they revolved a great many schemes for avoiding it.
+Suddenly my mother, who was not only the kindest but also the wisest of
+mothers, bethought herself of making me a Home-boarder at Harrow. She
+was one of those persons who, when once they are persuaded that a
+certain course is right, do not let the grass grow under their feet, but
+act at once. We did not desert our old home in Bedfordshire, and my
+father had still his official residence in Speaker's Court; but my
+parents took a house at Harrow, at the top of Sudbury Hill, and there we
+established ourselves in September, 1867.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p><p>On the 4th of November in that year, Matthew Arnold, who was
+contemplating a similar move, wrote to Lady de Rothschild:&mdash;"What you
+tell me is very important and interesting. I think Lady Charles Russell
+has a boy who, like my eldest boy, is an invalid, and I dare say you
+will some time or other be kind enough to ascertain from her whether the
+school life is at all trying for him, or whether she has any difficulty
+in getting him excused fagging or violent exercises."</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The L.C.C., which placed this slab, made a topographical
+error. James Wright, in his <i>Compendious View of the late Tumults and
+Troubles in this Kingdom</i> (1683), says: "The Lord Russel ... was on the
+day following, viz. Saturday the 21st of July, Beheaded in Lincoln's Inn
+Fields. For which purpose a Scaffold was erected that Morning on that
+side of the Fields next to the Arch going into Duke Street, in the
+middle between the said Arch and the corner turning into Queen Street."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a></p>
+<blockquote><p>To the Editor of <i>The Times</i>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>&mdash;As Links with the Past seem just now to be in fashion, permit
+me to supply two which concern my near relations.</p>
+
+<p>1. My uncle, Lord Russell (1792-1878) visited Napoleon at Elba in
+December, 1814, and had a long conversation with him, which is
+reported in Spencer Walpole's "Life of Lord John Russell." There
+must be plenty of people now alive who conversed with my uncle, so
+this Link cannot be a very rare one.</p>
+
+<p>2. My second Link is more remarkable. My father (1807-1894)
+remembered an old Highlander who had been "out" with Prince Charles
+Edward in 1745. Of course, this "linking" took place at the
+extremes of age, my father being a little boy and the Highlander a
+very old man. My grandfather, the sixth Duke of Bedford, was one of
+the first Englishmen who took a shooting in the Highlands (on the
+Spey), and the first time that my father accompanied him to the
+north, Prince Charlie's follower was still living near the place
+which my grandfather rented.</p>
+
+<p class="center">Your obedient servant,</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">George W. E. Russell</span>.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sept. 6, 1910.</i></p></blockquote>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2>
+
+<h3>HARROW</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>Not to River nor Royal Keep,</div>
+<div class="i1">Low Meads nor level Close,</div>
+<div>Up to the sturdy wind-worn steep,</div>
+<div class="i1"><i>Levavi oculos</i>;</div>
+<div>To four red walls on a skyward climb,</div>
+<div>Towering over the fields and Time.</div>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<div class="i12">E. <span class="smcap">Milner-White</span>.</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>When Dr. Vaughan re-created Harrow School, after its long decadence
+under Longley and Wordsworth, he wished that the number should never
+exceed five hundred. Of late years the school has been greatly enlarged,
+but in my time we were always just about the number which, in Vaughan's
+judgment, was the largest that a Head-master could properly supervise.
+That number is embalmed in Edward Howson's touching song:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"Five hundred faces, and all so strange!</div>
+<div class="i1">Life in front of me, Home behind&mdash;</div>
+<div class="i1">I felt like a waif before the wind,</div>
+<div>Tossed on an ocean of shock and change."</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p><p>Some of those faces I shall presently describe; but, in reviewing my
+life at Harrow, my first tribute must be paid to my Head-master&mdash;for
+forty-five years the kindest, most generous, and most faithful of
+friends. Henry Montagu Butler, youngest son of Dr. George Butler, Dean
+of Peterborough and sometime Head-master of Harrow, was born in 1833,
+and educated at Harrow. He was Head of the School, made the cock-score
+in the Eton match at Lords, was Scholar and Fellow of Trinity, and
+Senior Classic in 1855. He was elected to the Head-mastership of Harrow,
+in succession to Dr. Vaughan, when he was only a few months over 26, and
+entered on his reign in January, 1860. It is not easy to describe what a
+graceful and brilliant creature he seemed to my boyish eyes, when I
+first saw him in 1867, nor how unlike what one had imagined a
+Head-master to be. He was then just thirty-four and looked much younger
+than he was. Gracefulness is the idea which I specially connect with
+him. He was graceful in shape, gesture, and carriage; graceful in
+manners and ways, graceful in scholarship, graceful in writing,
+pre-eminently graceful in speech. It was his custom from time to time,
+if any peculiar enormity displayed itself in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> school, to call us all
+together in the Speech-Room, and give us what we called a "Pi-jaw." One
+of these discourses I remember as well as if I had heard it yesterday.
+It was directed against Lying, as not only un-Christian but
+ungentlemanlike. As he stood on the dais, one hand grasping his gown
+behind his back and the other marking his points, I felt that, perhaps
+for the first time, I was listening to pure and unstudied eloquence,
+suffused with just as much scorn against base wrongdoing as makes speech
+pungent without making it abusive. It should be recorded to Butler's
+credit that he was thoroughly feared. A Head-master who is not feared
+should be at once dismissed from his post. And, besides being feared, he
+was profoundly detested by bad boys. The worse the boy's moral
+character, the more he hated Butler. But boys who were, in any sense or
+degree, on the right side; who were striving, however imperfectly, after
+what is pure and lovely and of good report, felt instinctively that
+Butler was their friend. His preaching in the School Chapel (though
+perhaps a little impeded by certain mannerisms) was direct, interesting,
+and uplifting in no common degree. Many of his sermons made a lifelong
+impression on me. His<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> written English was always beautifully pellucid,
+and often adorned by some memorable anecdote or quotation, or by some
+telling phrase. But once, when, owing to a broken arm, he could not
+write his sermons, but preached to us extempore three Sundays in
+succession, he fairly fascinated us. As we rose in the School and came
+into close contact with him, we found ever more and more to admire. It
+would be impertinent for me to praise the attainments of a Senior
+Classic, but no one could fail to see that Butler's scholarship was
+unusually graceful and literary. Indeed, he was literary through and
+through. All fine literature appealed to him with compelling force, and
+he was peculiarly fond of English oratory. Chatham, Burke, Canning,
+Sheil, and Bright are some of the great orators to whom he introduced
+us, and he was never so happy as when he could quote them to illustrate
+some fine passage in Cicero or Demosthenes. One other introduction which
+I owe to him I must by no means forget&mdash;Lord Beaconsfield's novels. I
+had read <i>Lothair</i> when it came out, but I was then too inexperienced to
+discern the deep truths which underlie its glittering satire. Butler
+introduced me to <i>Sybil</i>, and thereby opened up to me a new world of
+interest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> and amusement. When Butler entertained boys at breakfast or
+dinner, he was a most delightful host, and threw off all magisterial
+awfulness as easily as his gown. His conversation was full of fun and
+sprightliness, and he could talk "Cricket-shop," ancient and modern,
+like Lillywhite or R. H. Lyttelton. In time of illness or failure or
+conscience-stricken remorse, he showed an Arthur-like simplicity of
+religion which no one could ignore or gainsay.</p>
+
+<p>Next to Dr. Butler, in my list of Harrow masters, must be placed Farrar,
+afterwards Dean of Canterbury, to whom I owed more in the way of
+intellectual stimulus and encouragement than to any other teacher. I
+had, I believe, by nature, some sense of beauty; and Farrar stimulated
+and encouraged this sense to the top of its bent. Himself inspired by
+Ruskin, he taught us to admire rich colours and graceful
+forms&mdash;illuminated missals, and Fra Angelico's blue angels on gold
+grounds&mdash;and to see the exquisite beauty of common things, such as
+sunsets, and spring grass, and autumn leaves; the waters of a shoaling
+sea, and the transparent amber of a mountain stream. In literature his
+range was extremely wide. Nothing worth reading seemed to have escaped
+him, and he loved poetry as much as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> Butler loved oratory. When he
+preached in Chapel his gorgeous rhetoric, as yet not overwrought or
+over-coloured, held us spellbound; and though, or perhaps because, he
+was inclined to spoil the boys who responded to his appeals, and to rate
+them higher than they deserved, we loved and admired him as, I should
+think, few schoolmasters have been loved and admired.</p>
+
+<p>When I speak of masters who were also friends, I should be ungrateful
+indeed if I omitted Arthur George Watson, in whose House I was placed as
+soon as the doctors were satisfied that the experiment could be tried
+without undue risks. Mr. Watson was a Fellow of All Souls, and was in
+all respects what we should have expected a member of that Society
+(elected the same day as the late Lord Salisbury) to be. It was said of
+C. P. Golightly at Oxford that, when he was asked his opinion of Dr.
+Hawkins, Provost of Oriel, he replied: "Well, if I were forced to choose
+the epithet which should be least descriptive of the dear Provost, I
+should choose <i>gushing</i>." Exactly the same might be said of Mr. Watson;
+but he was the most high-minded and conscientious of men, a thorough
+gentleman, inflexibly just, and a perfect House-Master.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> The days which
+I spent under his roof must always be reckoned among the happiest of my
+life.</p>
+
+<p>Among masters who were also friends I must assign a high place to the
+Rev. William Done Bushell, who vainly endeavoured to teach me
+mathematics, but found me more at home in the sphere (which he also
+loved) of Ecclesiology. And not even the most thoughtless or
+ill-conditioned boy who was at Harrow between 1854 and 1882 could ever
+forget the Rev. John Smith, who, through a life-time overshadowed by
+impending calamity, was an Apostle to boys, if ever there was one, and
+the Guardian Angel of youthful innocence. Dr. Vaughan, no lover of
+exaggerated phrases, called him, in a memorial sermon, "the Christ of
+Harrow;" and there must be many a man now living who, as he looks back,
+feels that he owed the salvation of his soul to that Christ-like
+character.</p>
+
+<p>During my first two years at Harrow, Dr. Westcott, afterwards Bishop of
+Durham, was one of the masters, and it has always been a matter of deep
+regret to me that I had no opportunity of getting to know him. He was
+hardly visible in the common life of the School. He lived remote, aloof,
+apart, alone. It must be presumed that the boys who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> boarded in his
+House knew something of him, but with the School in general he never
+came in contact. His special work was to supervise the composition,
+English and classical, of the Sixth Form, and on this task he lavished
+all his minute and scrupulous scholarship, all his genuine enthusiasm
+for literary beauty. But, until we were in the Sixth, we saw Westcott
+only on public occasions, and one of these occasions was the calling
+over of names on half-holidays, styled at Eton "Absence," and at Harrow
+"Bill." To see Westcott performing this function made one, even in those
+puerile days, feel that the beautifully delicate instrument was
+eminently unfitted for the rough work of mere routine on which it was
+employed. We had sense enough to know that Westcott was a man of
+learning and distinction altogether outside the beaten track of
+schoolmasters' accomplishments; and that he had performed achievements
+in scholarship and divinity which great men recognized as great.
+"Calling Bill" was an occupation well enough suited for his
+colleagues&mdash;for Huggins or Buggins or Brown or Green&mdash;but it was
+actually pathetic to see this frail embodiment of culture and piety
+contending with the clamour and tumult of five hundred obstreperous
+boys.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p><p>It was not only as a great scholar that we revered Westcott. We knew,
+by that mysterious process by which school-boys get to know something of
+the real, as distinct from the official, characters of their masters,
+that he was a saint. There were strange stories in the School about his
+ascetic way of living. We were told that he wrote his sermons on his
+knees. We heard that he never went into local society, and that he read
+no newspaper except <i>The Guardian</i>. Thus when Liddon, at the height of
+his fame as the author of the great Bampton Lectures, came to Harrow to
+preach on Founder's Day, it was reported that Westcott would not dine
+with the Head-master to meet him. He could not spare three hours from
+prayer and study; but he came in for an hour's conversation after
+dinner.</p>
+
+<p>All that we saw and heard in Chapel confirmed what we were told. We saw
+the bowed form, the clasped hands, the rapt gaze, as of a man who in
+worship was really <i>solus cum Solo</i>, and not, as the manner of some of
+his colleagues was, sleeping the sleep of the just, or watching for the
+devotional delinquencies of the Human Boy. His sermons were rare events;
+but some of us looked forward to them as to something quite out of the
+common<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> groove. There were none of the accessories which generally
+attract boyish admiration&mdash;no rhetoric, no purple patches, no
+declamation, no pretence of spontaneity. His anxious forehead crowned a
+puny body, and his voice was so faint as to be almost inaudible. The
+language was totally unadorned; the sentences were closely packed with
+meaning; and the meaning was not always easy. But the charm lay in
+distinction, aloofness from common ways of thinking and speaking, a wide
+outlook on events and movements in the Church, and a fiery enthusiasm
+all the more telling because sedulously restrained. I remember as if I
+heard it yesterday a reference in December, 1869, to "that august
+assemblage which gathers to-morrow under the dome of St. Peter's," and I
+remember feeling pretty sure at the moment that there was no other
+schoolmaster in England who would preach to his boys about the Vatican
+Council. But by far the most momentous of Westcott's sermons at Harrow
+was that which he preached on the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity, 1868.
+The text was Ephesians v. 15: "See then that ye walk circumspectly." The
+sermon was an earnest plea for the revival of the ascetic life, and the
+preacher endeavoured to show<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> "what new blessings God has in store for
+absolute self-sacrifice" by telling his hearers about the great
+victories of asceticism in history. He took first the instance of St.
+Anthony, as the type of personal asceticism; then that of St. Benedict,
+as the author of the Common Life of equality and brotherhood; and then
+that of St. Francis, who, "in the midst of a Church endowed with all
+that art and learning and wealth and power could give, reasserted the
+love of God to the poorest, the meanest, the most repulsive of His
+children, and placed again the simple Cross above all the treasures of
+the world." Even "the unparalleled achievements, the matchless energy,
+of the Jesuits" were duly recognized as triumphs of faith and
+discipline; and the sermon ended with a passionate appeal to the Harrow
+boys to follow the example of young Antony or the still younger
+Benedict, and prepare themselves to take their part in reviving the
+ascetic life of the English Church.</p>
+
+<p>"It is to a congregation like this that the call comes with the most
+stirring and the most cheering voice. The young alone have the fresh
+enthusiasm which in former times God has been pleased to consecrate to
+like services.... And if, as I do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> believe most deeply, a work at
+present awaits England, and our English Church, greater than the world
+has yet seen, I cannot but pray everyone who hears me to listen humbly
+for the promptings of God's Spirit, if so be that He is even now calling
+him to take a foremost part in it. It is for us, perhaps, first to hear
+the call, but it is for you to interpret it and fulfil it. Our work is
+already sealed by the past: yours is still rich in boundless
+possibilities."</p>
+
+<p>It may readily be believed that this discourse did not please either the
+British Parent or the Common Schoolmaster. A rumour went abroad that Mr.
+Westcott was going to turn all the boys into monks, and loud was the
+clamour of ignorance and superstition. Westcott made the only dignified
+reply. He printed (without publishing) the peccant sermon, under the
+title "Disciplined Life," and gave a copy to every boy in the School,
+expressing the hope that "God, in His great love, will even thus, by
+words most unworthily spoken, lead some one among us to think on one
+peculiar work of the English Church, and in due time to offer himself
+for the fulfilment of it as His Spirit shall teach." Those who remember
+that Charles Gore was one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> of the boys who heard the sermon may think
+that the preacher's prayer was answered.</p>
+
+<p>With the masters generally I was on the best of terms. Indeed, I can
+only remember two whom I actively disliked, and of these two one was the
+absolute reproduction of Mr. Creakle, only armed with "thirty Greek
+lines" instead of the cane. Some of the staff were not particularly
+friends, but notable as curiosities; and at the head of these must be
+placed the Rev. Thomas Henry Steel. This truly remarkable man was born
+in 1806. He was Second Classic and Twentieth Wrangler, and Fellow of
+Trinity College, Cambridge. He became a master at Harrow under Dr.
+Wordsworth in 1836; left the School in 1843, to take a country living;
+returned to Harrow, under Dr. Vaughan, in 1849, and in 1855 became (for
+the second time) master of The Grove, one of the largest boarding-houses
+in Harrow, where he remained till 1881. He was a keen, alert, and active
+old gentleman, with a rosy face and long white beard, like Father
+Christmas: and he carried, in season and out of season, a bright blue
+umbrella. His degree sufficiently proves that he was a ripe scholar,
+but, as George Eliot says, "to all ripeness under the sun there comes a
+further<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> stage of development which is less esteemed in the market";
+and, when I was in his Form, it was chiefly characterized by an
+agreeable laxity of discipline. As regards his boarding-house of forty
+boys, it was currently reported that he had never been seen in the boys'
+side of it. Perhaps he went round it when they were asleep. But it was
+on his preaching that his fame chiefly rested. His sermons were written
+in a most exuberant style of old-fashioned rhetoric, and abounded in
+phrases, allusions, and illustrations, so quaint that, once heard, they
+could never be forgotten. I believe that he kept a small stock of these
+sermons, and seldom added to it; but knowing, I suppose, that if
+preached twice they must inevitably be recognized, he never preached a
+sermon a second time as long as there was even one boy in the School who
+had heard it on its first delivery. This was a very sensible precaution;
+but he little knew that some of his most elaborate passages had, by
+their sheer oddity, imprinted themselves indelibly on the memories of
+the hearers, and were handed down by oral tradition. One such
+especially, about a lady who used to visit the hospitals in the American
+War, and left a bun or a rose on the pillow of the wounded according as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>
+she thought that they would recover or die, had an established place in
+our annals; and it is not easy to describe the rapture of hearing a
+passage which, as repeated by one's schoolfellows, had seemed too absurd
+for credence, delivered from the School-pulpit, in a kind of solemn
+stage-whisper. However, "Tommy Steel" was a kind-hearted old gentleman,
+who believed in letting boys alone, and by a hundred eccentricities of
+speech and manner, added daily to the gaiety of our life. For one great
+boon I am eternally his debtor. He set me on reading Wordsworth, and
+chose his favourite bits with skill and judgment. I had been reared in
+the school that derided&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"A drowsy, frowsy poem called <i>The Excursion</i>,</div>
+<div>Writ in a manner which is my aversion,"</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and "Tommy Steel" opened my eyes to a new world of beauty. By the way,
+he had known Wordsworth, and had entertained him at Harrow; and he told
+us that the Poet always said "housen," where we say houses.</p>
+
+<p>Another of our curiosities was Mr. Jacob Francis Marillier, a genial old
+gentleman without a degree, who had been supposed to teach writing and
+Mathematics, but long before my time had dropped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> the writing&mdash;I suppose
+as hopeless&mdash;and only played a mathematical barrel-organ. He had joined
+the staff at Harrow in 1819, and, as from my earliest days I had a love
+of Links with the Past, I learned from Mr. Marillier a vast amount about
+the ancient traditions of the School, which, even in 1869 (when he
+resigned), were becoming faint and forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>Yet a third oddity must be commemorated; but in this case it is
+desirable to use a pseudonym. I think I remember in one of
+Bulwer-Lytton's novels a family called Sticktoright,<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> and that name
+will do as well as another. The Rev. Samuel Sticktoright was essentially
+what is called a "Master of the old school." He was born in 1808, came
+to Harrow in 1845, and had a large House for thirty years. I have just
+been contemplating his photograph in my Harrow album, and he certainly
+looks "the old school" all over, with his carefully-trimmed whiskers,
+double-breasted waistcoat, and large white "choker," neatly tied. By the
+boys generally he was regarded as an implacable tyrant, and I have heard
+(though this was before my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> time) that a special victim of his
+passionless severity was a pink-faced youth with blue eyes called
+Randall Thomas Davidson. Personally, I rather liked him; partly, no
+doubt, on the principle on which Homer called the &AElig;thiopians
+blameless&mdash;namely, that he had nothing to do with them. But there was a
+sly twinkle in the corner of Mr. Sticktoright's eye which bespoke a
+lurking sense of humour, and in the very few words which he ever
+bestowed on me there generally was a suggestion of dry&mdash;very dry&mdash;fun.
+He was, of course, the most uncompromising of Tories, and every form of
+change, in Church or State or School, was equally abhorrent to him. In
+local society he played a considerable part, both giving and receiving
+hospitality; and it was the traditional pleasantry to chaff him as an
+inveterate bachelor, at whom all the young ladies of the place were
+setting their virginal caps. These jests he received very much as Tim
+Linkinwater received the allusions of Mr. Cheeryble to the "uncommonly
+handsome spinster," rather encouraging them as tributes to the fact
+that, though now advanced in years, he was well preserved, and, as most
+people surmised, well off.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p><p>These facetious passages were, of course, confined to the society in
+which the masters moved, and we boys knew them only by hearsay. But what
+we saw with our own eyes was that the only human being who ever dared to
+"cheek" Mr. Sticktoright, or to interfere with his arrangements, or to
+disregard his orders, was his butler, whom we will call Boniface.
+Everyone who knows school-boys knows that they have a trick of saying
+things about those in authority over them, which really they do not the
+least believe but which they make a bold pretence of believing. So in
+the case of "Sticky" and Boniface. They were of much the same age, and
+rather similar in appearance; wherefore we said that they were brothers;
+that they had risen from a lowly station in the world, and had tossed up
+which should be master and which butler; that "Sticky" had won the toss,
+and that the disappointed Boniface held his brother in subjection by a
+veiled threat that, if he were offended, he would reveal the whole story
+to the world. This tradition seemed to present some elements of
+unlikelihood, and yet it survived from generation to generation; for not
+otherwise could we account for the palpable fact that the iron severity
+which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> held all boy-flesh in awe melted into impotence when Boniface was
+the offender.</p>
+
+<p>The solution of the mystery was romantic. Dr. Butler, contrary to his
+usual practice, was spending the Christmas holidays of 1876-7 at Harrow.
+One day a stranger was announced, and opened the conversation by
+saying&mdash;"I regret to tell you that your colleague, Mr. Sticktoright, is
+dead. He died suddenly at Brighton, where he was spending the holidays.
+I am his brother-in-law and executor, and, in compliance with his
+instructions, I have to ask you to accompany me to his house." Those who
+know the present Master of Trinity can picture the genuine grief with
+which he received this notification. Mr. Sticktoright had been a master
+when he was a boy at school, and a highly-respected colleague ever since
+he became Head-master. That the bearer of the sad news should be
+Sticktoright's brother-in-law seemed quite natural, for he must have
+married a Miss Sticktoright; and the Head-master and the executor went
+together to the dead man's house. There, after some unlocking of drawers
+and opening of cabinets, they came upon a document to this effect: "In
+case of my dying away from Harrow, this is to certify that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> on a certain
+day, in a certain place, I married Mary Smith, sometime a housemaid in
+my service, by whom I leave a family."</p>
+
+<p>So there had really been much more foundation for our tradition than we
+had ever dreamed, and Boniface had probably known the romantic history
+of his master's life. The extraordinary part of the matter was that old
+Sticktoright had always spent the Easter, Summer, and Christmas holidays
+in the bosom of his family at Brighton, and that no one connected with
+Harrow had ever chanced to see him basking in their smiles. [N.B.&mdash;the
+names, personal and local, are fictitious.] In the north aisle of Harrow
+School Chapel, where departed masters are commemorated, you may search
+in vain for any memorial to the Rev. Samuel Sticktoright.</p>
+
+<p>Yet one more curiosity must be named, this time not a Harrow master.
+"Polly Arnold" kept a stationer's shop, and, as a child, helping her
+grand-mother in the same shop, had sold pens&mdash;some added cribs&mdash;to Byron
+when a boy in the school. Here was a Link of the Past which exactly
+suited me, and, if only Polly could have understood the allusion, I
+should have said to her&mdash;"Ah, did you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> once see Byron plain?" I happened
+to have a sister who, though exceptionally clever and lively, had
+absolutely no chronological sense. I took her to see Polly Arnold one
+day, when this conversation ensued&mdash;"Well, Miss Arnold, I am very glad
+to make your acquaintance. I have often heard of you from my brother. He
+tells me you remember John Lyon. How very interesting!" [N.B.&mdash;John Lyon
+founded Harrow School in 1571.] To this tribute Polly replied with much
+asperity&mdash;"I know I'm getting on in life, Miss, but I'm not quite three
+hundred years old yet"&mdash;while my sister murmured in my ear&mdash;"Who <i>is</i> it
+she remembers? I know it's someone who lived a long time ago."</p>
+
+<p>But the name of Arnold, when connected with Harrow, suggests quite
+another train of thought. At Easter, 1868, Matthew Arnold came to live
+at Harrow, with a view of placing his three boys in the School. The
+eldest of the three was the invalid to whom his father referred in a
+letter quoted in my first chapter: I was able to show him some little
+kindnesses, and thus arose an intimacy with the parents, brothers, and
+sisters which I have always regarded as&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"Part of my life's unalterable good."</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> "The wood belonged to the Hazeldeans, the furze-land to the
+Sticktorights&mdash;an old Saxon family if ever there was one." <i>My Novel</i>.
+Book I.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2>
+
+<h3>HARROVIANA</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"I may have failed, my School may fail;</div>
+<div class="i1">I tremble, but thus much I dare;</div>
+<div>I love her. Let the critics rail,</div>
+<div class="i1">My brethren and my home are there."</div>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<div class="i12"><span class="smcap">W. Cory.</span></div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Everyone who travels by the North Western, or the Great Central, or the
+Midland Railway, must be conversant with the appearance of that
+"Pinnacle perched on a Precipice," which was Charles II.'s idea of the
+Visible Church on Earth&mdash;the Parish Church of Harrow on the Hill. Anselm
+consecrated it, Becket said Mass in it, and John Lyon, the Founder of
+Harrow School, lies buried in it. When I was a Harrow boy, the
+Celebrations of the Holy Communion in the School Chapel were rare, and
+generally late; so some of us were accustomed to communicate every
+Sunday at the 8 o'clock service in the Parish Church. But even in holy
+places, and amid sacred associations,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> the ludicrous is apt to assert
+itself; and I could never sufficiently admire a tablet in the North
+aisle, commemorating a gentleman who died of the first Reform Bill.</p>
+
+<p class="center">"JOHN HENRY NORTH,<br /><br />
+Judge of the Admiralty in Ireland.<br />
+Without an equal at the University, a rival at the Bar,<br />
+Or a superior in chaste and classic eloquence in Parliament.<br />
+Honoured, Revered, Admired, Beloved, Deplored,<br />
+By the Irish Bar, the Senate and his country,<br />
+He sunk beneath the efforts of a mind too great for<br />
+His earthly frame,<br />In opposing the Revolutionary Invasion of the Religion and<br />
+Constitution of England,<br />On the 29th of September, 1831, in the 44th year of his age."</p>
+
+<p>Alas! poor Mr. North. What would he have felt if he had lived to see the
+Reform Bills of 1867 and 1885? Clearly he was taken away from the evil
+to come.</p>
+
+<p>Until the Metropolitan Railway joined Harrow to Baker Street, the Hill
+stood in the midst of genuine and unspoilt country, separated by five
+miles of grass from the nearest point of London, and encompassed by
+isolated dwellings, ranging in rank and scale from villas to country
+houses. Most of these have fallen victims to the Speculative Builder,
+and have been cut up into alleys of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> brick and stucco, though one or two
+still remain among their hay-fields and rhododendrons. When I first
+ascended Harrow Hill, I drove there from London with my mother; and,
+from Harlesden onwards, our road lay between grass meadows, and was
+shaded by hedgerow timber. Harrow was then a much prettier place than it
+is now. The far-seen elms under which Byron dreamed<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> were still in
+their unlopped glory, and the whole effect of the Hill was wooded. So an
+Eton man and Harrow master<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> wrote:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"Collis incola frondei</div>
+<div>Nympha, sive lubentius</div>
+<div>Nostra Pieris audies,</div>
+<div>Lux adest; ades O tuis</div>
+<div class="i3">Herga<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> mater, alumnis!"</div>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<div>"Goddess of the leafy Hill,</div>
+<div>Nymph, or Muse, or what you will,</div>
+<div>With the light begins the lay,&mdash;</div>
+<div>Herga, be our guest to-day."</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The site now covered by the externally hideous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> Speech-room&mdash;a cross
+between a swimming-bath and a tennis-court&mdash;was then a garden. In truth,
+it only grew strawberries and cabbages, but to the imaginative eye, it
+was as beautiful as the hanging pleasaunces of Semiramis.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Butler, with a hundred gifts and accomplishments, had no &aelig;sthetic or
+artistic sense; and, under his rule, the whole place was over-run by
+terrible combinations of red and black brick; and the beautiful view
+from the School-Yard, stretching away across the Uxbridge plain, was
+obstructed by some kind of play-shed, with a little spout atop&mdash;the very
+impertinence of ugliness.</p>
+
+<p>Of the various buildings at Harrow, by far the most interesting is what
+is now called "The Fourth Form Room," in the West wing of the Old
+School. It is the original room which John Lyon designed&mdash;"A large and
+convenient school-house with a chimney in it,"&mdash;and in its appearance
+and arrangements it exactly bespeaks the village Day School that Harrow
+originally was. Its stout brick walls have faced the western breezes of
+three hundred years, and in their mellow richness of tint remind one of
+Hatfield House and Hampton<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> Court. This single room has been the nucleus
+round which all subsequent buildings&mdash;Chapel and Library and
+School-Rooms and Boarding-Houses&mdash;have gathered; and, as long as it
+exists, Harrow will be visibly and tangibly connected with its Founder's
+prescient care.</p>
+
+<p>John Lyon knew nothing of Conscience Clauses. He ordained that all his
+school-boys should attend the Parish Church; and so they did, stowed
+away in galleries where hearing was difficult and kneeling impossible.
+In 1836 Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, was
+elected Head-master of Harrow, in succession to the genial but too
+gentle Longley. Seeing that Worship was practically impossible for the
+boys under existing conditions, he set to work to build a Chapel. It
+occupied the same site as the present Chapel, but only one fragment of
+it remains, embedded in the West wall of Sir Gilbert Scott's more
+graceful structure. The Chapel was consecrated by the Visitor,
+Archbishop Howley, in 1839. Dr. Wordsworth, justly proud of his
+handiwork, invited his brother-master, Dr. Hawtrey of Eton, to view it.
+Much to Wordsworth's surprise, Hawtrey did not take off his hat on
+entering the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> Chapel; but, when he neared the altar, started back in
+confusion, and exclaimed, in hasty apology, "I assure you, my dear
+friend, I had no notion that we were already inside the Sacred Edifice."</p>
+
+<p>So much for the &aelig;sthetics of Harrow Chapel as originally constructed,
+but time and piety have completely changed it. In 1855, Dr. Vaughan
+added a Chancel with an apsidal end, designed by Sir Gilbert Scott.
+Next, the central passage of the Chapel became a Nave, with pillars and
+a North Aisle. Then the South Aisle was added, and decorated with glass
+before which one shudders, as a Memorial to Harrow men who fell in the
+Crimea. So the Chapel remained till 1903, when two curious additions,
+something between transepts and side-chapels, were added in memory of
+Harrow men who fell in South Africa. The total result of these
+successive changes is a building of remarkably irregular shape, but
+richly decorated, and sanctified by innumerable memories of friends long
+since loved and lost. A tablet, near which as a new boy I used to sit,
+bears this inscription&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center">In mournful and<br />affectionate remembrance of<br />
+JOHN HYDE D'ARCY,<br />Scholar of Balliol College, Oxford,<br />
+and formerly Head of this School.<br />He passed through the Strait Gate<br />
+of Humility, Toil, and Patience,<br />into the clear light and true knowledge of Him<br />
+Who is our Peace.<br /><br />"If any man will do His Will, he shall know of the doctrine."</p>
+
+<p>Few sermons have ever impressed me so powerfully as this significant
+memorial of a life which lasted only nineteen years.</p>
+
+<p>The morning and evening services in the Chapel were what is called
+"bright and cheerful"&mdash;in other words, extremely noisy and not very
+harmonious or reverent. We had two sermons every Sunday. The Head-master
+preached in the evening; the Assistant-masters in the morning.
+Occasionally, we had a stranger of repute. Dr. Butler's preaching I have
+already described, and also that of Farrar and Westcott. Mr. Steel's
+traditional discourses were in a class by themselves. But other
+preachers we had, not less remarkable. I distinctly remember a sermon by
+Mr. Sticktoright, who told us that we did not know in what way the world
+would be destroyed&mdash;it might be by fire, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> it might be by water
+(though this latter alternative seems precluded by Genesis ix. 11). The
+Rev. James Robertson, afterwards Head-master of Haileybury, compared the
+difference between a dull boy and a clever boy to that between an ox and
+a dog. "To the ox, the universe comprises only the impassive blue above,
+and the edible green beneath; while the dog finds a world of excitement
+in hunting, and a demi-god in man." Dean Stanley, preaching on Trinity
+Sunday, 1868, thus explained away the doctrine of the Trinity&mdash;"God the
+Father is God in Nature. God the Son is God in History. God the Holy
+Ghost is God in the Conscience." And Thring of Uppingham bellowed an
+exposition of Psalm lxxviii. 70 with such surprising vigour that he
+acquired among us the affectionate nickname of "Old Sheepfolds." It is a
+pleasure to place in contrast with these absurdities the truly pastoral
+and moving sermons of Mr. John Smith, whose apostolic work at Harrow I
+have already commemorated. His paraphrase of 1. St. Peter iv. 7-8 still
+lingers in my ear&mdash;"Be watchful, be prayerful, be very kind." He is thus
+described on a Memorial Tablet in the Chapel:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center">To the Young a Father,<br />
+To friends in joy or grief a Brother,<br />
+To the poor, the suffering, and the tempted,<br />
+A minister of Hope and Strength.<br />Tried by more than common sorrows,<br />
+And upborne by more than common faith,<br />His holy life interpreted to many<br />
+The Mind which was in Christ Jesus,<br />The Promise of the Comforter,<br />
+And the Vision granted to the Pure in Heart.</p>
+
+<p>It may seem odd that one should remember so much about sermons preached
+so long ago, but Bishop Welldon's testimony illustrates the point. "When
+I came to Harrow, I was greatly struck by the feeling of the boys for
+the weekly Sermon; they looked for it as an element in their lives, they
+attended to it, and passed judgment upon it." (I may remark in passing
+that Dr. Welldon promptly and wisely reduced the Sunday Sermons from two
+to one.)</p>
+
+<p>But the day of days in Harrow Chapel was Founder's Day, October 10th,
+1868, when the preacher at the Commemoration Service was Liddon, who had
+lately become famous by the Bampton Lectures of 1866. The scene and the
+sermon can never be forgotten. Prayers and hymns and thanksgivings for
+Founder and Benefactors had been duly performed, and we had listened
+with becoming solemnity to that droll chapter about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> "Such as found out
+musical tunes, and recited verses in writing." When the preacher entered
+the pulpit, his appearance instantly attracted attention. We had heard
+vaguely of him as "the great Oxford swell," but now that we saw him we
+felt a livelier interest. "He looks like a monk," one boy whispers to
+his neighbour; and indeed it is a better description than the speaker
+knows. The Oxford M.A. gown, worn over a cassock, is the Benedictine
+habit modified by time and place; the spare, thin figure suggests
+asceticism; the beautifully chiselled, sharply-pointed features, the
+close-shaved face, the tawny skin, the jet-black hair, remind us vaguely
+of something by Velasquez or Murillo, or of Ary Scheffer's picture of
+St. Augustine. And the interest aroused by sight is intensified by
+sound. The vibrant voice strikes like an electric shock. The exquisite,
+almost over-refined, articulation seems the very note of culture. The
+restrained passion which thrills through the disciplined utterance warns
+even the most heedless that something quite unlike the ordinary stuff of
+school-sermons is coming. "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy
+youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>
+shalt say, I have no pleasure in them." The speaker speaks of the
+blessedness and glory of boyhood; the splendid inheritance of a Public
+School built on Christian lines; the unequalled opportunities of
+learning while the faculties are still fresh and the mind is still
+receptive; the worthlessness of all merely secular attainment, however
+desirable, however necessary, when weighed in the balance against "the
+one thing needful." The congregation still are boys, but soon they will
+be men. Dark days will come, as Ecclesiastes warned&mdash;dark in various
+ways and senses, darkest when, at the University or elsewhere, we first
+are bidden to cast faith aside and to believe nothing but what can be
+demonstrated by "an appeal, in the last resort, to the organs of sense."
+Now is the time, and this is the place, so to "remember our Creator"
+that, come what may, we shall never be able to forget Him, or doubt His
+love, or question His revelation. The preacher leans far out from the
+pulpit, spreading himself, as it were, over the congregation, in an act
+of benediction. "From this place may Christ ever be preached, in the
+fulness of His creative, redemptive, and sacramental work. Here may you
+learn to remember Him in the days of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> your youth, and, in the last and
+most awful day of all, may He remember you."</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes afterwards we are in the open air. Boys stare and gasp;
+masters hurry past, excited and loquacious. Notes are compared, and
+watches consulted. Liddon has preached for an hour, and the school must
+go without its dinner.</p>
+
+<p>Enough has now been said about the Chapel and its memories. I must now
+turn to lighter themes. I remember once hearing Mrs. Procter, who was
+born in 1799 and died in 1888, say casually at a London dinner-party,
+when someone mentioned Harrow Speech-Day&mdash;"Ah! that used to be a
+pleasant day. The last time I was there I drove down with Lord Byron and
+Doctor Parr, who had been breakfasting with my step-father, Basil
+Montagu." This reminiscence seemed to carry one back some way, but I
+entirely agreed with Mrs. Procter. Speech-Day at Harrow has been for
+more than forty years one of my favourite holidays. In my time the
+present Speech-Room did not exist. The old Speech-Room, added to John
+Lyon's original building in 1819, was a well-proportioned hall, with
+panelled walls and large windows. Tiers of seats rose on three sides of
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> room; on the fourth was the platform, and just opposite the
+platform sat the Head-master, flanked right and left by distinguished
+visitors. There was a triumphal arch of evergreens over the gate, and
+the presence of the Beadle of the Parish Church, sumptuous in purple and
+gold, pointed to the historic but obsolescent connexion between the
+Parish and the School. The material of the "Speeches," so-called, was
+much the same as that provided at other schools&mdash;Shakespeare, Sheridan,
+Chatham, Aristophanes, Plautus, Moli&egrave;re, Schiller. An age-long desire to
+play the Trial in <i>Pickwick</i> was only attained, under the liberal rule
+of Dr. Wood, in 1909. At the Speeches, one caught one's first glimpse of
+celebrities whom one was destined to see at closer quarters in the years
+to come; and I never can forget the radiant beauty of "Spencer's Faery
+Queen,"<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> as I saw her at the Speeches of 1869.</p>
+
+<p>While I am speaking of Celebrities, I must make a short digression from
+Speech-Day to Holidays. Dr. Vaughan, some time Head-master of Harrow and
+afterwards Dean of Llandaff, was in 1868 Vicar of Doncaster. My only
+brother was one of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> his curates; the Vaughans asked my mother to stay
+with them at the Vicarage, in order that she might see her son, then
+newly ordained, at his work; and, the visit falling in the Harrow
+holidays, they good-naturedly said that she might bring me with her. Dr.
+Vaughan was always exceedingly kind to boys, and one morning, on our way
+back from the daily service, he said to me&mdash;"Sir Grosvenor Le
+Draughte<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> has proposed to break his journey here, on his return from
+Scotland. Do you know him? No? Well&mdash;observe Sir Grosvenor. He is well
+worthy of observation. He is exactly what the hymn-book calls 'a
+worldling.'" The day advanced, and no Sir Grosvenor appeared. The Doctor
+came into the drawing-room repeatedly, asking if "that tiresome old
+gentleman had arrived," and Mrs. Vaughan plied him with topics of
+consolation&mdash;"Perhaps he has missed his train. Perhaps there has been an
+accident. Perhaps he has been taken ill on the journey"&mdash;but the Doctor
+shook his head and refused to be comforted. After dinner, we sat in an
+awe-struck silence, while the Vaughans, knowing the hour at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> which the
+last train from Scotland came in, and the length of time which it took
+to drive from the station, listened with ears erect. Presently the
+wheels of a fly came rumbling up, and Dr. Vaughan, exclaiming, "Our
+worst anticipations are realized!" hurried to the front door. Then,
+welcoming the aged traveller with open arms, he said in his blandest
+tones&mdash;"Now, my dear Sir Grosvenor, I know you must be dreadfully tired.
+You shall go to bed at once." Sir Grosvenor, who longed to sit up till
+midnight, telling anecdotes and drinking brandy-and-water, feebly
+remonstrated; but the remorseless Doctor led his unwilling captive
+upstairs. It was a triumph of the <i>Suaviter in modo</i>, and gave me an
+impressive lesson on the welcome which awaits self-invited guests, even
+when they are celebrities. But all this is a parenthesis.</p>
+
+<p>I should be shamefully ungrateful to a place of peculiar enjoyment if I
+forbore to mention the Library at Harrow. It was opened in 1863, as a
+Memorial of Dr. Vaughan's Head-mastership, and its delicious bow-window,
+looking towards Hampstead, was my favourite resort. On whole-holidays,
+when others were playing cricket, I used<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> to read there for hours at a
+stretch; and gratified my insatiable thirst for Biographies, Memoirs,
+and Encyclop&aelig;dias. The Library was also the home of the Debating
+Society, and there I moved, forty-two years ago, that a Hereditary
+Legislative Body is incompatible with free institutions; and supported
+the present Bishop of Oxford in declaring that a Republic is the best
+form of Government. The mention of the Debating Society leads me to the
+subject of Politics. I have said in a former chapter that the
+Conservative Reform Bill of 1867 was the first political event which
+interested me. It was a stirring time all over the world, in France, in
+Italy, and in Mexico. There were rebellions and rumours of rebellion.
+Monarchical institutions were threatened. Secret Societies were in full
+activity. The whole social order seemed to be passing through a crisis,
+and I, like the Abb&eacute; Si&eacute;yes, fell to framing constitutions; my favourite
+scheme being a Republic, with a President elected for life, and a
+Legislature chosen by universal suffrage. But all these dreams were
+dispelled by the realities of my new life at Harrow, and, for a while, I
+perforce thought more of Imperial than of Papal Rome, of Greek than of
+English Republics. But in the summer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> of 1868, Mr. Gladstone's first
+attack on the Irish Church caused such an excitement as I had never
+before known. It was a pitched battle between the two great Parties of
+the State, and I was an enthusiastic follower of the Gladstonian
+standard. In November 1868 came the General Election which was to decide
+the issue. Of course Harrow, like all other schools, was Tory as the sea
+is salt. Out of five hundred boys, I can only recall five who showed the
+Liberal colour. These were the present Lord Grey; Walter Leaf, the
+Homeric Scholar; W. A. Meek, now Recorder of York; M. G. Dauglish, who
+edited the "Harrow Register," and myself. On the polling day I received
+my "Baptism of Fire," or rather of mud, being rolled over and over in
+the attempt to tear my colours from me. The Tory colour was red; the
+Liberal was blue; and my mother, chancing to drive through Harrow with
+the light blue carriage-wheels which my family have always used, was
+playfully but loudly hissed by wearers of the red rosette. Among the
+masters, political opinion was divided. Mr. Young, whom I quoted just
+now, was a Liberal, and a Tory boy called Freddy Bennet (brother of the
+present Lord Tankerville) covered himself with glory by pinning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> a red
+streamer to the back of Young's gown while he was calling "Bill."</p>
+
+<p>In the following year our Politics found a fresh vent through the
+establishment of <i>The Harrovian</i>. I had dabbled in composition ever
+since I was ten, and had printed both prose and verse before I entered
+Harrow School. So here was a heaven-sent contributor, and one morning,
+in the autumn of 1869, as I was coming out of First School, one<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> of
+the Editors overtook me and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We want you to contribute to <i>The Harrovian</i>. We are only going to
+employ fellows who can write English&mdash;not such stuff as 'The following
+boys <i>were given prizes</i>.'" Purism indeed!</p>
+
+<p>Here began my journalistic career. For three years I wrote a
+considerable part of the paper, and I was an Editor during my last year,
+in conjunction with my friends Dumbar Barton and Walter Sichel.</p>
+
+<p>Harrow is sometimes said to be the most musical of Public Schools; and
+certainly our School Songs have attained a wide popularity. I believe
+that "Forty Years on" is sung all over the world. But, when I went to
+Harrow, we were confined to the traditional English songs and ballads,
+and to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> some Latin ditties by Bradby and Westcott, which we bellowed
+lustily but could not always construe. E. E. Bowen's stirring, though
+often bizarre, compositions (admirably set to music by John Farmer)
+began soon after I entered the school, and E. W. Howson's really
+touching and melodious verses succeeded Bowens' some ten years after I
+had left. Other song-writers, of greater or less merit, we have had; but
+from first to last, the thrilling spell of a Harrow concert has been an
+experience quite apart from all other musical enjoyments. "The singing
+is the thing. When you hear the great body of fresh voices leap up like
+a lark from the ground, and rise and swell and swell and rise till the
+rafters seem to crack and shiver, then you seem to have discovered all
+the sources of feeling." This was the tribute of a stranger, and an
+Harrovian has recorded the same emotion:&mdash;"John was singing like a lark,
+with a lark's spontaneous delight in singing; with an ease and
+self-abandonment which charmed eye almost as much as ear. Higher and
+higher rose the clear, sexless notes, till two of them met and mingled
+in a triumphant trill. To Desmond, that trill was the answer to the
+quavering, troubled cadences of the first verse; the vindication of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>
+spirit soaring upwards unfettered by the flesh&mdash;the pure spirit, not
+released from the human clay without a fierce struggle. At that moment
+Desmond loved the singer&mdash;the singer who called to him out of heaven,
+who summoned his friend to join him, to see what he saw&mdash;'the vision
+splendid.'"<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p>
+
+<p>I am conscious that, so far, I have treated the Moloch of Athletics with
+such scant respect that his worshippers may doubt if I ever was really a
+boy. Certainly my physical inability to play games was rendered less
+bitter by the fact that I did not care about them. I well remember the
+astonishment of my tutor, when he kindly asked me to luncheon on his
+carriage at my first Eton and Harrow match, and I replied that I should
+not be there.</p>
+
+<p>"Not be at Lord's, my boy? How very strange! Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because there are three things which I particularly dislike&mdash;heat, and
+crowds, and cricket." It certainly was a rather priggish answer, but let
+me say in self-defence that before I left the school I had become as
+keen on "Lord's," as the best of my compeers.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p><p>That, in spite of his reprehensible attitude towards our national game,
+I was still, as Mr. Chadband said, "a human boy," is proved by the
+intense interest with which I beheld the one and only "Mill" which ever
+took place while I was at Harrow.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> It was fought on the 25th of
+February, 1868, with much form and ceremony. The "Milling-ground," now
+perverted to all sorts of base uses, is immediately below the
+School-Yard. The ground slopes rapidly, so that the wall of the Yard
+forms the gallery of the Milling-Ground. The moment that "Bill" was
+over, I rushed to the wall and secured an excellent place, leaning my
+elbows on the wall, while a friend, who was a moment later, sat on my
+shoulders and looked over my bowed head. It would be indiscreet to
+mention the names of the combatants, though I remember them perfectly.
+One was a red-headed giant; the other short, dark, and bow-legged.
+Neither had at all a pleasant countenance, and I must admit that I
+enjoyed seeing them pound each other into pulp. I felt that two beasts
+were getting their deserts. To-day such a sight would kill me; but this
+is the degeneracy of old age.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p><p>Now that I am talking about school-fellows, several names call for
+special mention. As I disliked athletics, it follows that I did not
+adore athletes. I can safely say that I never admired a boy because of
+his athletic skill, though I have admired many in spite of it. Probably
+Sidney Pelham, Archdeacon of Norfolk, who was in the Harrow Eleven in
+1867 and 1868, and the Oxford Eleven in 1871, will never see this book;
+so I may safely say that I have seldom envied anyone as keenly as I
+envied him, when Dr. Butler, bidding him farewell before the whole
+school, thanked him for "having set an example which all might be proud
+to follow&mdash;unfailing sweetness of temper, and perfect purity of life."
+In one respect, the most conspicuous of my school-fellows was H.R.H.
+Prince Thomas of Savoy, Duke of Genoa, nephew of Victor Emmanuel, and
+now an Admiral in the Italian Navy. He came to Harrow in 1869, and lived
+with Mr. and Mrs. Matthew Arnold. He was elected King of Spain by a vote
+of the Cortes on the 3rd of October 1869. He was quite a popular boy,
+and no one had the slightest grudge against him; but, for all that,
+everyone made a point of kicking him, in the hope of being able to say
+in after-life that they had kicked the King of Spain. Unfortunately<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
+Victor Emmanuel, fearing dynastic complications, forbade him to accept
+the Crown; so he got all the Harrow kicks and none of the Spanish
+half-pence. When I entered Harrow, the winner of all the classical
+prizes was Andrew Graham Murray, now Lord Dunedin and Lord President of
+the Court of Session; a most graceful scholar, and also a considerable
+mathematician. Just below him was Walter Leaf, to whom no form of
+learning came amiss; who was as likely to be Senior Wrangler as Senior
+Classic, and whose performances in Physical Science won the warm praise
+of Huxley. Of the same standing as these were Arthur Evans, the
+Numismatist, Frank Balfour, the Physiologist, and Gerald Rendall,
+Head-master of Charterhouse. Among my contemporaries the most
+distinguished was Charles Gore, whose subsequent career has only
+fulfilled what all foresaw; and just after him came (to call them by
+their present names) Lord Crewe, Lord Ribblesdale, Lord Spencer, Mr.
+Justice Barton of the Irish Bench, and Mr. Walter Long, in whom Harrow
+may find her next Prime Minister. Walter Sichel was at seventeen the
+cleverest school-boy whom I have ever known. Sir Henry McKinnon obtained
+his Commission in the Guards while he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> still in the Fifth Form.
+Pakenham Beatty was the Swinburnian of the school, then, as now, a true
+Poet of Liberty. Ion Keith-Falconer, Orientalist and missionary, was a
+saint in boyhood as in manhood. Edward Eyre seemed foreordained to be
+what in London and in Northumberland he has been&mdash;the model
+Parish-Priest; and my closest friend of all was Charles Baldwyn
+Childe-Pemberton, who, as Major Childe, fell at the battle of Spion Kop,
+on a spot now called, in honour of his memory, "Childe's Hill." <i>De
+minimis non curat Respublica</i>; which, being interpreted, signifies&mdash;<i>The
+Commonwealth</i> will not care to know the names of the urchins who fagged
+for me.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> But I cherish an ebony match-box carved and given to me by
+one of these ministering spirits, as a proof that, though my laziness
+may have made me exacting, my exactions were not brutal.</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>On the 15th of June, 1871, Harrow School celebrated the three-hundredth
+anniversary of its foundation. Harrovians came from every corner of the
+globe to take part in this Tercentenary Festival. The arrangements were
+elaborated with the most anxious care. The Duke of Abercorn,
+affectionately and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>appropriately nicknamed "Old Splendid," presided
+over a banquet in the School-Yard; and the programme of the day's
+proceedings had announced, rather to the terror of intending visitors,
+that after luncheon there would be "speeches, interspersed with songs,
+from three hundred and fifty of the boys." The abolition of the second
+comma dispelled the dreadful vision of three-hundred-and-fifty
+school-boy-speeches, and all went merry as a marriage-bell&mdash;all, except
+the weather. It seemed as if the accumulated rain of three centuries
+were discharged on the devoted Hill. It was raining when we went to the
+early celebration in the Chapel; it was raining harder when we came out.
+At the culminating moment of the day's proceedings, when Dr. Vaughan was
+proposing "Prosperity to Harrow," the downpour and the thunder drowned
+the speaker's voice; and, when evening fell on the sodden
+cricket-ground, the rain extinguished the fireworks.</p>
+
+<p>On that same cricket-ground nine days later, in the golden afternoon of
+Midsummer Day, George Clement Cottrell, a boy beautiful alike in face
+and in character, was killed in an instant by a blow from a ball, which
+struck him behind the ear when he was umpiring in the Sixth Form game.
+On the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> 29th of June his five hundred school-fellows followed him to his
+resting-place in the Churchyard on the Hill, and I believe we
+unanimously felt that he whom we had lost was the one, of all our
+number, of whom we could say, with the surest confidence, that he was
+fit to pass, without a moment's warning, into the invisible World.
+<i>Beati mundo corde</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Writing to John Murray in 1832, Byron said&mdash;"There is a
+spot in the Churchyard, near the footpath, on the brow of the Hill
+looking towards Windsor, and a tomb under a large tree (bearing the name
+of Peachie, or Peachey), where I used to sit for hours and hours as a
+boy: this was my favourite spot."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> The Rev. E. M. Young.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Herga is the Anglo-Saxon name of Harrow.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Charlotte Seymour, Countess Spencer, died 1903.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> The name is borrowed from "Sybil." The bearer of it was an
+ancient physician, who had doctored all the famous people of his time,
+beginning with "Pamela."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Mr. R. de C. Welch.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> <i>The Hill.</i> Chapter vi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Some authorities say that it was the last on record.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> This paper appeared in <i>The Commonwealth</i>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2>
+
+<h3>OXFORD</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"For place, for grace, and for sweet companee,</div>
+<div>Oxford is Heaven, if Heaven on Earth there be."</div>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<div class="i12"><span class="smcap">Sir John Davies</span>.</div>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>The faithful student of "Verdant Green" will not have forgotten that
+Charlie Larkyns, when introducing his Freshman-friend to the sights of
+Oxford, called his attention to a mystic inscription on a wall in Oriel
+Lane. "You see that? Well, that's one of the plates they put up to
+record the Vice's height. F.P.&mdash;7 feet, you see: the initials of his
+name&mdash;Frederick Plumptre!" "He scarcely seemed so tall as that," replied
+Verdant, "though certainly a tall man. But the gown makes a difference,
+I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Plumptre was Vice-Chancellor of Oxford from 1848 to 1851, and Master
+of University College for thirty-four years. He died in 1870, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> the
+College thereupon elected the Rev. G. G. Bradley, then Head-master of
+Marlborough, and afterwards Dean of Westminster, to the vacant post. It
+was an unfortunate choice. Mr. Bradley was a man of many gifts and
+virtues, and a successful schoolmaster; but the methods which had
+succeeded at Marlborough were not adapted to Oxford, and he soon
+contrived to get at loggerheads both with Dons and with Undergraduates.</p>
+
+<p>However, there existed at that time&mdash;and I daresay it exists still&mdash;a
+nefarious kind of trades-unionism among the Headmasters of Public
+Schools; and, as Bradley had been a Head-master, all the Head-masters
+advised their best pupils to try the scholarships at University College.</p>
+
+<p>So far as I had any academical connexions, they were exclusively with
+Trinity, Cambridge; and my father was as ignorant of Oxford as myself.
+All I knew about it was that it was the source and home of the Oxford
+movement, which some of my friends at Harrow had taught me to admire.
+Two or three of those friends were already there, and I wished to rejoin
+them; but, as between the different Colleges, I was fancy-free; so when,
+early in 1872, Dr. Butler suggested that I should try for a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> scholarship
+at University, I assented, reserving myself, in the too probable event
+of failure, for Christ Church. However, I was elected at University on
+the 24th of February, 1872, and went into residence there on the 11th of
+the following October. The Vice-Chancellor who matriculated me was the
+majestic Liddell, who, with his six feet of stately height draped in
+scarlet, his "argent aureole" of white hair, and his three silver maces
+borne before him, always helped me to understand what Sydney Smith meant
+when he said, of some nonsensical proposition, that no power on earth,
+save and except the Dean of Christ Church, should induce him to believe
+it. As I write, I see the announcement of Mrs. Liddell's death; and my
+mind travels back to the drawing-room and lawns of the Deanery at Christ
+Church, and the garland of beautiful faces</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"Decking the matron temples of a place</div>
+<div>So famous through the world."</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The 13th of October was my first Sunday in Oxford, and my friend Charles
+Gore took me to the Choral Eucharist at Cowley St. John, and afterwards
+to luncheon with the Fathers. So began my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> acquaintance with a Society
+of which I have always been a grateful admirer. But more exciting
+experiences were at hand: on the 20th of October it was Liddon's turn,
+as Select Preacher, to occupy the pulpit at St. Mary's. The impressions
+of that, my first University sermon, have never faded from my mind. A
+bright autumn morning, the yellow sunlight streaming in upon the densely
+crowded church, the long array of scarlet-robed doctors, the preacher's
+beautiful face looking down from the high pulpit, with anxious brow and
+wistful gaze. And then the rolling Latin hymn, and then the Bidding
+Prayer, and then the pregnant text&mdash;<i>He that believeth on the Son hath
+everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life;
+but the wrath of God abideth on him</i>. Are we listening to St. John the
+Baptist or St. John the Evangelist? The preacher holds that we are
+listening to the Evangelist, and says that the purpose of St. John's
+Gospel is condensed into his text. "If to believe in Him is life, to
+have known and yet to reject him is death. There is no middle term or
+state between the two.... In fact, this stern, yet truthful and
+merciful, claim makes all the difference between a Faith and a theory."
+And now there is a moment's pause. Preacher and hearers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> alike take
+breath. Some instinct assures us that we are just coming to the crucial
+point. The preacher resumes: "A statement of this truth in other terms
+is at present occasioning a painful controversy, which it would be
+better in this place to pass over in silence if too much was not at
+stake to warrant a course from which I shall only depart with sincere
+reluctance. Need I say that I allude to the vexed question of the
+Athanasian Creed?" The great discourse which was thus introduced, with
+its strong argument for the retention of the Creed as it stands, has
+long been the property of the Church, and there is no need to
+recapitulate it. But the concluding words, extolling "the high and rare
+grace of an intrepid loyalty to known truth," spoke with a force of
+personal appeal which demands commemoration: "To be forced back upon the
+central realities of the faith which we profess; to learn, better than
+ever before, what are the convictions which we dare not surrender at any
+cost; to renew the freshness of an early faith, which affirms within us,
+clearly and irresistibly, that the one thing worth thinking of, worth
+living for, if need were, worth dying for, is the unmutilated faith of
+Jesus Christ our Lord,&mdash;these may be the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> results of inevitable
+differences, and, if they are, they are blessings indeed."<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p>
+
+<p>The same Sunday was marked by another unforgettable experience&mdash;my first
+visit to St. Barnabas'. The church was then just three years old. Bishop
+Wilberforce had consecrated it on the 19th of October, 1869, and made
+this characteristic note in his diary:&mdash;"Disagreeable service. Acolyte
+running about. Paste squares for bread, etc., but the church a great
+gift." Three years later, a boy fresh from Harrow, and less sensitively
+Protestant than the good Bishop, not only thought "the church a great
+gift," but enjoyed the "acolyte running about," and found the whole
+service the most inspiring and uplifting worship in which he had ever
+joined. My impressions of it are as clear as yesterday's&mdash;the unadorned
+simplicity of the fabric, emphasizing by contrast the blaze of light and
+colour round the altar; the floating cloud of incense; the expressive
+and unfussy ceremonial; the straightforward preaching; and, most
+impressive of all, the large congregation of men, old and young, rich
+and poor, undergraduates and artisans, all singing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> Evangelical hymns
+with one heart and one voice. It was, if ever there was on earth,
+congregational worship; and I, for one, have never seen its like. The
+people's pride in the church was very characteristic: they habitually
+spoke of it as "our Barnabas." The clergy and the worshippers were a
+family, and the church was a home.</p>
+
+<p>At the Dedication Festival of 1872, there was a strong list of
+preachers, including W. J. E. Bennett, of Frome, and Edward King, then
+Principal of Cuddesdon. But the sermon which made an indelible
+impression on me was preached by R. W. Randall, then vicar of All
+Saints, Clifton, and afterwards Dean of Chichester. It was indeed a
+memorable performance. "Performance" is the right word, for, young as
+one was, one realized instinctively the wonderful art and mastery and
+technical perfection of the whole. There was the exquisitely modulated
+voice, sinking lower, yet becoming more distinct, whenever any specially
+moving topic was touched; the restrained, yet emphatic action&mdash;I can see
+that uplifted forefinger still&mdash;and the touch of personal reminiscence
+at the close, so managed as to give the sense that we were listening to
+an elder brother who, thirty years before, had passed through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> the same
+experiences, so awfully intermingled of hope and tragedy, which now lay
+before us on the threshold of our Oxford life. It was, in brief, a
+sermon never to be forgotten; it was "a night to be much remembered unto
+the Lord."</p>
+
+<p>Some thirty years later, I was introduced to Dean Randall at a London
+dinner-party. After dinner, I drew my chair towards him, and said, "Mr.
+Dean, I have always wished to have an opportunity of thanking you for a
+sermon which you preached at St. Barnabas', Oxford, at the Dedication
+Festival, 1872." The Dean smiled, with the graceful pleasure of an old
+man honoured by a younger one, and said, "Yes? What was the text?" "The
+text I have long forgotten, but I remember the subject." "And what was
+that?" "It was the insecurity of even the best-founded hopes." "Rather a
+well-worn theme," said the Dean, with a half-smile. "But not, sir," I
+said, "as you handled it. You told us, at the end of the sermon, that
+you remembered a summer afternoon when you were an undergraduate at
+Christ Church, and were sitting over your Thucydides close to your
+window, grappling with a long and complicated passage which was to be
+the subject of next morning's lecture; and that, glancing for a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> moment
+from your book, you saw the two most brilliant young Christ Church men
+of the day going down to bathe in the Isis. You described the gifts and
+graces of the pair, who, between them, seemed to combine all that was
+best and most beautiful in body and mind and soul. And then you told us
+how, as your friends disappeared towards Christ Church Meadows, you
+returned to your work; and only were roused from it two hours later,
+when a confused noise of grief and terror in the quadrangle below
+attracted your attention, and you saw the dead bodies of Gaisford and
+Phillimore borne past your window from their 'watery bier' at Sandford
+Lasher."</p>
+
+<p>On Advent Sunday, December 1, I saw and heard Dr. Pusey for the first
+time. He was then in broken health; but he gathered all his physical and
+mental energies for a great sermon on "The Responsibility of Intellect
+in Matters of Faith." The theme of this sermon was that Intellect is a
+great trust confided to us by God; that we are responsible to Him for
+the use of it; and that we must exercise it in submission to His
+revealed Will. What He has declared, that it is our duty to believe. Our
+Lord Himself had uttered the most solemn warning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> against wilful
+unbelief; the Athanasian Creed only re-echoed His awful words; and the
+storm which assailed the Creed was really directed against the revealed
+Truth of God. "This tornado will, I trust, by God's mercy, soon pass; it
+is a matter of life and death. To remove those words of warning, or the
+Creed because it contains them, would be emphatically to teach our
+people that it is <i>not</i> necessary to salvation to believe faithfully the
+Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, or in One God as He has made
+Himself known to us."</p>
+
+<p>Immediately after delivering himself of this great apology for the
+Faith, Pusey went abroad for the benefit of his health, and did not
+return to Oxford till the Summer Term. I well remember the crowd of
+ancient disciples, who had missed their accustomed interview at
+Christmas, thronging his door in Christ Church, like the impotent folk
+at the Pool of Bethesda.</p>
+
+<p>Another reminiscence, and of a very different kind, belongs to my first
+Term. Dean Stanley had been nominated as Select Preacher, and the
+old-fashioned High Churchmen made common cause with the Low Churchmen to
+oppose his appointment. There was a prodigious clamour, but Dr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> Pusey
+held aloof from the agitation, believing&mdash;and in this he was
+conspicuously right&mdash;that "opposition would only aggravate the evil by
+enlisting the enthusiasm of the young." The vote was taken, in an
+unusually crowded Convocation, on the 11th of December. It was a
+noteworthy and rather an amusing scene, and was well described by an
+eyewitness.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> "Oxford was fairly startled from the serenity which
+usually marks the fag-end of the Michaelmas Term by a sudden irruption
+of the outer world. Recognitions took place at every street-corner. The
+hotels were put upon their mettle. The porters' lodges of the Colleges
+were besieged, and Boffin's Refreshment Rooms ran over with hungry
+parsons from the country. As an evidence of the interest which the
+question of Dean Stanley's appointment excited beyond the walls of the
+University, I may mention that even the guards and porters at the
+railway hallooed to each other to know "the state of the betting"; but
+even they did not seem quite to have calculated on the matter being so
+warmly taken up in London and by the country at large." At half-past one
+o'clock the bell of St. Mary's gave notice to the combatants to prepare
+for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> the fray, and immediately the floor of the Theatre was sprinkled
+with representative men of all the schools. The non-residents appeared
+in gowns of various degrees of rustiness, some with chimney-pot hats and
+some with wide-awakes. The early comers conversed in small groups,
+hugging instinctively those sides of the building on which were written
+respectively <i>Placet</i> or <i>Non-Placet</i>, giving thereby an inkling of how
+they meant to vote. The gathering increased every moment, and soon the
+Doctors in their scarlet began to dot the seats around the
+Vice-Chancellor's chair. Prince Leopold, by right of his royalty,
+entered the sacred enclosure with Dr. Acland, and afterwards took his
+seat among the Doctors. Before two o'clock every inch of the floor was
+full, the occupants standing in anticipation of the coming encounter.
+"Still they gravitated towards their respective voting-doors, and on the
+<i>Placet</i> side one descried the scholarly face of Professor Jowett, the
+sharply-cut features of the Rev. Mark Pattison, and the well-known
+physiognomy of Professor Max M&uuml;ller. On the opposite side Mr. Burgon was
+marshalling his forces, and Dean Goulburn, from the Doctors' benches,
+looked out over the seething mass of M.A.'s below him." At two o'clock<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+the Vice-Chancellor arrived, and forthwith commenced proceedings in
+Latin, which must have been extremely edifying to the ladies who, in
+large numbers, occupied the Strangers' Gallery, backed by a narrow
+fringe of Undergraduates. The object of the Convocation was stated as
+being the appointment of Select Preachers, and the names were then
+submitted to the Doctors and Masters for approval. "<i>Placetne igitur
+vobis huic nomini assentire?</i>" being the form in which the question was
+proposed.</p>
+
+<p>The name first on the list was that of the Rev. Harvey Goodwin; and a
+faint buzz in the assembly was interpreted by the Vice-Chancellor,
+skilled in such sounds, as an expression of approval. Thereupon he
+passed on to name number two, which, with some agitation, but with
+clear, resonant voice, he read out as "Arthurus Penrhyn Stanley."
+Immediately there ensued a scene of the wildest confusion. On the
+<i>Placet</i> side, cheers and waving of trencher-caps; on the <i>Non-Placet</i>
+side feeble hisses; and from all sides, undergraduate as well as
+graduate, mingled shouts of <i>Placet</i> and <i>Non</i>, with an accompaniment of
+cheers and hisses; until the ringing voice of Dean Liddell pronounced
+the magic words <i>Fiat scrutinium</i>. Thereupon the two Proctors <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>proceeded
+first of all to take the votes of the Doctors on their benches; and,
+when this was done, they took their station at the doors labelled
+<i>Placet</i> and <i>Non-placet</i>. During the process of polling we had an
+opportunity of criticizing the constituents of that truly exceptional
+gathering. It was certainly not true to say, as some said, that only the
+younger Masters voted for Dean Stanley. There was quite a fair
+proportion of white and bald heads on the <i>Placet</i> side. "The country
+contingent was not so numerous as one had expected, and I do not believe
+that all of these went out at the <i>Non-placet</i> door. Evidently, parties
+were pretty evenly balanced; and, when the <i>Non-placets</i> had all
+recorded their votes there were about twenty-five left on Dean Stanley's
+side, which probably would have nearly represented the actual majority,
+but, at the last moment, some stragglers, who had only arrived in Oxford
+by 2.25 train hurried in, and so swelled the numbers. One late-comer
+arrived without his academicals, and some zealous supporter of the Dean
+had to denude himself, and pass his cap and gown outside to enable this
+gentleman to vote." Soon it was over. The Proctors presented their lists
+to the Vice-Chancellor, who, amid breathless silence, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>pronounced the
+fateful words&mdash;"<i>Majori parti placet.</i>" Then there was indeed a cheer,
+which rang through the building from basement to upper gallery, and was
+taken up outside in a way that reminded one of the trial of the Seven
+Bishops. The hisses, if there were any, were fairly drowned. Oxford had
+given its approval to Dean Stanley, the numbers being&mdash;<i>Placet</i>, 349;
+<i>Non-placet</i>, 287.</p>
+
+<p>When the fuss was over, Liddon wrote thus to a friend:&mdash;"It was a
+discreditable nomination; but, having been made, ought, in the interests
+of the Faith, to have been allowed to pass <i>sub silentio</i>; for, if
+opposed, it must either be defeated or affirmed by Convocation&mdash;a
+choice, <i>me judice</i>, of nearly balanced evils. To have defeated it would
+have been to invest Stanley with the cheap honours of a petty martyrdom.
+To have affirmed it is, I fear, to have given a new impetus to the
+barren, unspiritual negations which he represents."</p>
+
+<p>I went up to Oxford well supplied with introductions. Dr. Cradock, the
+well-beloved Principal of Brasenose, scholar, gentleman, man of the
+world, devout Wordsworthian, enthusiastic lover of cricket and boating,
+had married a connexion of my own, who had been a Maid of Honour in
+Queen Victoria's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> first household. Theirs was the most hospitable house
+in Oxford, and a portrait of Mrs. Cradock, not quite kind, but very
+lifelike, enlivens the serious pages of <i>Robert Elsmere</i>. Dr.,
+afterwards Sir Henry, Acland, with his majestic presence, blandly
+paternal address, and ample rhetoric, was not only the Regius Professor
+of Medicine, but also the true and patient friend of many undergraduate
+generations. Mrs. Acland is commemorated in what I have always thought
+one of the grandest sermons in the English language&mdash;Liddon's "Worth of
+Faith in a Life to Come."<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> The Warden of Keble and Mrs. Talbot (then
+the young wife of the young Head of a very young College) were, as they
+have been for 40 years, the kindest and most constant of friends. Dr.
+Bright, Canon of Christ Church and Professor of Ecclesiastical History,
+was a lavish entertainer, "with an intense dramatic skill in telling a
+story, an almost biblical knowledge of all the pages of Dickens (and of
+Scott), with shouts of glee, and outpourings of play and fancy and
+allusion." But I need not elaborate the portrait, for everyone ought to
+know Dr. Holland's "Personal Studies" by heart. Edwin Palmer, Professor
+of Latin, was reputed to be the best<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> scholar in Oxford, and Mrs. Palmer
+was a most genial hostess. Henry Smith, Professor of Geometry, was, I
+suppose, the most accomplished man of his time;<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> yet he lives, not by
+his performances in the unthinkable sphere of metaphysical mathematics,
+but by his intervention at Gladstone's last contest for the University.
+Those were the days of open voting, and Smith was watching the votes in
+Gladstone's interest. Professor &mdash;&mdash;, who never could manage his h's,
+wished to vote for the Tory candidates, Sir William Heathcote and Mr.
+Gathorne Hardy, but lost his head, and said:&mdash;"I vote for Glad&mdash;&mdash;."
+Then, suddenly correcting himself, exclaimed, "I mean for 'Eathcote and
+'Ardy." Thereupon Smith said, "I claim that vote for Gladstone." "But,"
+said the Vice-Chancellor, "the voter did not finish your candidate's
+name." "That is true," said Smith, "but then he did not even begin the
+other two." Henry Smith kept house with an admirable and accomplished
+sister&mdash;the first woman, I believe, to be elected<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> to a School Board,
+and certainly the only one to whom J. W. Burgon (afterwards Dean of
+Chichester) devoted a whole sermon. "Miss Smith's Sermon," with its
+whimsical protest against feminine activities, was a standing joke in
+those distant days. The Rev. H. R. Bramley, Fellow of Magdalen, used to
+entertain us sumptuously in his most beautiful College. He was a
+connecting link between Dr. Routh (1755-1854) and modern Oxford, and in
+his rooms I was introduced to the ablest man of my generation&mdash;a
+newly-elected Scholar of Balliol called Alfred Milner.</p>
+
+<p>It is anticipating, but only by a Term or two (for Dr. King came to
+Christ Church in 1873), to speak of Sunday luncheons at the house of the
+Regius Professor of Pastoral Theology, and of Dr. Liddon's
+characteristic allusion to a remarkably bloated-looking Bishop of Oxford
+in balloon sleeves and a wig, whose portrait adorned the Professor's
+house. "How singular, dear friend, to reflect that <i>that person</i> should
+have been chosen, in the providential order, to connect Mr. Keble with
+the Apostles!"</p>
+
+<p>But though the lines seem to have fallen unto me in ritualistic places,
+I was not without Evangelical advantages. Canon Linton, Rector of St.
+Peter-le-Bailey, was a dear old gentleman, who used to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>entertain
+undergraduates at breakfasts and luncheons, and after the meal, when
+more secularly-minded hosts might have suggested pipes, would lead us to
+a side-table, where a selection of theological works was displayed, and
+bid us take our choice. "Kay on the Psalms" was a possession thus
+acquired, and has been used by me from that time to this. Nor must this
+retrospective page omit some further reference to J. W. Burgon, Fellow
+of Oriel and Vicar of St. Mary-the-Virgin. Dean Church called him "the
+dear old learned Professor of Billingsgate," and certainly his method of
+conducting controversy savoured (as Sydney Smith said about Bishop Monk)
+of the apostolic occupation of trafficking in fish. But to those whom he
+liked, and who looked up to him (for this was an essential condition),
+he was kind, hospitable, courteous, and even playful. His humour, which
+was of a crabbed kind quite peculiar to himself, found its best vent in
+his sermons. I often wondered whether he realized that the extreme
+grotesqueness of his preaching was the spell which drew undergraduates
+to the Sunday evening service at St. Mary's.</p>
+
+<p>For my next reminiscence of hospitality to Freshmen I must rely on the
+assistance of a pseudonym. At the time of which I am writing, Oxford
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>numbered among her Professors one who had graduated, at a rather
+advanced age, from Magdalen Hall. Borrowing a name from Dickens, we will
+call him "Professor Dingo, of European reputation." To the kindness of
+Professor and Mrs. Dingo I was commended by a friend who lived near my
+home in Bedfordshire, and soon after my arrival in Oxford they asked me
+to Sunday luncheon at their villa in The Parks. The conversation turned
+on a new book of Limericks (or "Nonsense Rhymes," as we called them
+then) about the various Colleges. The Professor had not seen it, and
+wanted to know if it was amusing. In my virginal innocence I replied
+that one rhyme had amused me. "Let's have it," quoth the Professor, so
+off I went at score&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"There once was at Magdalen Hall</div>
+<div>A Man who knew nothing at all;</div>
+<div class="i2">When he took his degree</div>
+<div class="i2">He was past fifty-three&mdash;</div>
+<div>Which is youngish for Magdalen Hall."</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The Professor snarled like an angry dog, and said, witheringly, that, if
+<i>that</i> was a specimen, the book must be sorry stuff indeed. After
+luncheon I walked away with another undergraduate, rather senior to
+myself, who said rejoicingly, "You've made a good start. That rhyme is
+meant to describe old Dingo."</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> "The Life of Faith and the Athanasian Creed." University
+Sermons. Series II.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> The Rev. C. M. Davies, D.D.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> University Sermons. Series II.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> "He had gained University honours, such as have been
+gained by no one now living, and will probably never be won again.... He
+was one of the greatest mathematical geniuses of the century. His chief
+and highest intellectual interests lay in an unknown world into which
+not more than two or three persons could follow. In that world he
+travelled alone."&mdash;<i>From a Memorial Sermon by B. Jowett.</i></p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2>
+
+<h3>OXONIANA</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"Mind'st thou the bells? What a place it was for bells, lad!</div>
+<div>Spires as sharp as thrushes' bills to pierce the sky with song.</div>
+<div>How it shook the heart of one, the swaying and the swinging,</div>
+<div>How it set the blood a-tramp and all the brains a-singing,</div>
+<div>Aye, and what a world of thought the calmer chimes came bringing,</div>
+<div class="i4">Telling praises every hour</div>
+<div class="i4">To His majesty and power,</div>
+<div>Telling prayers with punctual service, summers, centuries, how long?</div>
+<div>The beads upon our rosary of immemorial song."</div>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<div class="i12"><i>The Minstrelsy of Isis</i>.</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Oxford is a subject from which one cannot easily tear oneself: so I make
+no apology for returning to it. In that delightful book, "The Minstrelsy
+of Isis," I have found an anonymous poem beginning</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"Royal heart, loyal heart, comrade that I loved,"</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and, in the spirit of that line, I dedicate this chapter to the friend
+whom I always regarded as the Ideal Undergraduate.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> Other names and
+other faces of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> contemporaries and companions come crowding upon the
+memory, but it is better, on all accounts, to leave them unspecified. I
+lived quite as much in other colleges as in my own, and in a fellowship
+which was gathered from all sorts and sections of undergraduate life.
+Let the reader imagine all the best and brightest men in the University
+between 1872 and 1876, and he will not go far wrong in assuming that my
+friends were among them.</p>
+
+<p>My Oxford life was cut sharply into two halves by a very definite
+dividing-line; the first half was cheerful and irresponsible enough. A
+large part of the cheerfulness was connected with the Church, and my
+earliest friendships (after those which I brought with me from Harrow)
+were formed in the circle which frequented St. Barnabas. I am thankful
+to remember that my eyes were even then open to see the moral beauty and
+goodness all around me, and I had a splendid dream of blending it all
+into one. In my second term I founded an "Oxford University Church
+Society," designed to unite religious undergraduates of all shades of
+Churchmanship for common worship and interchange of views. We formed
+ourselves on what we heard of a similar Society at Cambridge; and, early
+in the Summer Term of 1873,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> a youth of ruddy countenance and graceful
+address&mdash;now Canon Mason and Master of Pembroke&mdash;came over from
+Cambridge, and told us how to set to work. The effort was indeed
+well-meant. It was blessed by Churchmen as dissimilar as Bishop
+Mackarness, Edwin Palmer, Burgon, Scott Holland, Illingworth, Ottley,
+Lacey, Gore, and Jayne, now Bishop of Chester; but it was not
+long-lived. Very soon the "Victorian Persecution," as we used to call
+it, engineered by Archbishop Tait through the P.W.R. Act, made it
+difficult for ritualists to feel that they had part or lot with those
+who were imprisoning conscientious clergymen; so the O.U.C.S. fell to
+pieces and disappeared, to be revived after long years and under more
+peaceable conditions, by the present Archbishop of York, when Vicar of
+St. Mary's.</p>
+
+<p>The accession of Dr. King to the Pastoral Professorship brought a new
+element of social delight into the ecclesiastical world of Oxford, and
+that was just what was wanted. We revered our leaders, but saw little of
+them. Dr. Pusey was buried in Christ Church; and though there were some
+who fraudulently professed to be students of Hebrew, in order that they
+might see him (and sketch him) at his lectures, most of us only heard
+him in the pulpit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> of St. Mary's. It was rather fun to take ritualistic
+ladies, who had fashioned mental pictures of the great Tractarian, to
+Evensong in Christ Church, and to watch their dismay as that very
+unascetic figure, with tumbled surplice and hood awry, toddled to his
+stall. "Dear me! Is that Dr. Pusey? Somehow I had fancied quite a
+different-looking man." Liddon was now a Canon of St. Paul's, and his
+home was at Amen Court; so, when residing at Oxford, he lived a sort of
+hermit-life in his rooms in Christ Church, and did not hold much
+communication with undergraduates. I have lively recollections of eating
+a kind of plum duff on Fridays at the Mission-House of Cowley, while one
+of the Fathers read passages from Tertullian on the remarriage of
+widows; but this, though edifying, was scarcely social.</p>
+
+<p>But the arrival of "Canon King," with the admirable mother who kept
+house for him, was like a sunrise. All those notions of austerity and
+stiffness and gloom which had somehow clung about Tractarianism were
+dispelled at once by his fun and sympathy and social tact. Under his
+roof, undergraduates always felt happy and at home; and in his "Bethel,"
+as he called it, a kind of disused <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>greenhouse in his garden, he
+gathered week by week a band of undergraduate hearers, to whom religion
+spoke, through his lips, with her most searching yet most persuasive
+accent.</p>
+
+<p>Lovers of <i>Friendship's Garland</i> will remember that, during their three
+years at Oxford, Lord Lumpington and Esau Hittall were "so much occupied
+with Bullingdon and hunting that there was no great opportunity for
+those mental gymnastics which train and brace the mind for future
+acquisition." My ways of wasting time were less strenuous than theirs;
+and my desultory reading, and desultory Church-work, were supplemented
+by a good deal of desultory riding. I have some delicious memories of
+autumnal canters over Shotover and Boar's Hill, and racing gallops
+across Port Meadow, and long ambles on summer afternoons, through the
+meadows by the river-side, towards Radley and Nuneham. Having been
+brought up in the country, and having ridden ever since I was promoted
+from panniers, I looked upon riding as a commonplace accomplishment,
+much on a par with swimming and skating. Great, therefore, was my
+surprise to find that many undergraduates, I suppose town-bred, regarded
+horsemanship not merely as a rare and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>difficult art, but also as
+implying a kind of moral distinction. When riding men met me riding, I
+saw that they "looked at each other with a wild surmise;" and soon,
+perhaps as a consequence, I was elected to "Vincent's." When, after a
+term or two, my father suggested that I had better have my own horse
+sent from home, I was distinctly conscious of a social elevation.
+Henceforward I might, if I would, associate with "Bloods"; but those
+whom they would have contemned as "Ritualistic Smugs" were more
+interesting companions.</p>
+
+<p>The mention of "Vincent's" reminds me of the Union, to which also I
+belonged, though I was a sparing and infrequent participator in its
+debates. I disliked debating for debating's sake; and, though I have
+always loved speaking on Religion or Politics or any other subject in
+which the spoken word might influence practice, it has always seemed to
+me a waste of effort to argue for abstract propositions. If by speaking
+I can lead a man to give a vote on the right side, or a boy to be more
+dutiful to his mother, or a sin-burdened youth to "open his grief," I am
+ready to speak all night; but the debates of the Oxford Union on the
+Falck Laws and the Imperial Titles Bill always left me cold.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p><p>The General Election of 1874 occurred during my second year at Oxford.
+The City of Oxford was contested by Harcourt, Cardwell, and the local
+brewer. Harcourt and Cardwell were returned; but immediately afterwards
+Cardwell was raised to the peerage, and a bye-election ensued. I can
+vividly recall the gratification which I felt when the Liberal
+candidate&mdash;J. D. Lewis&mdash;warmly pressed my hand, and, looking at my
+rosette, hoped that he might count on my vote and interest. Not for the
+world would I have revealed the damning fact that I was a voteless
+undergraduate.</p>
+
+<p>In connexion with the Election of 1874, my tutor&mdash;C. A. Fyffe&mdash;told me a
+curious story. He was canvassing the Borough of Woodstock on behalf of
+George Brodrick, then an academic Liberal of the deepest dye. Woodstock
+was what was called an "Agricultural Borough"&mdash;practically a division of
+the County&mdash;and in an outlying district, in a solitary cottage, the
+canvassers found an old man whom his neighbours reported to be a
+Radical. He did not disclaim the title, but no inducements could induce
+him to go to the poll. Gradually, under persistent cross-examination, he
+revealed his mind. He was old enough to remember the days before the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>
+Reform Bill of 1832. His father had been an ardent reformer. Everyone
+believed that, if only the Bill were passed, hunger and poverty and
+misery would be abolished, and the poor would come by their own. He
+said&mdash;and this was the curious point&mdash;that firearms were stored in his
+father's cottage, to be used in a popular rising if the Bill were
+rejected by the Lords. Well, the Lords had submitted, and the Bill had
+been passed; and we had got our reform&mdash;and no one was any better off.
+The poor were still poor, and there was misery and oppression, and the
+great people had it all their own way. He had got his roof over his
+head, and "a bit of meat in his pot," and it was no good hoping for
+anything more, and he was never going to take any part in politics
+again. It was a notable echo from the voices which, in 1832, had
+proclaimed the arrival of the Millennium.</p>
+
+<p>Oxford in those days was full of Celebrities. Whenever one's friends
+came "up" to pay one a visit, one was pretty certain to be able, in a
+casual stroll up the High or round Magdalen Walks or Christ Church
+Meadows, to point out someone of whom they had heard before. I have
+already spoken of Liddell and Pusey and Liddon and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> Acland and Burgon
+and Henry Smith. Chief perhaps among our celebrities was Ruskin, who had
+lately been made Slade Professor of Fine Art, and whose Inaugural
+Lecture was incessantly on the lips of such undergraduates as cared for
+glorious declamation.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a destiny now possible to us&mdash;the highest ever set before a
+nation to be accepted or refused. We are still undegenerate in race; a
+race mingled of the best northern blood. We are not yet dissolute in
+temper, but still have the firmness to govern, and the grace to obey. We
+have been taught a religion of pure mercy, which we must either now
+finally betray, or learn to defend by fulfilling. And we are rich in an
+inheritance of honour, bequeathed to us through a thousand years of
+noble history, which it should be our daily thirst to increase with
+splendid avarice, so that Englishmen, if it be a sin to covet honour,
+should be the most offending souls alive.... Will you, youths of
+England, make your country again a royal throne of kings; a sceptred
+isle, for all the world a source of light, a centre of peace; mistress
+of Learning and of the Arts; faithful guardian of time-tried principles,
+under temptation from fond experiments and licentious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> desires; and,
+amidst the cruel and clamorous jealousies of the nations, worshipped in
+her strange valour, of goodwill towards men? <i>Vexilla regis prodeunt.</i>
+Yes, but of which King? There are two oriflammes; which shall we plant
+on the farthest islands&mdash;the one that floats in heavenly fire, or that
+hangs heavy with foul tissue of terrestrial gold?"</p>
+
+<p>Ruskin's lectures, ostensibly devoted to the Fine Arts, ranged over
+every topic in earth and heaven, and were attended by the largest, most
+representative, and most responsive audiences which had ever been
+gathered in Oxford since Matthew Arnold delivered his Farewell Lecture
+on "Culture and its Enemies."</p>
+
+<p>Another of our Professors&mdash;J. E. Thorold Rogers&mdash;though perhaps scarcely
+a celebrity, was well known outside Oxford, partly because he was the
+first person to relinquish the clerical character under the Act of 1870,
+partly because of his really learned labours in history and economics,
+and partly because of his Rabelaisian humour. He was fond of writing
+sarcastic epigrams, and of reciting them to his friends, and this habit
+produced a characteristic retort from Jowett. Rogers had only an
+imperfect sympathy with the historians of the new<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> school, and thus
+derided the mutual admiration of Green and Freeman&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"Where, ladling butter from a large tureen,</div>
+<div>See blustering Freeman butter blundering Green."</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>To which Jowett replied, in his quavering treble, "That's a false
+antithesis, Rogers. It's quite possible to bluster and blunder, too!"</p>
+
+<p>The mention of Oxford historians reminds me of my friend Professor
+Dingo, to whom reference has been made in an earlier chapter. He had a
+strong admiration for the virile and masterful character of Henry VIII.,
+and was wont to conceal the blots on his hero's career by this pathetic
+paraphrase&mdash;"The later years of this excellent monarch's reign were
+clouded by <i>much domestic unhappiness</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Jowett has been mentioned more than once, and there is no need for me to
+describe him. Lord Beaconsfield, in <i>Endymion</i>, gave a snapshot of "a
+certain Dr. Comeley, an Oxford Don of the new school, who were
+initiating Lord Montfort in all the mysteries of Neology. This
+celebrated divine, who, in a sweet silky voice, quoted Socrates instead
+of St. Paul, was opposed to all symbols and formulas as essentially
+unphilosophical." Mr. Mallock, in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> <i>New Republic</i>, supplied us with
+a more finished portrait of "Dr. Jenkinson," and parodied his style of
+preaching with a perfection which irritated the Master of Balliol out of
+his habitual calm. My own intercourse with Jowett was not intimate, but
+I once dined with him on an occasion which made an equally deep
+impression on two of the guests&mdash;Lord Milner and myself. When the ladies
+had left the dining-room, an eminent diplomatist began an extremely
+full-flavoured conversation, which would have been unpleasant anywhere,
+and, in the presence of the diplomatist's son, a lad of sixteen, was
+disgusting. For a few minutes the Master endured it, though with visible
+annoyance; and then, suddenly addressing the offender at the other end
+of the table, said, in a birdlike chirp, "Sir &mdash;&mdash;." "Yes, Master."
+"Shall we continue this conversation in the drawing-room?" No rebuke was
+ever more neatly administered.</p>
+
+<p>Jowett's name reminds me, rather obliquely, of the Rev. H. O. Coxe, who
+in my time was Bodleian Librarian. He was clergyman, sportsman, scholar,
+all in one, with an infectious enthusiasm for the treasures in his
+charge, and the most unfailing kindness and patience in exhibiting them.
+"Those who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> have enjoyed the real privilege of hearing Mr. Coxe discuss
+points of historical detail, or have been introduced by him to some of
+the rarer treasures of the Bodleian, will bear witness to the living
+interest which such subjects acquired in his hands. How he would kindle
+while he recited Lord Clarendon's written resignation of the
+Chancellorship of the University! With what dramatic zest he read out
+the scraps of paper (carefully preserved by Clarendon) which used to
+pass between himself and his Royal Master across the Council-table!"</p>
+
+<p>I quote this life-like description from Burgon's <i>Twelve Good Men</i>, and
+Burgon it is who supplies the link with Jowett. "It was shortly after
+the publication of <i>Essays and Reviews</i> that Jowett, meeting Coxe,
+enquired:&mdash;"Have you read my essay?" "No, my dear Jowett. We are good
+friends now; but I know that, if I were to read that essay, I should
+have to cut you. So I haven't read it, and I don't mean to.""&mdash;A
+commendable way of escape from theological controversy.</p>
+
+<p>It is scarcely fair to reckon Cardinal Manning among Oxford celebrities;
+but during my undergraduateship he made two incursions into the
+University, which were attended by some quaint <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>consequences. In 1873 he
+was a guest at the banquet held in honour of the fiftieth anniversary of
+the foundation of the Union; and it was noted with amusement that,
+though he was not then a Cardinal, but merely a schismatic Archbishop,
+he contrived to take precedence of the Bishop of Oxford in his own
+cathedral city. Bishop Wilberforce had died three months before, and I
+remember that all the old stagers said:&mdash;"If Sam had still been Bishop
+of Oxford, this would not have happened." The Roman Catholics of Oxford
+were of course delighted; and when, soon afterwards, Manning returned as
+Cardinal to open the Roman Catholic Church in St. Giles's, great efforts
+were made to bring all undergraduates who showed any Rome-ward
+proclivities within the sphere of his influence. To one rather bumptious
+youth he said:&mdash;"And what are you going to do with your life?" "I'm
+thinking of taking Orders." "Take care you get them, my friend."
+Another, quite unmoved by the pectoral cross and crimson soutane, asked
+artlessly, "What was your college?" The Cardinal replied, with some
+dignity, "I was at Balliol, and subsequently at Merton." "Oh! that was
+like me. I was at Exeter, and I was sent down to a Hall for not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>getting
+through Smalls." "<i>I was a Fellow of Merton.</i>" No powers of type can do
+justice to the intonation.</p>
+
+<p>At the time of which I speak Oxford was particularly rich in delightful
+and accomplished ladies. I have already paid my tribute to Mrs. Cradock,
+Mrs. Liddell, Mrs. Acland, Mrs. Talbot, and Miss Eleanor Smith. Miss
+Felicia Skene was at once a devoted servant of the poor and the outcast,
+and also one of the most powerful writers of her time, although she
+contrived almost entirely to escape observation. Let anyone who thinks
+that I rate her powers too highly read "The Divine Master," "La
+Roquette&mdash;1871," and "Hidden Depths."</p>
+
+<p>No account of the famous women at Oxford would be complete without a
+reference to Miss Marion Hughes&mdash;the first Sister of Mercy in the Church
+of England&mdash;professed on Trinity Sunday, 1841, and still the
+Foundress-Mother of the Convent of the Holy and Undivided Trinity at
+Oxford.</p>
+
+<hr class="smler" />
+
+<p>I said at the beginning of this chapter that my Oxford life was divided
+sharply into two halves. Neither the climate nor the way of living ever
+suited my health. In my first term I fell into the doctor's hands, and
+never escaped from them so long as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> I was an undergraduate. I well
+remember the decisive counsel of the first doctor whom I consulted (not
+Dr. Acland). "What wine do you drink?" "None&mdash;only beer." "Oh! that's
+all nonsense. You never will be able to live in this climate unless you
+drink port, and plenty of it."</p>
+
+<p>To this generous prescription I dutifully submitted, but even port was
+powerless to keep me well at Oxford. I always felt "seedy"; and the
+nervous worry inseparable from a time of spiritual storm and stress (for
+four of my most intimate friends seceded to Rome) told upon me more than
+I knew. An accidental chill brought things to a climax, and during the
+Christmas vacation of 1874 I was laid low by a sharp attack of
+<i>myelitis</i>, mistaken at the time for rheumatic fever. I heard the last
+stroke of midnight, December 31, in a paroxysm of pain which, for years
+after, I never could recall without feeling sick. I lost two terms
+through illness, and the doctors were against my returning to the damps
+of Oxford. However, I managed to hobble back on two sticks, maimed for
+life, and with all dreams of academical distinction at an end. But what
+was more important was that my whole scheme of life was dissipated.
+Henceforward it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> with me, as with Robert Elsmere after his malaria
+at Cannes&mdash;"It was clear to himself and everybody else that he must do
+what he could, and not what he would, in the Christian vineyard." The
+words have always made me smile; but the reality was no smiling matter.
+The remainder of my life at Oxford was of necessity lived at half-speed;
+and in this place I must commemorate, with a gratitude which the lapse
+of years has never chilled, the extraordinary kindness and tenderness
+with which my undergraduate friends tended and nursed me in that time of
+crippledom.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> Prince Leopold, then an undergraduate of Christ Church,
+and living at Wykeham House in The Parks, used to lend me his
+pony-carriage, which, as it strictly belonged to the Queen, and bore her
+crown and cypher, did not pay toll; and, with an undergraduate friend at
+my side, I used to snatch a fearful joy from driving at full tilt
+through turnpike gates, and mystifying the toll-keeper by saying that
+the Queen's carriages paid no toll. For the short remainder of my time
+at Oxford I was cut off from riding and all active exercise, and was not
+able even to go out in bad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> weather. It was with me as with Captain
+Harville in <i>Persuasion</i>&mdash;"His lameness prevented him from taking much
+exercise; but a mind of usefulness and ingenuity seemed to furnish him
+with constant employment within."</p>
+
+<hr class="smler" />
+
+<p>Here I must close my recollections of Oxford, and, as I look back upon
+those four years&mdash;1872-1876&mdash;I find my thoughts best expressed by Sir
+Arthur Quiller-Couch, who has done for Oxford in his <i>Alma Mater</i> just
+what Matthew Arnold did in the preface to <i>Essays in Criticism</i>....</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"Know you her secret none can utter?</div>
+<div class="i1">Hers of the Book, the tripled Crown?</div>
+<div>Still on the spire the pigeons flutter;</div>
+<div class="i1">Still by the gateway flits the gown;</div>
+<div>Still on the street, from corbel and gutter,</div>
+<div class="i1">Faces of stone look down.</div>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<div>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*</div>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<div>Still on her spire the pigeons hover;</div>
+<div class="i1">Still by her gateway haunts the gown;</div>
+<div>Ah, but her secret? You, young lover,</div>
+<div class="i1">Drumming her old ones forth from town,</div>
+<div>Know you the secret none discover?</div>
+<div class="i1">Tell it&mdash;when <i>you</i> go down."</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><i>Know you the secret none discover</i>&mdash;none, that is, while they still are
+undergraduates?</p>
+
+<p>Well, I think I do; and, to begin with a negative,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> it is not the secret
+of Nirvana. There are misguided critics abroad in the land who seem to
+assume that life lived easily in a beautiful place, amid a society which
+includes all knowledge in its comprehensive survey, and far remote from
+the human tragedy of poverty and toil and pain, must necessarily be
+calm. And so, as regards the actual work and warfare of mankind, it may
+be. The bitter cry of starving Poplar does not very readily penetrate to
+the well-spread tables of Halls and Common-rooms. In a laburnum-clad
+villa in The Parks we can afford to reason very temperately about life
+in cities where five families camp in one room. But, when we leave
+actualities, and come to the region of thought and opinion, all the pent
+energy of Oxford seethes and stirs. The Hebrew word for "Prophet" comes,
+I believe, from a root which signifies to bubble like water on the
+flame; and it is just in this fervency of thought and feeling that
+Oxford is Prophetic. It is the tradition that in one year of the
+storm-tossed 'forties the subject for the Newdigate Prize Poem was
+Cromwell, whereas the subject for the corresponding poem at Cambridge
+was Plato. In that selection Oxford was true to herself. For a century
+at least (even if we leave out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> of sight her earlier convulsions) she
+has been the battle-field of contending sects. Her air has resounded
+with party-cries, and the dead bodies of the controversially slain lie
+thick in her streets. All the opposing forces of Church and State, of
+theology and politics, of philosophy and science, of literary and social
+and economic theory, have contended for mastery in the place which
+Matthew Arnold, with fine irony, described as "so unruffled by the
+fierce intellectual life of our century, so serene!" Every succeeding
+generation of Oxford men has borne its part in these ever recurring
+strifes. To hold aloof from them would have been poltroonery.
+Passionately convinced (at twenty) that we had sworn ourselves for life
+to each cause which we espoused, we have pleaded and planned and
+denounced and persuaded; have struck the shrewdest blows which our
+strength could compass, and devised the most dangerous pitfalls for our
+opponents' feet which wit could suggest. Nothing came of it all, and
+nothing could come, except the ruin of our appointed studies and the
+resulting dislocation of all subsequent life. But we were obeying the
+irresistible impulse of the time and the place in which our lot was
+cast, and we were ready to risk our all upon the venture.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p><p>But now all that passion, genuine enough while it lasted, lies far back
+in the past, and we learn the secret which we never discovered while as
+yet Oxford held us in the thick of the fight. We thought then that we
+were the most desperate partisans; we asked no quarter, and gave none;
+pushed our argumentative victories to their uttermost consequences, and
+made short work of a fallen foe. But, when all the old battle-cries have
+died out of our ears, gentler voices begin to make themselves heard. All
+at once we realize that a great part of our old contentions was only
+sound and fury and self-deception, and that, though the causes for which
+we strove may have been absolutely right, our opponents were not
+necessarily villains. In a word, we have learnt the Secret of Oxford.
+All the time that we were fighting and fuming, the higher and subtler
+influences of the place were moulding us, unconscious though we were, to
+a more gracious ideal. We had really learnt to distinguish between
+intellectual error and moral obliquity. We could differ from another on
+every point of the political and theological compass, and yet in our
+hearts acknowledge him to be the best of all good fellows. Without
+surrendering a single conviction, we came to see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> the virtue of so
+stating our beliefs as to persuade and propitiate, instead of offending
+and alienating. We had attained to that temper which, in the sphere of
+thought and opinion, is analogous to the crowning virtue of Christian
+charity.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"Tell it&mdash;when <i>you</i> go down."</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Not long ago I was addressing a company of Oxford undergraduates, all
+keenly alive to the interests and controversies of the present hour, all
+devotedly loyal to the tradition of Oxford as each understood it, and
+all with their eyes eagerly fixed on "the wistful limit of the world."
+With such an audience it was inevitable to insist on the graces and
+benedictions which Oxford can confer, and to dwell on Mr. Gladstone's
+dogma that to call a man a "typically Oxford man" is to bestow the
+highest possible praise.</p>
+
+<p>But this was not all. Something more remained to be said. It was for a
+speaker whose undergraduateship lay thirty years behind to state as
+plainly as he could his own deepest obligation to the place which had
+decided the course and complexion of his life. Wherever philosophical
+insight is combined with literary genius and personal charm, one says<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>
+instinctively, "That man is, or ought to be, an Oxford man." Chiefest
+among the great names which Oxford ought to claim but cannot is the name
+of Edmund Burke; and the "Secret" on which we have been discoursing
+seems to be conveyed with luminous precision in his description of the
+ideal character:&mdash;"It is our business ... to bring the dispositions that
+are lovely in private life into the service and conduct of the
+commonwealth; so to be patriots as not to forget we are gentlemen; to
+cultivate friendships and to incur enmities; to have both strong, but
+both selected&mdash;in the one to be placable, in the other immovable."</p>
+
+<p>Whoso has attained to that ideal has learnt the "Secret" of Oxford.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> The Rev. J. M. Lester.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Here I must depart from my rule, and mention a
+name&mdash;FitzRoy Stewart.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h2>
+
+<h3>HOME</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam;</div>
+<div>True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home."</div>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<div class="i12"><span class="smcap">Wordsworth</span>, "<i>To a Sky-lark</i>."</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>I said good-bye to Oxford on the 17th of June, 1876. What was the next
+step to be? As so often in my life, the decision came through a doctor's
+lips. He spoke in a figure, and this is what he said. "When a man has
+had a severe illness, he has taken a large sum out of his capital.
+Unless he has the wisdom to replace it, he must be permanently poorer;
+and, when the original stock was not large, the necessity of economizing
+becomes more urgent. You are in that case. My advice, therefore, is&mdash;Do
+nothing for the next two or three years. Concentrate all your efforts on
+getting better. Live as healthy a life as you can, and give mind and
+body a complete rest. If you will obey this counsel, you will find that
+you have replaced the capital, or, at any rate, some of it; and you may,
+in spite of all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> disabilities, be able to take your part in the life and
+work of the world." The prescription of total abstinence from effort
+exactly suited my disposition of the moment. Oxford, one way and
+another, had taken more out of me than till then I had realized, and I
+was only too thankful to have an opportunity of making good the loss.</p>
+
+<p>It being, for the time, my prime object to recover some portion of
+health and strength, I was beyond measure fortunate in the possession of
+an absolutely ideal home. "'Home! Sweet Home!' Yes. That is the song
+that goes straight to the heart of every English man and woman. For
+forty years we never asked Madame Adelina Patti to sing anything else.
+The unhappy, decadent, Latin races have not even a word in their
+language by which to express it, poor things! Home is the secret of our
+honest, British, Protestant virtues. It is the only nursery of our
+Anglo-Saxon citizenship. Back to it our far-flung children turn, with
+all their memories aflame. They may lapse into rough ways, but they keep
+something sound at the core so long as they are faithful to the old
+home. There is still a tenderness in the voice, and tears are in their
+eyes, as they speak together of the days that can never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> die out of
+their lives, when they were at home in the old familiar places, with
+father and mother, in the healthy gladness of their childhood."<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> To
+me home was all this and even more; for not only had it been my earthly
+Paradise when I was a child, but now, in opening manhood, it was a
+sanctuary and a resting-place, in which I could prepare myself to face
+whatever lot the future might have in store for me.</p>
+
+<p>That London as well as country may be, under certain conditions, Home, I
+am well aware. For many natures London has an attractiveness which is
+all its own. And yet to indulge one's taste for it may be a grave
+dereliction of duty. The State is built upon the Home, and as a
+training-place for social virtue, there can surely be no comparison
+between a home in the country and a home in London. All those educating
+influences which count for so much in the true home are infinitely
+weaker in the town than in the country. In a London home there is
+nothing to fascinate the eye. The contemplation of the mews and the
+chimney-pots through the back-windows of the nursery will not elevate
+even the most impressible child. There is no mystery,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> no dreamland, no
+Enchanted Palace, no Bluebeard's Chamber, in a stucco mansion built by
+Cubitt, or a palace of terra-cotta on the Cadogan estate. There can be
+no traditions of the past, no inspiring memories of virtuous ancestry,
+in a house which your father bought five years ago and of which the
+previous owners are not known to you even by name. "The Square" or "The
+Gardens" are sorry substitutes for the Park and the Pleasure-grounds,
+the Common and the Downs. Crossing-sweepers are a deserving folk, but
+you cannot cultivate those intimate relations with them which bind you
+to the lodge-keeper at home, or to the old women in the almshouses, or
+to the septuagenarian waggoner who has driven your father's team ever
+since he was ten years old. Holy Trinity, Sloane Street, or All Saints,
+Margaret Street, may be beautifully ornate, and the congregation what
+Lord Beaconsfield called "sparkling and modish"; but they can never have
+the romantic charm of the Village Church where you were confirmed side
+by side with the keeper's son, or proposed to the Vicar's daughter when
+you were wreathing holly round the lectern. There is a magic in the
+memory of a country home with which no urban associations can compete.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p><p>Nowadays the world is perpetually on the move, but in the old days
+people who possessed a country house passed nine months out of the
+twelve under its sacred roof&mdash;sacred because it was inseparably
+connected with memories of ancestry and parentage and early association;
+with marriage and children, and pure enjoyment and active benevolence
+and neighbourly goodwill. In a word, the country house was Home, and for
+those who dwelt in it the interests of life were very much bound up in
+the Park and the covers, the croquet-ground and the cricket-ground, the
+kennel, the stable, and the garden. I remember, when I was an
+undergraduate, lionizing some Yorkshire damsels on their first visit to
+Oxford, then in the "high midsummer pomps" of its beauty. But all they
+said was, in the pensive tone of unwilling exiles, "How beautifully the
+sun must be shining on the South Walk at home!"</p>
+
+<p>The Village Church was a great centre of domestic affection. All the
+family had been christened in it. The eldest sister had been married in
+it. Generations of ancestry mouldered under the chancel-floor. Christmas
+decorations were an occasion of much innocent merriment, and a little
+ditty high in favour in Tractarian homes warned the decorators to be&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span><div>"Unselfish&mdash;looking not to see</div>
+<div>Proofs of their own dexterity;</div>
+<div>But quite contented that 'I' should</div>
+<div>Forgotten be in brotherhood."</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Of course, whether Tractarian or Evangelical, religious people regarded
+church-going as a spiritual privilege; and everyone, religious or not,
+recognized it as a civil duty. "When a gentleman is <i>sur ses terres</i>,"
+said Major Pendennis, "he must give an example to the country people;
+and, if I could turn a tune, I even think I should sing. The Duke of St.
+David's, whom I have the honour of knowing, always sings in the country,
+and let me tell you it has a doosed fine effect from the Family Pew."
+Before the passion for "restoration" had set in, and ere yet Sir Gilbert
+Scott had transmogrified the Parish Churches of England, the Family Pew
+was indeed the ark and sanctuary of the territorial system&mdash;and a very
+comfortable ark too. It had a private entrance, a round table, a good
+assortment of armchairs, a fire-place, and a wood-basket. And I well
+remember a wash-leather glove of unusual size which was kept in the
+wood-basket for the greater convenience of making up the fire during
+divine service. "You may restore the church as much as you like," said
+the lay-rector of our parish, to an innovating<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> Incumbent, "but I must
+insist on my Family Pew not being touched. If I had to sit in an open
+seat, I should never get a wink of sleep again."</p>
+
+<p>A country home left its mark for all time on those who were brought up
+in it. The sons played cricket and went bat-fowling with the village
+boys, and not seldom joined with them in a poaching expedition to the
+paternal preserves. However popular or successful or happy a
+Public-school boy might be at Eton or Harrow, he counted the days till
+he could return to his pony and his gun, his ferrets and rat-trap and
+fishing-rod. In after years, amid all the toil and worry of active life,
+he looked back lovingly to the corner of the cover where he shot his
+first pheasant, or the precise spot in the middle of the Vale where he
+first saw a fox killed, and underwent the disgusting Baptism of Blood.</p>
+
+<p>Girls, living more continuously at home, entered even more intimately
+into the daily life of the place. Their morning rides led them across
+the Village Green; their afternoon drives were often steered by the
+claims of this or that cottage to a visit. They were taught as soon as
+they could toddle never to enter a door without knocking, never to sit
+down without being asked, and never to call at meal-time.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> They knew
+everyone in the village&mdash;old and young; played with the babies, taught
+the boys in Sunday School, carried savoury messes to the old and
+impotent, read by the sick-beds, and brought flowers for the coffin.
+Mamma knitted comforters and dispensed warm clothing, organized relief
+in hard winters and times of epidemic, and found places for the
+hobbledehoys of both sexes. The pony-boy and the scullery-maid were
+pretty sure to be products of the village. Very likely the
+young-ladies'-maid was a village girl whom the doctor had pronounced too
+delicate for factory or farm. I have seen an excited young groom staring
+his eyes out of his head at the Eton and Harrow match, and exclaiming
+with rapture at a good catch, "It was my young governor as 'scouted'
+that. 'E's nimble, ain't he?" And I well remember an ancient
+stable-helper at a country house in Buckinghamshire who was called "Old
+Bucks," because he had never slept out of his native county, and very
+rarely out of his native village, and had spent his whole life in the
+service of one family.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, when so much of the impressionable part of life was lived
+amid the "sweet, sincere surroundings of country life," there grew up,
+between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> the family at the Hall and the families in the village, a
+feeling which, in spite of our national unsentimentality, had a
+chivalrous and almost feudal tone. The interest of the poor in the life
+and doings of "The Family" was keen and genuine. The English peasant is
+too much a gentleman to be a flatterer, and compliments were often
+bestowed in very unexpected forms. "They do tell me as 'is
+understanding's no worse than it always were," was a ploughman's way of
+saying that an uncle of mine was in full possession of his faculties.
+"We call 'im 'Lord Charles' because he's so old and so cunning," was
+another's description of a pony which had belonged to my father. "Ah, I
+know you're but a poor creature at the best!" was the recognized way of
+complimenting a lady on what she considered her bewitching and romantic
+delicacy.</p>
+
+<p>But these eccentricities were merely verbal, and under them lay a deep
+vein of genuine and lasting regard. "I've lived under four dukes and
+four 'ousekeepers, and I'm not going to be put upon in my old age!" was
+the exclamation of an ancient poultry-woman, whose dignity had been
+offended by some irregularity touching her Christmas dinner. When the
+daughter of the house married and went<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> into a far country, she was sure
+to find some emigrant from her old home who welcomed her with effusion,
+and was full of enquiries about his Lordship and her Ladyship, and Miss
+Pinkerton the governess, and whether Mr. Wheeler was still coachman, and
+who lived now at the Entrance Lodge. Whether the sons got commissions,
+or took ranches, or became curates in slums, or contested remote
+constituencies, some grinning face was sure to emerge from the crowd
+with "You know me, sir? Bill Juffs, as used to go birds-nesting with
+you"; or, "You remember my old dad, my lord? He used to shoe your black
+pony." When the eldest son came of age, his condescension in taking this
+step was hailed with genuine enthusiasm. When he came into his kingdom,
+there might be some grumbling if he went in for small economies, or
+altered old practices, or was a "hard man" on the Bench or at the Board
+of Guardians; but, if he went on in the good-natured old ways, the
+traditional loyalty was unabated. Lord Shaftesbury wrote thus about the
+birth of his eldest son's eldest son:&mdash;"My little village is all agog
+with the birth of a son and heir in the very midst of them, the first,
+it is believed, since 1600, when the first Lord Shaftesbury was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> born.
+The christening yesterday was an ovation. Every cottage had flags and
+flowers. We had three triumphal arches; and all the people were
+exulting. 'He is one of us.' 'He is a fellow-villager.' 'We have now got
+a lord of our own.' This is really gratifying. I did not think that
+there remained so much of the old respect and affection between peasant
+and proprietor, landlord and tenant."</p>
+
+<p>In the present day, if a season of financial pressure sets in, people
+shut up their country houses, let their shooting, cut themselves off
+with a sigh of relief from all the unexciting duties and simple
+pleasures of the Home, and take refuge from boredom in the delights of
+London. In London life has no duties. Little is expected of one, and
+nothing required.</p>
+
+<p>But in old days, when people wished to economize, it was London that
+they deserted. They sold the "Family Mansion" in Portland Place or Eaton
+Square; and, if they revisited the glimpses of the social moon, they
+took a furnished house for six weeks in the summer; the rest of the year
+they spent in the country. This plan was a manifold saving. There was no
+rent to pay, and only very small rates, for everyone knows that country
+houses are shamefully under-assessed. Carriages did not require
+re-painting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> every season, and no new clothes were wanted. As the ladies
+in <i>Cranford</i> said&mdash;"What can it matter what we wear here, where
+everyone knows who we are?" The products of the Park, the Home Farm, the
+hothouses, and the kitchen-garden kept the family supplied with food. A
+brother-magnate staying at Beaudesert with the famous Lord Anglesey
+waxed enthusiastic over the mutton, and, venturing on the privilege of
+an old friendship, asked how much it cost him. "Cost me?" screamed the
+hero. "Good Gad, it costs me nothing! I don't buy it. It's my own," and
+he was beyond measure astonished when his statistical guest proved that
+"his own" cost him about a guinea per pound. In another great house,
+conducted on strictly economical lines, it was said that the very
+numerous family were reared exclusively on rabbits and garden-stuff, and
+that their enfeebled constitutions and dismal appearance in later life
+were due to this ascetic regimen.</p>
+
+<p>People were always hospitable in the country; but rural entertaining was
+not a very costly business. The "three square meals and a snack," which
+represent the minimum requirements of the present day, are a huge
+development of the system which prevailed in my youth. Breakfast had
+already<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> grown from the tea and coffee, and rolls and eggs, which
+Macaulay tells us were deemed sufficient at Holland House, to an affair
+of covered dishes. Luncheon-parties were sometimes given&mdash;terrible
+ceremonies which lasted from two to four; but the ordinary luncheon of
+the family was a snack from the servants' joint or the children's rice
+pudding; and five o'clock tea had only lately been invented. To
+remember, as I just can, the Foundress<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> of that divine refreshment
+seems like having known Stephenson or Jenner.</p>
+
+<p>Dinner was substantial enough in all conscience, and the wine nearly as
+heavy as the food. Imagine quenching one's thirst with sherry in the
+dog-days! Yet so we did, till about half-way through dinner, and then,
+on great occasions, a dark-coloured rill of champagne began to trickle
+into the V-shaped glasses. At the epoch of cheese, port made its
+appearance in company with home-brewed beer; and, as soon as the ladies
+and the schoolboys departed, the men applied themselves, with much
+seriousness of purpose, to the consumption of claret which was really
+vinous.</p>
+
+<p>Grace was said before and after dinner. There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> was a famous squire in
+Hertfordshire whose love of his dinner was constantly at war with his
+pietistic traditions. He always had his glass of sherry poured out
+before he sat down to dinner, so that he might get at it without a
+moment's delay. One night, in his generous eagerness, he upset the glass
+just as he dropped into his seat at the end of grace, and the formula
+ran on to an unexpected conclusion, thus: "For what we are going to
+receive, the Lord make us truly thankful&mdash;D&mdash;n!" But if the
+incongruities which attended grace before dinner were disturbing, still
+more so were the solemnities of the close. Grace after dinner always
+happened at the moment of loudest and most general conversation. For an
+hour and a half people had been stuffing as if their lives depended on
+it&mdash;"one feeding like forty." Out of the abundance of the mouth the
+heart speaketh, and everyone was talking at once, and very loud. Perhaps
+the venue was laid in a fox-hunting country, and then the air was full
+of such voices as these: "Were you out with the Squire to-day?" "Any
+sport?" "Yes, we'd rather a nice gallop." "Plenty of the animal about, I
+hope?" "Well, I don't know. I believe that new keeper at Boreham Wood is
+a vulpicide. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> don't half like his looks." "What an infernal villain! A
+man who would shoot a fox would poison his own grandmother." "Sh! Sh!"
+"What's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>For what we have received</i>," &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know you've been talking at the top of your voice all the time
+grace was going on?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not really? I'm awfully sorry. But our host mumbles so, I never can
+make out what he's saying."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't imagine why people don't have grace after dessert. I know I'm
+much more thankful for strawberry ice than for saddle of mutton."</p>
+
+<p>And so on and so forth. On the whole, I am not sure that the abolition
+of grace is a sign of moral degeneracy, but I note it as a social change
+which I have seen.</p>
+
+<p>In this kind of hospitality there was no great expense. People made very
+little difference between their way of living when they were alone, and
+their way of living when they had company. A visitor who wished to make
+himself agreeable sometimes brought down a basket of fish or a barrel of
+oysters from London; and, if one had no deer of one's own, the arrival
+of a haunch from a neighbour's or <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>kinsman's park was the signal for a
+gathering of local gastronomers. And in matters other than meals life
+went on very much the same whether you had friends staying with you or
+whether you were alone. The guests drove and rode, and walked and shot,
+according to their tastes and the season of the year. They were carried
+off, more or less willingly, to see the sights of the
+neighbourhood&mdash;ruined castles, restored cathedrals, famous views. In
+summer there might be a picnic or a croquet-party; in winter a lawn-meet
+or a ball. But all these entertainments were of the most homely and
+inexpensive character. There was very little outlay, no fuss, and no
+display.</p>
+
+<p>But now an entirely different spirit prevails. People seem to have lost
+the power of living quietly and happily in their country homes. They all
+have imbibed the urban philosophy of George Warrington, who, when Pen
+gushed about the country with its "long, calm days, and long calm
+evenings," brutally replied, "Devilish long, and a great deal too calm.
+I've tried 'em." People of that type desert the country simply because
+they are bored by it. They feel with the gentleman who stood for Matthew
+Arnold in <i>The New Republic</i>, and who, after talking about "liberal
+air," "sedged brooks," and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> "meadow grass," admitted that it would be a
+dreadful bore to have no other society than the Clergyman of the parish,
+and no other topics of conversation than Justification by Faith and the
+measles. They do not care for the country in itself; they have no eye
+for its beauty, no sense of its atmosphere, no memory for its
+traditions. It is only made endurable to them by sport and gambling and
+boisterous house-parties; and when, from one cause or another, these
+resources fail, they are frankly bored, and long for London. They are no
+longer content, as our fathers were, to entertain their friends with
+hospitable simplicity. So profoundly has all society been vulgarized by
+the worship of the Golden Calf that, unless people can vie with alien
+millionaires in the sumptuousness with which they "do you"&mdash;delightful
+phrase,&mdash;they prefer not to entertain at all. An emulous ostentation has
+killed hospitality. All this is treason to a high ideal.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever tends to make the Home beautiful, attractive, romantic&mdash;to
+associate it with the ideas of pure pleasure and high duty&mdash;to connect
+it not only with all that was happiest, but also with all that was best,
+in early years&mdash;whatever fulfils these purposes purifies the fountain of
+national life. A home, to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> perfectly a home, should "incorporate
+tradition, and prolong the reign of the dead." It should animate those
+who dwell in it to virtue and beneficence, by reminding them of what
+others did, who went before them in the same place, and lived amid the
+same surroundings. Thank God, such a home was mine.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Henry Scott Holland.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Anna Maria, Duchess of Bedford, died in 1857.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h2>
+
+<h3>LONDON</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"O'er royal London, in luxuriant May,</div>
+<div>While lamps yet twinkled, dawning crept the day.</div>
+<div>Home from the hell the pale-eyed gamester steals;</div>
+<div>Home from the ball flash jaded Beauty's wheels;</div>
+<div>From fields suburban rolls the early cart;</div>
+<div>As rests the Revel, so awakes the Mart."</div>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<div class="i12"><i>The New Timon</i>.</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>When I was penning, in the last chapter, my perfectly sincere praises of
+the country, an incongruous reminiscence suddenly froze the genial
+current of my soul. Something, I know not what, reminded me of the
+occasion when Mrs. Bardell and her friends made their memorable
+expedition to the "Spaniards Tea-Gardens" at Hampstead. "How sweet the
+country is, to be sure!" sighed Mrs. Rogers; "I almost wish I lived in
+it always." To this Mr. Raddle, full of sympathy, rejoined: "For lone
+people as have got nobody to care for them, or as have been hurt in
+their mind, or that sort of thing, the country is all very well. The
+country for a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> wounded spirit, they say." But the general verdict of the
+company was that Mrs. Rogers was "a great deal too lively and
+sought-after, to be content with the country"; and, on second thoughts,
+the lady herself acquiesced. I feel that my natural temperament had
+something in common with that of Mrs. Rogers. "My spirit" (and my body
+too) had been "wounded" by Oxford, and the country acted as both a
+poultice and a tonic. But my social instinct was always strong, and
+could not be permanently content with "a lodge in the vast wilderness"
+of Woburn Park, or dwell for ever in the "boundless contiguity of shade"
+which obliterates the line between Beds and Bucks.</p>
+
+<p>I was very careful to observe the doctor's prescription of total
+idleness, but I found it was quite as easily obeyed in London as in the
+country. For three or four months then, of every year, I forsook the
+Home which just now I praised so lavishly, and applied myself,
+circumspectly indeed but with keen enjoyment, to the pleasures of the
+town.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>One look back</i>"&mdash;What was London like in those distant days, which
+lie, say, between 1876 and 1886?</p>
+
+<p>Structurally and visibly, it was a much uglier<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> place than now. The
+immeasurable wastes of Belgravian stucco; the "Baker Streets and Harley
+Streets and Wimpole Streets, resembling each other like a large family
+of plain children, with Portland Place and Portman Square for their
+respectable parents,"<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> were still unbroken by the red brick and
+terra-cotta, white stone and green tiles, of our more &aelig;sthetic age. The
+flower-beds in the Parks were less brilliant, for that "Grand old
+gardener," Mr. Harcourt, to whom we are so much indebted, was still at
+Eton. Piccadilly had not been widened. The Arches at Hyde Park Corner
+had not been re-arranged. Glorious Whitehall was half occupied by shabby
+shops; and labyrinths of slums covered the sites of Kingsway and
+Shaftesbury Avenue.</p>
+
+<p>But, though London is now a much prettier place than it was then, I
+doubt if it is as socially magnificent. The divinity which hedged Queen
+Victoria invested her occasional visits to her Capital with a glamour
+which it is difficult to explain to those who never felt it. Of beauty,
+stature, splendour, and other fancied attributes of Queenship, there was
+none; but there was a dignity which can neither be described nor
+imitated; and, when her subjects<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> knelt to kiss her hand at Drawing
+Room, or Levee, or Investiture, they felt a kind of sacred awe which no
+other presence could inspire.</p>
+
+<p>It was, of course, one of the elements of Queen Victoria's mysterious
+power, that she was so seldom seen in London. In the early days of her
+widowhood she had resigned the command of Society into other hands; and
+social London, at the time of which I write, was dominated by the Prince
+of Wales. Just at this moment,<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> when those who knew him well are
+genuinely mourning the loss of King Edward VII., it would scarcely
+become me to describe his influence on Society when first I moved in it.
+So I borrow the words of an anonymous writer, who, at the time at which
+his book was published, was generally admitted to know the subjects of
+which he discoursed.</p>
+
+<p>"The Social Ruler of the English realm is the Prince of Wales. I call
+him the Social Ruler, because, in all matters pertaining to society and
+to ceremonial, he plays vicariously the part of the Sovereign. The
+English monarchy may be described at the present moment as being in a
+state of commission. Most of its official duties are performed by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> the
+Queen. It is the Prince of Wales who transacts its ceremonial business,
+and exhibits to the masses the embodiment of the monarchical principle.
+If there were no Marlborough House, there would be no Court in London.
+The house of the Prince of Wales may be an unsatisfactory substitute for
+a Court, but it is the only substitute which exists, and it is the best
+which, under the circumstances, is attainable.</p>
+
+<p>"In his attitude to English Society, the Prince of Wales is a benevolent
+despot. He wishes it to enjoy itself, to disport itself, to dance, sing,
+and play to its heart's content. But he desires that it should do so in
+the right manner, at the right times, and in the right places; and of
+these conditions he holds that he is the best, and, indeed, an
+infallible, judge.</p>
+
+<p>"The Prince of Wales is the Bismarck of London society: he is also its
+microcosm. All its idiosyncrasies are reflected in the person of His
+Royal Highness. Its hopes, its fears, its aspirations, its solicitudes,
+its susceptibilities, its philosophy, its way of looking at life and of
+appraising character&mdash;of each of these is the Heir-Apparent the mirror.
+If a definition of Society were sought for, I should be inclined to give
+it as the social area of which the Prince of Wales is personally
+cognizant, within the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> limits of which he visits, and every member of
+which is to some extent in touch with the ideas and wishes of His Royal
+Highness. But for this central authority, Society in London would be in
+imminent danger of falling into the same chaos and collapse as the
+universe itself, were one of the great laws of nature to be suspended
+for five minutes."</p>
+
+<p>Of the loved and gracious lady who is now Queen Mother, I may trust
+myself to speak. I first saw her at Harrow Speeches, when I was a boy of
+18, and from that day to this I have admired her more than any woman
+whom I have ever seen. To the flawless beauty of the face there was
+added that wonderful charm of innocence and unfading youth which no
+sumptuosities of dress and decoration could conceal. To see the Princess
+in Society was in those days one of my chief delights, and the sight
+always suggested to my mind the idea of a Puritan Maiden set in the
+midst of Vanity Fair.</p>
+
+<p>We have seen that the centre of Society at the period which I am
+describing was Marlborough House, and that centre was encircled by rings
+of various compass, the widest extending to South Kensington in the one
+direction, and Portman Square in the other. The innermost ring was
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>composed of personal friends, and, as personal friendship belongs to
+private life, we must not here discuss it. The second ring was composed
+of the great houses&mdash;"The Palaces," as Pennialinus<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> calls them,&mdash;the
+houses, I mean, which are not distinguished by numbers, but are called
+"House," with a capital H. And first among these I must place Grosvenor
+House. As I look back over all the entertainments which I have ever seen
+in London, I can recall nothing to compare with a Ball at Grosvenor
+House, in the days of Hugh, Duke of Westminster, and his glorious wife.
+No lesser epithet than "glorious" expresses the combination of beauty,
+splendour, and hospitable enjoyment, which made Constance, Duchess of
+Westminster, so unique a hostess. Let me try to recall the scene.</p>
+
+<p>Dancing has begun in a tentative sort of way, when there is a sudden
+pause, and "God Save the Queen" is heard in the front hall. The Prince
+and Princess of Wales have arrived, and their entrance is a pageant
+worth seeing. With courtly grace and pretty pomp, the host and hostess
+usher their royal guests into the great gallery, walled with the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>canvasses of Rubens, which serves as a dancing-room. Then the fun
+begins, and the bright hours fly swiftly till one o'clock suggests the
+tender thought of supper, which is served on gold plate and S&egrave;vres china
+in a garden-tent of Gobelins tapestry. "'What a perfect family!'
+exclaimed Hugo Bohun, as he extracted a couple of fat little birds from
+their bed of aspic jelly. 'Everything they do in such perfect taste. How
+safe you were to have ortolans for supper!'"<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p>
+
+<p>Next in my recollection to Grosvenor House, but after a considerable
+interval, comes Stafford House. This is a more pretentious building than
+the other; built by the Duke of York and bought by the Duke of
+Sutherland, with a hall and staircase designed by Barry, perfect in
+proportion, and so harmonious in colouring that its purple and yellow
+<i>scagliola</i> might deceive the very elect into the belief that it is
+marble. There, as at Grosvenor House, were wealth and splendour and the
+highest rank; a hospitable host and a handsome hostess; but the peculiar
+feeling of welcome, which distinguished Grosvenor House, was lacking,
+and the aspect of the whole place, on an evening of entertainment, was
+rather that of a mob than of a party.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p><p>Northumberland House at Charing Cross, the abode of the historic
+Percys, had disappeared before I came to London, yielding place to
+Northumberland Avenue; but there were plenty of "Houses" left. Near
+where the Percys had flourished, the Duke of Buccleuch, a magnifico of
+the patriarchal type, kept court at Montagu House, and Londoners have
+not yet forgotten that, when the Thames Embankment was proposed, he
+suggested that the new thoroughfare should be deflected, so that it
+might not interfere with the ducal garden running down to the river. In
+the famous Picture-Gallery of Bridgewater House, Lord Beaconsfield
+harangued his disconsolate supporters after the disastrous election of
+1880, and predicted that Conservative revival which he did not live to
+see. Close by at Spencer House, a beautiful specimen of the decorative
+work of the Brothers Adam, the Liberal Party used to gather round the
+host, who looked like a Van Dyke. Another of their resorts was
+Devonshire House, which Horace Walpole pronounced "good and plain as the
+Duke of Devonshire who built it." There the 7th Duke, who was a
+mathematician and a scholar, but no lover of society, used to hide
+behind the door in sheer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> terror of his guests, while his son, Lord
+Hartington, afterwards 8th Duke, gazed with ill-concealed aversion on
+his political supporters. Lansdowne House was, as it still is, a Palace
+of Art, with all the dignity and amenity of a country house, planted in
+the very heart of London. During the last quarter of a century the
+creation of Liberal Unionism has made it the headquarters of a political
+party; but, at the time of which I write, it was only a place of select
+and beautiful entertaining.</p>
+
+<p>Apsley House, the abode of "The Son of Waterloo," could not, in my time,
+be reckoned a social centre, but was chiefly interesting as a museum of
+Wellington relics. Norfolk House was, as it is, the headquarters of
+Roman Catholic society, and there, in 1880, was seen the unique sight of
+Matthew Arnold doing obeisance to Cardinal Newman at an evening
+party.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> Dorchester House, architecturally considered, is beyond doubt
+the grandest thing in London; in those days occupied by the accomplished
+Mr. Holford, who built it, and now let to the American Ambassador.
+Chesterfield House, with its arcaded staircase of marble and bronze from
+the dismantled palace of the Dukes of Chandos<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> at Edgeware, was built by
+the fourth Lord Chesterfield, as he tells us, "among the fields;" and
+contains the library in which he wrote his famous letters to his son.
+Holland House, so long the acknowledged sanctuary of the Whig party,
+still stands amid its terraces and gardens, though its hayfields have, I
+fear, fallen into the builders' hands. Macaulay's Essay, if nothing
+else, will always preserve it from oblivion.</p>
+
+<p>I have written so far about these "Houses," because in virtue of their
+imposing characteristics they formed, as it were, an inner, if not the
+innermost, circle round Marlborough House. But of course Society did not
+dwell exclusively in "Houses," and any social chronicler of the period
+which I am describing will have to include in his survey the long
+stretch of Piccadilly, dividing the "W." from the "S.W." district. On
+the upper side of it, Portman Square, Grosvenor Square, Berkeley Square,
+the Grosvenor Streets and Brook Streets, Curzon Street, Charles Street,
+Hill Street; and below, St. James's Square and Carlton House Terrace,
+Grosvenor Place, Belgrave Square and Eaton Square, Lowndes Square and
+Chesham Place. Following Piccadilly westward into Kensington,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> we come
+to Lowther Lodge, Norman Shaw's most successful work, then beginning its
+social career on the coming of age of the present Speaker,<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> April
+1st, 1876. Below it, Prince's Gate and Queen's Gate and Prince's
+Gardens, and all the wilds of South Kensington, then half reclaimed; and
+that low-lying territory, not even half reclaimed, which, under Lord
+Cadogan's skilful management, has of late years developed into a
+"residential quarter" of high repute. Fill all these streets, and a
+dozen others like them, with rank and wealth and fashion, youth and
+beauty, pleasure-seeking and self-indulgence, and you have described the
+concentric circles of which Marlborough House was the heart. Sydney
+Smith, no mean authority on the social capacities of London, held that
+"the parallelogram between Oxford Street, Piccadilly, Regent Street, and
+Hyde Park, enclosed more intelligence and ability, to say nothing of
+wealth and beauty, than the world had ever collected in such a space
+before." This was very well for Sydney (who lived in Green Street); but
+he flourished when Belgravia had barely been discovered, when South
+Kensington was undreamed-of; and, above all, before the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> Heir Apparent
+had fixed his abode in Pall Mall. Had he lived till 1863, he would have
+had to enlarge his mental borders.</p>
+
+<p>Of the delightful women and beautiful girls who adorned Society when I
+first knew it, I will not speak. A sacred awe makes me mute. The
+"Professional Beauties" and "Frisky Matrons" who disgraced it, have, I
+hope, long since repented, and it would be unkind to revive their names.
+The "Smart Men," old and young, the "cheery boys," the "dancing
+dogs,"&mdash;the Hugo Bohuns and the Freddy Du Canes&mdash;can be imagined as
+easily as described. They were, in the main, very good fellows;
+friendly, sociable, and obliging; but their most ardent admirers would
+scarcely call them interesting; and the companionship of a club or a
+ballroom seemed rather vapid when compared with Oxford:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"The madness and the melody, the singing youth that went there,</div>
+<div>The shining, unforgettable, imperial days we spent there."</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But here and there, swimming rare in the vast whirlpool of Society, one
+used to encounter remarkable faces. Most remarkable was the face of Lord
+Beaconsfield,&mdash;past seventy, though nobody knows how much; with his
+black-dyed hair in painful <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>contrast to the corpse-like pallor of his
+face; with his Blue Ribbon and diamond Star; and the piercing eyes which
+still bespoke his unconquerable vitality.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes Mr. Gladstone was to be seen, with his white tie working round
+toward the back of his neck, and a rose in his button-hole, looking like
+a rather unwilling captive in the hands of Mrs. Gladstone, who moved
+through the social crush with that queenlike dignity of bearing which
+had distinguished her ever since the days when she and her sister, Lady
+Lyttelton, were "the beautiful Miss Glynnes." Robert Lowe, not yet Lord
+Sherbrooke, was a celebrity who might often be seen in Society,&mdash;a
+noteworthy figure with his ruddy face, snow-white hair, and purblind
+gaze. The first Lord Lytton&mdash;Bulwer-Lytton, the novelist&mdash;was dead
+before I came to London; but his brilliant son, "Owen Meredith," in the
+intervals of official employment abroad, was an interesting figure in
+Society; curled and oiled and decorated, with a countenance of Semitic
+type.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Houghton&mdash;to me the kindest and most welcoming of hereditary
+friends&mdash;had a personality and a position altogether his own. His
+appearance was typically English; his manner as free and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>forthcoming as
+a Frenchman's. Thirty years before he had been drawn by a master-hand as
+Mr. Vavasour in <i>Tancred</i>, but no lapse of time could stale his infinite
+variety. He was poet, essayist, politician, public orator, country
+gentleman, railway-director, host, guest, ball-giver, and ball-goer, and
+acted each part with equal zest and assiduity. When I first knew him he
+was living in a house at the top of Arlington Street, from which Hogarth
+had copied the decoration for his "Marriage &agrave; la mode." The site is now
+occupied by the Ritz Hotel, and his friendly ghost still seems to haunt
+the Piccadilly which he loved.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"There on warm, mid-season Sundays, Fryston's bard is wont to wend,</div>
+<div>Whom the Ridings trust and honour, Freedom's staunch and genial friend;</div>
+<div>Known where shrewd hard-handed craftsmen cluster round the northern kilns,</div>
+<div>He whom men style Baron Houghton, but the gods call Dicky Milnes."<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>When first I entered Society, I caught sight of a face which instantly
+arrested my attention. A very small man, both short and slim, with a
+rosy complexion, protruding chin, and trenchant nose, the remains of
+reddish hair, and an extremely alert and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> vivacious expression. The
+broad Red Ribbon of a G.C.B. marked him out as in some way a
+distinguished person; and I discovered that he was the Lord Chief
+Justice of England,&mdash;Sir Alexander Cockburn, one of the most conspicuous
+figures in the social annals of the 'thirties and 'forties, the
+"Hortensius" of <i>Endymion</i>, whose "sunny face and voice of music" had
+carried him out of the ruck of London dandies to the chief seat of the
+British judicature, and had made him the hero of the Tichborne Trial and
+the Alabama Arbitration. Yet another personage of intellectual fame who
+was to be met in Society was Robert Browning, the least poetical-looking
+of poets. Trim, spruce, alert, with a cheerful manner and a flow of
+conversation, he might have been a Cabinet Minister, a diplomatist, or a
+successful financier, almost anything except what he was. "Browning,"
+growled Tennyson, "I'll predict your end. You'll die of apoplexy, in a
+stiff choker, at a London dinner-party."</p>
+
+<p>The streams of society and of politics have always intermingled, and, at
+the period of which I am writing, Lord Hartington, afterwards, as 8th
+Duke of Devonshire, leader of the Liberal Unionists, might still be seen
+lounging and sprawling in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>doorways and corners. Mr. Arthur Balfour,
+weedy and willowy, was remarked with interest as a young man of great
+possessions, who had written an unintelligible book but might yet do
+something in Parliament; while Lord Rosebery, though looking absurdly
+youthful, was spoken of as cherishing lofty ambitions.</p>
+
+<p>Later on, I may perhaps say more about private entertainment and about
+those who figured in it; but now I must turn to the public sights and
+shows. Matthew Arnold once wrote to his mother: "I think you will be
+struck with the aspect of London in May; the wealth and brilliancy of it
+is more remarkable every year. The carriages, the riders, and the
+walkers in Hyde Park, on a fine evening in May or June, are alone worth
+coming to London to see." This description, though written some years
+before, was eminently true of Rotten Row and its adjacent drives when I
+first frequented them. Frederick Locker, a minor poet of Society, asked
+in some pensive stanzas on Rotten Row:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"But where is now the courtly troop</div>
+<div class="i1">That once rode laughing by?</div>
+<div>I miss the curls of Cantilupe,</div>
+<div class="i1">The laugh of Lady Di."</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Lord Cantilupe, of whom I always heard that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> was the handsomest man
+of his generation, died before I was born, and Lady Di Beauclerck had
+married Baron Huddleston and ceased to ride in Rotten Row before I came
+to London; so my survey of the scene was unmarred by Locker's reflective
+melancholy, and I could do full justice to its charm. "Is there," asked
+Lord Beaconsfield, "a more gay and graceful spectacle in this world than
+Hyde Park at the end of a long summer morning in the merry month of May?
+Where can we see such beautiful women, such gallant cavaliers, such fine
+horses, such brilliant equipages? The scene, too, is worthy of such
+agreeable accessories&mdash;the groves, the gleaming waters, and the
+triumphal arches. In the distance the misty heights of Surrey and the
+lovely glades of Kensington." This passage would need some re-touching
+if it were to describe the Park in 1911, but in 1880 it was still a
+photograph.</p>
+
+<p>With regard to Public Entertainments in the more technical sense, the
+period of which I am writing was highly favoured. We had Irving and Miss
+Terry at the height of their powers, with all the gorgeous yet accurate
+"staging" which Irving had originated. We had Lady Bancroft with that
+wonderful undertone of pathos in even her brightest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> comedy, and her
+accomplished husband, whose peculiar art blended so harmoniously with
+her own. We had John Hare, the "perfect gentleman" of Stage-land, and
+the Kendals with their quiet excellence in Drawing-room Drama; and the
+riotous glory of Mrs. John Wood, whose performances, with Arthur Cecil,
+at the Court Theatre, will always remain the most mirth-provoking
+memories of my life. Midway between the Theatre and the Opera, there was
+the long and lovely series of Gilbert and Sullivan, who surely must have
+afforded a larger amount of absolutely innocent delight to a larger
+number of people than any two artists who ever collaborated in the
+public service.</p>
+
+<p>As to the Opera itself, I must quote a curious passage from Lord
+Beaconsfield, who figures so often in these pages, because none ever
+understood London so perfectly as he.</p>
+
+<p>"What will strike you most at the Opera is that you will not see a
+single person you ever saw before in your life. It is strange; and it
+shows what a mass of wealth and taste and refinement there is in this
+wonderful metropolis of ours, quite irrespective of the circles in which
+we move, and which we once thought, entirely engrossed them."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p><p>Those words describe, roughly, the seasons of 1867-1870; and they still
+hold good, to a considerable extent, of my earlier years in London. The
+Opera was then the resort of people who really loved music. It had
+ceased to be, what it had been in the 'thirties and 'forties, a merely
+fashionable resort; and its social resurrection had scarcely begun.</p>
+
+<p>Personally, I have always been fonder of real life than of its dramatic
+counterfeit; and a form of Public Entertainment which greatly attracted
+me was that provided by the Law Courts. To follow the intricacies of a
+really interesting trial; to observe the demeanour and aspect of the
+witnesses; to listen to the impassioned flummery of the leading counsel;
+to note its effect on the Twelve Men in the Box; and then to see the
+Chinese Puzzle of conflicting evidence arranged in its damning exactness
+by a skilful judge, is to me an intellectual enjoyment which can hardly
+be equalled. I have never stayed in court after the jury had retired in
+a capital case, for I hold it impious to stare at the mortal agony of a
+fellow-creature; but the trial of Johann Most for inciting to
+tyrannicide; of Gallagher and his gang of dynamiters for Treason-Felony;
+and of Dr. Lampson for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> poisoning his brother-in-law, can never be
+forgotten. Not so thrilling, but quite as interesting, were the "Jockey
+Trial," in 1888, the "Baccarat Case," in 1891, and the "Trial at Bar,"
+of the Raiders in 1896. But they belong to a later date than the period
+covered by this chapter.</p>
+
+<p>My fondness for the Law Courts might suggest that I was inclined to be a
+lawyer. Not so. Only two professions ever attracted me in the slightest
+degree,&mdash;Holy Orders and Parliament. But when the dividing-line of 1874
+cut my life in two, it occurred to my Father that, aided by name and
+connexions, I might pass a few years at the Parliamentary Bar,
+pleasantly and not unprofitably, until an opportunity of entering
+Parliament occurred. Partly with that end in view, and partly because it
+seemed disgraceful to have no definite occupation, I became, in 1875, a
+student of the Inner Temple. I duly ate my dinners; or, rather, as the
+Temple dined at the unappetizing hour of six, went through a form of
+eating them; and in so doing was constantly reminded of the experiences
+of my favourite "Pen." The ways of Law-students had altered wonderfully
+little in the lapse of forty years.</p>
+
+<p>"The ancient and liberal Inn of the Inner Temple<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> provides in its Hall,
+and for a most moderate price, an excellent and wholesome dinner of
+soup, meat, tarts, and port wine or sherry, for the Barristers and
+Students who attend that place of refection. The parties are arranged in
+messes of four, each of which quartets has its piece of beef or leg of
+mutton, its sufficient apple-pie, and its bottle of wine. 'This is
+boiled beef day, I believe, Sir,' said Lowton to Pen. 'Upon my word,
+Sir, I'm not aware,' said Pen. 'I'm a stranger; this is my first term;
+on which Lowton began to point out to him the notabilities in the Hall.
+'Do you see those four fellows seated opposite to us? They are regular
+swells&mdash;tip-top fellows, I can tell you&mdash;Mr. Trail, the Bishop of
+Ealing's son, Honourable Fred Ringwood, Lord Cinqbars' brother, you
+know; and Bob Suckling, who's always with him. I say, I'd like to mess
+with those chaps.' 'And why?' asked Pen. 'Why! they don't come down here
+to dine, you know, they only make believe to dine. <i>They</i> dine here,
+Lord bless you! They go to some of the swell clubs, or else to some
+grand dinner-party. You see their names in the <i>Morning Post</i> at all the
+fine parties in London. They dine! They won't dine these two hours, I
+dare say.' 'But why should you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> like to mess with them, if they don't
+eat any dinner?' Pen asked, still puzzled. 'There's plenty, isn't
+there?' 'How green you are,' said Lowton. 'Excuse me, but you are green!
+They don't drink any wine, don't you see, and a fellow gets the bottle
+to himself, if he likes it, when he messes with those three chaps.
+That's why Corkoran got in with them.'"</p>
+
+<p>Such were dinners at the Temple in Thackeray's time, and such they were
+in mine. My legal studies were superintended by my friend Mr. J. S. Fox,
+now K.C., and Recorder of Sheffield. Should this book ever fall under
+his learned eye, I should be interested to know if he has ever completed
+the erudite work which in those distant days he contemplated
+undertaking,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div class="i1">"Tell a Lie and Stick to it:"</div>
+<div>A Treatise on the Law of Estoppel.</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But this is a digression.</p>
+
+<p>Before I leave London as it was when first I dwelt in it, I ought to
+recall some of the eminent persons who adorned it. Lord Beaconsfield was
+at the zenith of his power and popularity. Mr. Gladstone, though the
+crowning triumph of 1880 was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> not far off, was so unpopular in Society
+that I was asked to meet him at a dinner as a favour to the hostess, who
+found it difficult to collect a party when he was dining. Lord Salisbury
+had just emerged from a seven years' retirement, and was beginning to
+play for the Premiership. Mr. Chamberlain was spoken of with a kind of
+awe, as a desperate demagogue longing to head a revolution; and Lord
+Randolph Churchill was hardly known outside the Turf Club.</p>
+
+<p>Law was presided over, as I have already said, by the brilliant
+Cockburn, and the mellifluous Coleridge was palpably preparing to
+succeed him. People whispered wonders about Charles Bowen; and Henry
+James and Charles Russell had established their positions. In the
+hierarchy of Medicine there were several leaders. Jenner ruled his
+patients by terror; Gull by tact, and Andrew Clark by religious
+mysticism. To me, complaining of dyspepsia, he prescribed a diet with
+the Pauline formula: "I seek to impose a yoke upon you, that you may be
+truly free." In the chief seat of the Church sat Archbishop Tait, the
+most dignified prelate whom I have ever met in our communion, and a
+really impressive spokesman of the Church in the House of Lords. The
+Northern Primate, Dr. Thomson, was styled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> "The Archbishop of Society";
+and the Deanery at Westminster sheltered the fine flower of grace and
+culture in the fragile person of Dean Stanley. G. H. Wilkinson,
+afterwards Bishop of Truro and of St. Andrews, had lately been appointed
+to St. Peter's, Eaton Square, and had burst like a gunboat into a Dead
+Sea of lethargy and formalism.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, the list does not pretend to be exhaustive. It only aims at
+commemorating a few of the figures, in different walks of life, which
+commanded my attention when I began to know&mdash;otherwise than as a
+schoolboy can know it&mdash;what London is, means, and contains. Five and
+thirty years have sped their course. My Home in the country has ceased
+to exist; and I find myself numbered among that goodly company who, in
+succeeding ages, have loved London and found it their natural
+dwelling-place. I fancy that Lord St. Aldwyn is too much of a sportsman
+to applaud the sentiment of his ancestor who flourished in the reign of
+Charles II., but it is exactly mine.</p>
+
+<p>"London is the only place of England to winter in, whereof many true men
+might be put for examples. If the air of the streets be fulsome, then
+fields be at hand. If you be weary of the City, you may go<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> to the
+Court. If you surfeit of the Court, you may ride into the country; and
+so shoot, as it were, at rounds with a roving arrow. You can wish for no
+kind of meat, but here is a market; for no kind of pastime, but here is
+a companion. If you be solitary, here be friends to sit with you. If you
+be sick, and one doctor will not serve your turn, you may have twain.
+When you are weary of your lodging, you may walk into St. Paul's ... in
+the Middle Aisle you may hear what the Protestants say, and in the
+others what the Papists whisper; and, when you have heard both, believe
+but one, for but one of both says true you may be assured."</p>
+
+<p>We clear the chasm of a century, and hear Dr. Johnson singing the same
+tune as Squire Hicks.</p>
+
+<p>"The happiness of London is not to be conceived but by those who have
+been in it. I'll venture to say, there is more learning and science
+within the circumference of ten miles from where we now sit, than in all
+the rest of the kingdom."</p>
+
+<p>"London is nothing to some people; but to a man whose pleasure is
+intellectual, London is the place."</p>
+
+<p>"The town is my element; there are my friends,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> there are my books, to
+which I have not yet bid farewell, and there are my amusements."</p>
+
+<p>But even Johnson, who is always quoted as the typical lover of London,
+was not more enthusiastic in its praise than Gibbon. To him "London was
+never dull, there at least he could keep the monster <i>Ennui</i> at a
+respectful distance." For him its heat was always tempered; even its
+solitude was "delicious." In "the soft retirement of my <i>bocage de</i>
+Bentinck Street" the dog-days pass unheeded. "Charming hot weather! I am
+just going to dine alone. Afterwards I shall walk till dark in <i>my</i>
+gardens at Kensington, and shall then return to a frugal supper and
+early bed in Bentinck Street. I lead the life of a philosopher, without
+any regard to the world or to fashion."</p>
+
+<p>So much for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; we now return to
+the nineteenth and are listening to Sydney Smith. "I look forward
+anxiously to the return of the bad weather, coal fires, and good society
+in a crowded city." "The country is bad enough in summer, but in winter
+it is a fit residence only for beings doomed to such misery for misdeeds
+in another state of existence." "You may depend upon it, all lives lived
+out of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> London are mistakes, more or less grievous&mdash;but mistakes." "I
+shall not be sorry to be in town. I am rather tired of simple pleasures,
+bad reasoning, and worse cookery."</p>
+
+<p>Let Lord Beaconsfield have the last word, as is his due; for truly did
+he know and love his London.</p>
+
+<p>"It was a mild winter evening, a little fog still hanging about, but
+vanquished by the cheerful lamps, and the voice of the muffin-bell was
+heard at intervals; a genial sound that calls up visions of trim and
+happy hearths. If we could only so contrive our lives as to go into the
+country for the first note of the nightingale, and return to town for
+the first note of the muffin-bell, existence, it is humbly presumed,
+might be more enjoyable."</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Lord Beaconsfield, <i>Tancred</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Written in May, 1910.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> A nickname invented by the famous Eton tutor, "Billy
+Johnson," for a florid journalist.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Lord Beaconsfield, <i>Lothair</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> See M. Arnold's Letters, May 15, 1880.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> The Right Hon. J. W. Lowther.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Sir George Trevelyan, <i>The Ladies in Parliament</i>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>HOSPITALITY</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p>"I never eat and I never drink," said the Cardinal. "I am sorry to
+say I cannot. I like dinner-society very much. You see the world,
+and you hear things which you do not hear otherwise."</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Lord Beaconsfield</span>, <i>Lothair</i>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The Cardinal was much to be pitied. He had a real genius for society,
+and thoroughly enjoyed such forms of it as his health and profession
+permitted. Though he could not dine with Mr. Putney Giles, he went to
+Mrs. Putney Giles's evening party, where he made an important
+acquaintance. He looked in at Lady St. Jerome's after dinner; and his
+visits to Vauxe and to Muriel Towers were fraught with memorable
+results.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Putney Giles, though a staunch Protestant, was delighted to receive
+a Cardinal, and not less so that he should meet in her drawing-room the
+inexpressibly magnificent Lothair. That is all in the course of nature;
+but what has always puzzled me is the ease with which a youth of no
+particular <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>pretensions, arriving in London from Oxford or Cambridge or
+from a country home, swims into society, and finds himself welcomed by
+people whose names he barely knows. I suppose that in this, as in more
+important matters, the helpers of the social fledgling are good-natured
+women. The fledgling probably starts by being related to one or two, and
+acquainted with three or four more; and each of them says to a friend
+who entertains&mdash;"My cousin, Freddy Du Cane, is a very nice fellow, and
+waltzes capitally. Do send him a card for your dance"&mdash;or "Tommy Tucker
+is a neighbour of ours in the country. If ever you want an odd man to
+fill up a place at dinner, I think you will find him useful." Then there
+was in those days, and perhaps there is still, a mysterious race of
+men&mdash;Hierophants of Society&mdash;who had great powers of helping or
+hindering the social beginner. They were bachelors, not very young; who
+had seen active service as dancers and diners for ten or twenty seasons;
+and who kept lists of eligible youths which they were perpetually
+renewing at White's or the Marlborough. To one of these the intending
+hostess would turn, saying, "Dear Mr. Golightly, <i>do</i> give me your
+list;" and, if Freddy Du Cane had contrived<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> to ingratiate himself with
+Mr. Golightly, invitations to balls and dances, of every size and sort,
+would soon begin to flutter down on him like snow-flakes. It mattered
+nothing that he had never seen his host or hostess, nor they him. Corney
+Grain expressed the situation in his own inimitable verse:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"Old Mr. Parvenu gave a great ball&mdash;</div>
+<div>And of all his smart guests he knew no one at all.</div>
+<div>Old Mr. Parvenu went up to bed,</div>
+<div>And the guest said 'Good-night' to the butler instead."</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But light come, light go. Ball-going is elysian when one is very young
+and cheerful and active, but it is a pleasure which, for nine men out of
+ten, soon palls. Dinner-society, as Cardinal Grandison knew, is a more
+serious affair, and admission to it is not so lightly attained.</p>
+
+<p>When Sydney Smith returned from a visit to Paris, he wrote, in the
+fulness of his heart:</p>
+
+<p>"I care very little about dinners, but I shall not easily forget a
+<i>matelote</i> at the 'Rochers de Cancale,' or an almond tart at Montreuil,
+or a <i>poulet &agrave; la Tartare</i> at Grignon's. These are impressions which no
+changes in future life can obliterate."</p>
+
+<p>I am tempted to pursue the line of thought thus invitingly opened, but I
+forbear; for it really has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> no special connexion with the retrospective
+vein. I am now describing the years 1876-1880, and dinners then were
+pretty much what they are now. The new age of dining had begun. Those
+frightful hecatombs of sheep and oxen which Francatelli decreed had made
+way for more ethereal fare. The age-long tyranny of "The Joint" was
+already undermined. I have indeed been one of a party of forty in the
+dog-days, where a belated haunch of venison cried aloud for decent
+burial; but such outrages were even then becoming rare. The champagne of
+which a poet had beautifully said:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"How sad and bad and mad it was,</div>
+<div class="i1">And Oh! how it was sweet!"</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>had been banished in favour of the barely alcoholic liquor which foams
+in modern glasses. And, thanks to the influence of King Edward VII,
+after-dinner drinking had been exorcised by cigarettes. The portentous
+piles of clumsy silver which had overshadowed our fathers'
+tables&mdash;effigies of Peace and Plenty, Racing Cups and Prizes for fat
+cattle&mdash;had been banished to the plate-closets; bright china and
+brighter flowers reigned in their stead. In short, a dinner thirty-five
+years ago was very like a dinner to-day. It did not take me long to find
+that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> (with Cardinal Grandison) "I liked dinner-society very much," and
+that "you see the world there and hear things which you do not hear
+otherwise."</p>
+
+<p>I have already described the methods by which ball-society was, and
+perhaps is, recruited. An incident which befell me in my second season
+threw a similar light on the more obscure question of dinner-society.
+One day I received a large card which intimated that Mr. and Mrs.
+Goldmore requested the honour of my company at dinner. I was a little
+surprised, because though I had been to balls at the Goldmores' house
+and had made my bow at the top of the stairs, I did not really know
+them. They had newly arrived in London, with a great fortune made in
+clay pipes and dolls' eyes, and were making their way by entertaining
+lavishly. However, it was very kind of them to ask me to dinner, and I
+readily accepted. The appointed evening came, and I arrived rather late.
+In an immense drawing-room there were some thirty guests assembled, and,
+as I looked round, I could not see a single face which I had ever seen
+before. Worse than that, it was obvious that Mr. and Mrs. Goldmore did
+not know me. They heard my name announced, received me quite politely,
+and then retired into a window, where their darkling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> undertones,
+enquiring glances, and heads negatively shaken, made it only too clear
+that they were asking one another who on earth the last arrival was.
+However, their embarrassment and mine was soon relieved by the
+announcement of dinner. As there were more male guests than women, there
+was no need to give me a partner; so we all swept downstairs in a
+promiscuous flood, and soon were making the vital choice between
+<i>bisque</i> and <i>consomm&eacute;</i>. Eating my dinner, I revolved my plans, and
+decided to make a clean breast of it. So, when we went up into the
+drawing-room, I made straight for my hostess. "I feel sure," I said,
+"that you and Mr. Goldmore did not expect me to-night." "Oh," was the
+gracious reply, "I hope there was nothing in our manner which made you
+feel that you were unwelcome." "Nothing," I replied, "could have been
+kinder than your manner, but one has a certain social instinct which
+tells one when one has made a mistake. And yet what the mistake was I
+cannot guess. I am sure it is the right house and the right evening&mdash;Do
+please explain." "Well," said Mrs. Goldmore, "as you have found out so
+much, I think I had better tell you all. <i>We were not expecting you.</i> We
+have not even now the pleasure of knowing who you are.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> We were
+expecting Dr. Russell, the <i>Times</i> Correspondent, and all these ladies
+and gentlemen have been asked to meet him." So it was not my mistake
+after all, and I promptly rallied my forces. "The card certainly had my
+first name, initials, and address all right, so there was nothing to
+make me suspect a mistake. Besides, I should have thought that everyone
+who knew the <i>Times</i> Russell knew that his first name was William&mdash;he is
+always called 'Billy Russell.'" "Well"&mdash;and now the truth coyly
+emerged&mdash;"the fact is that we <i>don't</i> know him. We heard that he was a
+pleasant man and fond of dining out, and so we looked him up in the
+<i>Court Guide</i>, and sent the invitation. I suppose we hit on your address
+by mistake for his." I suppose so too; and that this is the method by
+which newcomers build up a "Dinner-Society" in London.</p>
+
+<p>One particular form of dinner deserves a special word of commemoration,
+because it has gone, never to return. This was the "Fish Dinner" at
+Greenwich or Blackwall, or even so far afield as Gravesend. It was to a
+certain extent a picnic; without the formality of dressing, and made
+pleasant by opportunities of fun and fresh air, in the park or on the
+river, before we addressed ourselves to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> serious business of the
+evening; but that was serious indeed. The "Menu" of a dinner at the Ship
+Hotel at Greenwich lies before me as I write. It contains turtle soup,
+eleven kinds of fish, two <i>entr&eacute;es</i>, a haunch of venison, poultry, ham,
+grouse, leverets, five sweet dishes, and two kinds of ice. Well, those
+were great days&mdash;we shall not look upon their like again. Let a poet<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a>
+who knew what he was writing about have the last word on Dinner.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"We may live without poetry, music, and art;</div>
+<div>We may live without conscience and live without heart;</div>
+<div>We may live without friends; we may live without books;</div>
+<div>But civilized man cannot live without Cooks.</div>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<div>"He may live without lore&mdash;what is knowledge but grieving?</div>
+<div>He may live without hope&mdash;what is hope but deceiving?</div>
+<div>He may live without love&mdash;what is passion but pining?</div>
+<div>But where is the man that can live without dining?"</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>There is an exquisite truth in this lyrical cry, but it stops short of
+the fulness of the subject. It must be remembered that "dining" is not
+the only form of eating. Mr. Gladstone, who thought modern luxury rather
+disgusting, used to complain that nowadays life in a country house meant
+three dinners a day, and, if you reckoned sandwiches and poached eggs at
+five o'clock tea, nearly four.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> Indeed, the only difference that I can
+perceive between a modern luncheon and a modern dinner is that at the
+former meal you don't have soup or a printed <i>Menu</i>. There have always
+been some houses where the luncheons were much more famous than the
+dinners. Dinner, after all, is something of a ceremony; it requires
+forethought, care, and organization. Luncheon is more of a scramble,
+and, in the case of a numerous and scattered family, it is the
+pleasantest of reunions.</p>
+
+<p>My uncle Lord John Russell (1792-1878) published in 1820 a book of
+<i>Essays and Sketches</i>, in which he speaks of "women sitting down to a
+substantial luncheon at three or four," and observes that men would be
+wise if they followed the example. All contemporary evidence points to
+luncheon as a female meal, at which men attended, if at all,
+clandestinely. If a man habitually sat down to luncheon, and ate it
+through, he was regarded as indifferent to the claims of dinner, and,
+moreover, was contemned as an idler. No one who had anything to do could
+find time for a square meal in the middle of the day. But, as years went
+on, the feeling changed. Prince Albert was notoriously fond of luncheon,
+and Queen Victoria humoured<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> him. They dined very late, and the luncheon
+at the Palace became a very real and fully recognized meal. The example,
+communicated from the highest quarters, was soon followed in Society;
+and, when I first knew London, luncheon was as firmly established as
+dinner. As a rule, it was not an affair of fixed invitation; but a
+hostess would say, "You will always find us at luncheon, somewhere about
+two"&mdash;and one took her at her word.</p>
+
+<p>The luncheon by invitation was a more formal, and rather terrible,
+affair. I well remember a house where at two o'clock in June we had to
+sit down with curtains drawn, lights ablaze, and rose-coloured shades to
+the candles, because the hostess thought, rightly as regarded herself,
+less so as regarded her guests, that no one's complexion could stand the
+searching trial of midsummer sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>"Sunday Luncheon" was always a thing apart. For some reason, not
+altogether clear, perhaps because devotion long sustained makes a strong
+demand on the nervous system, men who turned up their noses at luncheon
+on weekdays devoured roast beef and Yorkshire pudding on Sundays, and
+went forth, like giants refreshed, for a round of afternoon calls. The
+Sunday Luncheon was a recognized centre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> of social life. Where there was
+even a moderate degree of intimacy a guest might drop in and be sure of
+mayonnaise, chicken, and welcome. I can recall an occasion of this kind
+when I saw social Presence of Mind exemplified, as I thought and think,
+on an heroic scale. Luncheon was over. It had not been a particularly
+bounteous meal; the guests had been many; the chicken had been eaten to
+the drumstick and the cutlets to the bone. Nothing remained but a huge
+Trifle, of chromatic and threatening aspect, on which no one had
+ventured to embark. Coffee was just coming, when the servant entered
+with an anxious expression, and murmured to the hostess that Monsieur de
+Petitpois&mdash;a newly-arrived attach&eacute;&mdash;had come, and seemed to expect
+luncheon. The hostess grasped the situation in an instant, and issued
+her commands with a promptitude and a directness which the Duke of
+Wellington could not have surpassed. "Clear everything away, but leave
+the Trifle. Then show M. de Petitpois in." Enter De Petitpois.
+"Delighted to see you. Quite right. Always at home at Sunday luncheon.
+Pray come and sit here and have some Trifle. It is our national Sunday
+dish." Poor young De Petitpois, actuated by the same principle which
+made the Prodigal <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>desire the husks, filled himself with spongecake,
+jam, and whipped cream; and went away looking rather pale. If he kept a
+journal, he no doubt noted the English Sunday as one of our most curious
+institutions, and "Le Trifle" as its crowning horror.</p>
+
+<p>Supper is a word of very different significances. There is the Ball
+Supper, which I have described in a previous chapter. There is the
+Supper after the Missionary Meeting in the country, when "The Deputation
+from the Parent Society" is entertained with cold beef, boiled eggs, and
+cocoa. There is the diurnal Supper, fruitful parent of our national
+crudities, eaten by the social class that dines at one; and this Supper
+(as was disclosed at a recent inquest) may consist of steak, tomatoes,
+and tea.</p>
+
+<p>And yet, again, there is the Theatrical Supper, which, eaten in
+congenial company after <i>Patience</i> or <i>The Whip</i>, is our nearest
+approach to the "Nights and Suppers of the Gods." This kind of supper
+has a niche of its own in my retrospects. It was my privilege when first
+I came to London to know Lady Burdett-Coutts, famous all over the world
+as a philanthropist, and also, in every tone and gesture, a survival
+from the days when great station and great manner went together. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>Lady
+Burdett-Coutts was an enthusiastic devotee of the drama; and, when her
+Evening Parties were breaking up, she would gently glide round the great
+rooms in Stratton Street, and say to a departing guest:</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you need not go just yet. I am expecting Mr. Irving to supper
+after the play, and I am asking a few friends to meet him."</p>
+
+<p>As far as I know, I am the only survivor of those delightful feasts.</p>
+
+<p>Dinner and luncheon and supper must, I suppose, be reckoned among the
+permanent facts of life; but there is, or was, one meal of which I have
+witnessed the unwept disappearance. It had its roots in our historic
+past. It clung to its place in our social economy. It lived long and
+died hard. It was the Breakfast-Party. When I first lived in London, it
+was, like some types of human character, vigorous but unpopular. No one
+could really like going out to breakfast; but the people who gave
+Breakfast-Parties were worthy and often agreeable people; and there were
+few who had the hardihood to say them Nay.</p>
+
+<p>The most famous breakfast-parties of the time were given by Mr.
+Gladstone, on every Thursday morning in the Session; when, while we ate
+broiled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> salmon and drank coffee, our host discoursed to an admiring
+circle about the colour-sense in Homer, or the polity of the ancient
+Hittites. Around the table were gathered Lions and Lionesses of various
+breeds and sizes, who, if I remember aright, did not get quite as much
+opportunity for roaring as they would have liked; for, when Mr.
+Gladstone had started on a congenial theme, it was difficult to get in a
+word edgeways. One of these breakfast-parties at 10, Downing Street,
+stands out in memory more clearly than the rest, for it very nearly had
+a part in that "Making of History" which was then so much in vogue. The
+date was April 23, 1885. The party comprised Lady Ripon, Lord Granville,
+Dean Church, and Miss Mary Anderson, then in the height of her fame and
+beauty. We were stolidly munching and listening, when suddenly we heard
+a crash as if heaven and earth had come together; and presently we
+learned that there had been an explosion of dynamite at the Admiralty,
+about a hundred yards from where we were sitting. The proximity of
+nitro-glycerine seemed to operate as a check on conversation, and, as we
+rose from the table, I heard Miss Anderson say to Miss Gladstone, "Your
+pa seemed quite scared."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p><p>Other breakfast-givers of the time were Lord Houghton, Lord Arthur
+Russell, Mr. Shaw-Lefevre (afterwards Lord Eversley), and Sir John
+Lubbock (afterwards Lord Avebury); and there were even people so
+desperately wedded to this terrible tradition that they formed
+themselves into Clubs with no other object than to breakfast, and bound
+themselves by solemn pledges to meet one morning in every week, and eat
+and argue themselves into dyspepsia. Sydney Smith wrote thus to a
+friend: "I have a breakfast of philosophers to-morrow at ten
+punctually&mdash;muffins and metaphysics, crumpets and contradiction. Will
+you come?" That inviting picture, though it was drawn before I was born,
+exactly describes the breakfast-parties which I remember. One met all
+sorts of people, but very few Mary Andersons. Breakfasters were
+generally old,&mdash;politicians, diplomatists, authors, journalists, men of
+science, political economists, and everyone else who was most improving.
+No doubt it was a priceless privilege to meet them; yet, as I heard them
+prate and prose, I could not help recalling a favourite passage from
+Mrs. Sherwood's quaint tale of <i>Henry Milner</i>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Dolben, as usual, gave utterance at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>breakfast to several of those
+pure and wise and refined principles, which sometimes distil as drops of
+honey from the lips of pious and intellectual old persons." It was
+breakfast that set Mr. Dolben off. We are not told that he distilled his
+honey at dinner or supper; so his case must be added to the long list of
+deleterious results produced by breakfasting in public.</p>
+
+<p>Conversation must, I think, have been at rather a low ebb when I first
+encountered it in London. Men breakfasted in public, as we have just
+seen, in order to indulge in it; and I remember a terrible Club where it
+raged on two nights of every week, in a large, dark, and draughty room,
+while men sat round an indifferent fire, drinking barley-water, and
+talking for talking's sake&mdash;the most melancholy of occupations. But at
+these dismal orgies one never heard anything worth remembering. The
+"pious and intellectual old persons" whom Mrs. Sherwood admired had
+withdrawn from the scene, if indeed they had ever figured on it. Those
+who remained were neither pious nor intellectual, but compact of spite
+and greediness, with here and there worse faults. But some brighter
+spirits were coming on. To call them by the names which they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> then bore,
+Mr. George Trevelyan and Mr. John Morley were thought very promising,
+for social fame in London takes a long time to establish itself. Sir
+William Harcourt was capital company in the heavier style; and Lord
+Rosebery in the lighter. But Mr. Herbert Paul was known only to the
+<i>Daily News</i>, and Mr. Augustine Birrell's ray serene had not emerged
+from the dim, unfathomed caves of the Chancery Bar.</p>
+
+<p>So far, I have been writing about Conversation with a capital "C,"&mdash;an
+elaborate and studied art which in old days such men as Sharpe and
+Jekyll and Luttrell illustrated, and, in times more modern, Brookfield
+and Cockburn and Lowe and Hayward. For the ordinary chit-chat of social
+intercourse&mdash;chaff and repartee, gossip and fun and frolic&mdash;I believe
+that London was just as good in 1876 as it had been fifty years before.
+We were young and happy, enjoying ourselves, and on easy terms with one
+another. "It was roses, roses all the way." Our talk was unpremeditated
+and unstudied, quick as lightning, springing out of the interest or the
+situation of the moment, uttered in an instant and as soon forgotten.
+Everyone who has ever made the attempt must realize that to gather up
+the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>fragments of such talk as this is as impossible as to collect
+shooting stars or to reconstruct a rainbow.</p>
+
+<p>But, though I cannot say what we talked about in those distant days, I
+believe I can indicate with certainty two topics which were never
+mentioned. One is Health, and the other is Money. I presume that people
+had pretty much the same complaints as now, but no one talked about
+them. We had been told of a lady who died in agony because she insisted
+on telling the doctor that the pain was in her chest, whereas it really
+was in the unmentionable organ of digestion. That martyr to propriety
+has no imitator in the present day. Everyone has a disease and a doctor,
+and young people of both sexes are ready on the slightest acquaintance
+to describe symptoms and compare experiences. "Ice!" exclaimed a pretty
+girl at dessert. "Good gracious, no. So bad for indy!" And her
+companion, who had not travelled with the times, learned with interest
+that "indy" was the pet name for indigestion.</p>
+
+<p>Then, again, as to money. In the "Sacred Circle of the Great
+Grandmotherhood," I never heard the slightest reference to income. Not
+that the Whigs despised money. They were at least as fond of it as other
+people, and, even when it took the shape<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> of slum-rents, its odour was
+not displeasing; but it was not a subject for conversation. People did
+not chatter about their neighbours' incomes; and, if they made their own
+money in trades or professions, they did not regale us with statistics
+of profit and loss. To-day everyone seems to be, if I may use the
+favourite colloquialism, "on the make"; and the devotion with which
+people worship money pervades their whole conversation, and colours
+their whole view of life. "Scions of Aristocracy," to use the good old
+phrase of Pennialinus, will produce samples of tea or floor-cloth from
+their pockets, and sue quite winningly for custom. A speculative bottle
+of extraordinarily cheap peach-brandy will arrive with the compliments
+of Lord Tom Noddy, who has just gone into the wine-trade; and Lord
+Magnus Charters will tell you that, if you are going to rearrange your
+electric light, his firm has got some really artistic fittings which he
+can let you have on specially easy terms.</p>
+
+<p>So far I have spoken of Hospitality as if it consisted wholly in eating
+and drinking. Not so. In those days Evening Parties, or Receptions, or
+Drums, or Tails, for so they were indifferently called, took place on
+four or five nights of every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> week. "Tails" as the name implies, were
+little parties tacked on to the end of big dinners, where a few people
+looked in, rather cross at not having been invited to dine, or else in a
+desperate hurry to get on to a larger party or a ball. The larger
+parties were given generally on Saturday evenings; and then, amid a
+crushing crowd and a din which recalled the Parrot-House at the Zoo, one
+might rub shoulders with all the famous men and women of the time. When
+Mr. St. Barbe in <i>Endymion</i> attended a gathering of this kind, he said
+to his companion, "I daresay that Ambassador has been blundering all his
+life, and yet there is something in that Star and Ribbon. I do not know
+how you feel, but I could almost go down on my knees to him.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>'Ye stars which are the poetry of heaven,'</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Byron wrote; a silly line, he should have written&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>'Ye stars which are the poetry of dress.'"</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Political "Drums" had a flavour which was all their own. If they were
+given in any of the Great Houses of London, where the stateliness and
+beauty of the old world still survived, such guests as Lord
+Beaconsfield's creations, Mr. Horrocks, M.P., and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> Trodgitts, the
+unsuccessful candidate, would look a little subdued. But in the ordinary
+house, with a back and front drawing-room and a buffet in the
+dining-room, those good men were quite at home, and the air was thick
+with political shop&mdash;whether we should loose Pedlington or save
+Shuffleborough with a struggle&mdash;whether A would get office and how
+disgusted B would be if he did.</p>
+
+<p>Here and there a more thrilling note was sounded. At a Liberal party in
+the spring of 1881 an ex-Whip of the Liberal party said to a Liberal
+lady, as he was giving her a cup of tea: "Have you heard how ill old
+Dizzy is?" "Oh, yes!" replied the lady, with a rapturous wink, "I
+know&mdash;dying!" Such are the amenities of political strife.</p>
+
+<p>A much more agreeable form of hospitality was the Garden-Party. When I
+came to live in London, the old-fashioned phrase&mdash;a "Breakfast"&mdash;so
+familiar in memoirs and novels, had almost passed out of use. On the
+22nd of June, 1868, Queen Victoria signalized her partial return to
+social life by commanding her lieges to a "Breakfast" in the gardens of
+Buckingham Palace; and the newspapers made merry over the notion of
+Breakfast which began at four and ended at seven. The old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> title
+gradually died out, and by 1876 people had begun to talk about
+"Garden-Parties."</p>
+
+<p>By whichever names they were called, they were, and are, delightful
+festivals. Sometimes they carried one as far as Hatfield, my
+unapproached favourite among all the "Stately homes of England"; but
+generally they were nearer London&mdash;at Syon, with the Thames floating
+gravely past its lawns&mdash;Osterley, where the decorative skill of the
+Brothers Adam is superimposed on Sir Thomas Gresham's Elizabethan
+brickwork&mdash;Holland House, rife with memories of Fox and
+Macaulay&mdash;Lowther Lodge, with its patch of unspoiled country in the
+heart of Western London. Closely akin to these Garden-Parties were other
+forms of outdoor entertainment&mdash;tea at Hurlingham or Ranelagh; and
+river-parties where ardent youth might contrive to capsize the adored
+one, and propose as he rescued her, dripping, from the Thames.</p>
+
+<p>It is only within the last few years that we have begun to talk of
+"Week-Ends" and "week-Ending." These terrible phrases have come down to
+us from the North of England; but before they arrived the thing which
+they signify was here. "Saturday-to-Monday Parties" they were called.
+They were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> not so frequent as now, because Saturday was a favourite
+night for entertaining in London, and it was generally bespoken for
+dinners and drums. But, as the summer advanced and hot rooms became
+unendurable, people who lived only forty or fifty miles out of London
+began to ask if one would run down to them on Friday or Saturday, and
+stay over Sunday. Of these hospitalities I was a sparing and infrequent
+cultivator, for they always meant two sleepless nights; and, as someone
+truly observed, just as you had begun to wear off the corners of your
+soap, it was time to return to London. But there were people, more
+happily constituted, who could thoroughly enjoy and profit by the weekly
+dose of fresh air and quiet. It was seldom that Mrs. Gladstone failed to
+drag Mr. Gladstone to some country house "from Saturday to Monday."</p>
+
+<p>As I re-read what I have written in this chapter, I seem to have lived
+from 1876 to 1880 in the constant enjoyment of one kind or another of
+Hospitality. It is true; and for the kindness of the friends who then
+did so much to make my life agreeable, I am as grateful as I was when I
+received it. My social life in London seems to me, as I look back, "a
+crystal river of unreproved enjoyment";<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> and some of those who shared it
+with me are still among my closest friends.</p>
+
+<p>One word more, and I have done with Hospitality. I brought with me from
+Oxford a simple lad who had been a College servant. In those more
+courteous days a young man made it a rule to leave his card at every
+house where he had been entertained; so I made a list of addresses, gave
+it to my servant with a nicely-calculated batch of cards, and told him
+to leave them all before dinner. When I came in to dress, this dialogue
+ensued: "Have you left all those cards?" "Yes, sir." "You left two at
+each of the houses on your list?" "Oh no, sir. I left one at each house,
+and all the rest at the Duke of Leinster's." Surely Mrs. Humphry Ward or
+Mr. H. G. Wells might make something of this bewildering effect produced
+by exalted rank on the untutored mind.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> The second Lord Lytton.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX</h2>
+
+<h3>ELECTIONEERING</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Candidates are creatures not very susceptible of affronts, and
+would rather, I suppose, climb in at a window than be absolutely
+excluded. Mr. Grenville, advancing towards me, shook me by the hand
+with a degree of cordiality that was extremely seducing.... He is
+very young, genteel, and handsome, and the town seems to be much at
+his service."</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>W. Cowper</i>, 1784.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Gladstone's first administration, which had begun so gloriously in 1868,
+ended rather ignominiously at the General Election of 1874. Matthew
+Arnold wrote to his friend, Lady de Rothschild, "What a beating it is!
+You know that Liberalism did not seem to me quite the beautiful and
+admirable thing it does to the Liberal party in general, and I am not
+sorry that a new stage in its growth should commence, and that the party
+should be driven to examine itself, and to see how much real stuff it
+has in its mind, and how much claptrap."</p>
+
+<p>That wholesome discipline of self-examination was greatly assisted by
+the progress of events. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>England was now subjected to the personal rule
+of Disraeli. In 1868 he had been for ten months Prime Minister on
+sufferance, but now for the first time in his life he was in power. His
+colleagues were serfs or cyphers. He had acquired an influence at Court
+such as no other Minister ever possessed. He had conciliated the House
+of Lords, which in old days had looked askance at the picturesque
+adventurer. He was supported by a strong, compact, and determined
+majority in the House of Commons. He was the idol of Society, of the
+Clubs, and of the London Press. He was, in short, as nearly a dictator
+as the forms of our constitution permit; and the genius, which for forty
+years had been hampered and trammelled by the exigencies of a precarious
+struggle, could now for the first time display its true character and
+significance. Liberals who had been bored and provoked by the incessant
+blunders of the Liberal ministry in its last years, and, like Matthew
+Arnold, had welcomed a change of government, soon began to see that they
+had exchanged what was merely fatuous and foolish for what was actively
+mischievous. They were forced to ask themselves how much of the
+political faith which they had professed was "real stuff," and how much
+was "claptrap." Disraeli soon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> taught them that, even when all
+"claptrap" was laid aside, the "real stuff" of Liberalism&mdash;its vital and
+essential part&mdash;was utterly incompatible with Disraelitish ideals.</p>
+
+<p>The Session of 1874 began quietly enough, and the first disturbance
+proceeded from a quite unexpected quarter. The two Primates of the
+English Church were at this time Archbishop Tait and Archbishop Thomson.
+Both were masterful men. Both hated Ritualism; and both worshipped the
+Man in the Street. The Man in the Street was supposed to be an
+anti-Ritualist; so the two Archbishops conceived the happy design of
+enlisting his aid in the destruction of a religious movement which, with
+their own unaided resources, they had failed to crush. Bishop
+Wilberforce, who would not have suffered the Ritualists to be bullied,
+had been killed in the previous summer. Gladstone, notoriously not
+unfriendly to Ritualism, was dethroned; so all looked smooth and easy
+for a policy of persecution. On the 20th of April, 1874, Archbishop Tait
+introduced his "Public Worship Regulation Bill" into the House of Lords;
+and, in explanation of this measure, Tait's biographers say that it
+merely "aimed at reviving in a practical shape the <i>forum domesticum</i>
+of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> the Bishops, with just so much of coercive force added as seemed
+necessary to meet the changed circumstances of modern times." I have
+always loved this sentence. <i>Forum domesticum</i> is distinctly good, and
+so is "coercive force." The <i>forum domesticum</i> has quite a comfortable
+sound, and, as to the "coercive force" which lurks in the background,
+Ritualists must not enquire too curiously. The Bishops were to have it
+all their own way, and everyone was to be happy. Such was the Bill as
+introduced; but in Committee it was made infinitely more oppressive.
+Henceforward a single lay-judge, to be appointed by the two Archbishops,
+was to hear and determine all cases relating to irregularities in Public
+Worship.</p>
+
+<p>When the Bill reached the House of Commons, it was powerfully opposed by
+Gladstone; but the House was dead against him, and Sir William Harcourt,
+who, six months before, had been his Solicitor-General, distinguished
+himself by the truculence with which he assailed the Ritualists. On the
+5th of August, Gladstone wrote to his wife: "An able but yet frantic
+tirade from Harcourt, extremely bad in tone and taste, and chiefly aimed
+at poor me.... I have really treated him with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>forbearance before, but I
+was obliged to let out a little to-day."</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Disraeli, seeing his opportunity, had seized it with
+characteristic skill. He adopted the Bill with great cordiality. He
+rejected all the glozing euphemisms which had lulled the House of Lords.
+He uttered no pribbles and prabbles about <i>forum domesticum</i>, and
+paternal guidance, and the authoritative interpretation of ambiguous
+formularies. "This," he said, "is a Bill to put down Ritualism." So the
+naked truth, carefully veiled from view in episcopal aprons and
+lawn-sleeves, was now displayed in all its native charm. Its success was
+instant and complete. The Second Reading passed unanimously; and the
+Archbishops' masterpiece became at once a law and a laughing-stock. The
+instrument of tyranny broke in the clumsy hands which had forged it, and
+its fragments to-day lie rusting in the lumber-room of archiepiscopal
+failures.</p>
+
+<p>But in the meantime the debates on the Bill had produced some political
+effects which its authors certainly had not desired. Gladstone's
+vehement attacks on the Bill, and his exhilarating triumph over the
+recalcitrant Harcourt, showed the Liberal party that their chief, though
+temporarily <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>withdrawn from active service, was as vivacious and as
+energetic as ever, as formidable in debate, and as unquestionably
+supreme in his party whenever he chose to assert his power. Another
+important result of the controversy was that Gladstone was now the
+delight and glory of the Ritualists. The Committee organized to defend
+the clergy of St. Alban's, Holborn, against the <i>forum domesticum</i> and
+"coercive force" of Bishop Jackson, made a formal and public
+acknowledgment of their gratitude for Gladstone's "noble and unsupported
+defence of the rights of the Church of England." Cultivated and earnest
+Churchmen, even when they had little sympathy with Ritualism, were
+attracted to his standard, and turned in righteous disgust from the
+perpetrator of clumsy witticisms about "Mass in masquerade." In towns
+where, as at Oxford and Brighton, the Church is powerful, the effect of
+these desertions was unmistakably felt at the General Election of 1880.</p>
+
+<p>It has been truly said that among the subjects which never fail to
+excite Englishmen is Slavery. "No public man," said Matthew Arnold, "in
+this country will be damaged by having even 'fanaticism' in his hatred
+of slavery imputed to him." In July, 1875, the Admiralty issued to
+Captains of Her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> Majesty's ships a Circular of Instructions which roused
+feelings of anger and of shame. This circular ran counter alike to the
+jealousy of patriots and to the sentiment of humanitarians. It directed
+that a fugitive slave should not be received on board a British vessel
+unless his life was in danger, and that, if she were in territorial
+waters, he should be surrendered on legal proof of his condition. If the
+ship were at sea, he should only be received and protected until she
+reached the country to which he belonged. These strange and startling
+orders were not in harmony either with the Law of Nations or with the
+law of England. They infringed the invaluable rule which prescribes that
+a man-of-war is British territory, wherever she may be; and they seemed
+to challenge the famous decision of Lord Mansfield, that a slave who
+enters British jurisdiction becomes free for ever. Parliament had risen
+for the recess just before the circular appeared, so it could not be
+challenged in the House of Commons; but it raised a storm of indignation
+out of doors which astonished its authors. Disraeli wrote "The incident
+is grave;" and, though in the subsequent session the Government tried to
+whittle down the enormity, the "incident" proved to be graver than even
+the Premier<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> had imagined; for it showed the Liberals once again that
+Toryism is by instinct hostile to freedom.</p>
+
+<p>But events were now at hand before which the Public Worship Regulation
+Act and the Slave Circular paled into insignificance.</p>
+
+<p>In the autumn of 1875 an insurrection had broken out in Bulgaria, and
+the Turkish Government despatched a large force to repress it. This was
+done, and repression was followed by a hideous orgy of massacre and
+outrage. A rumour of these horrors reached England, and public
+indignation spontaneously awoke. Disraeli, with a strange frankness of
+cynical brutality, sneered at the rumour as "Coffee-house babble," and
+made odious jokes about the Oriental way of executing malefactors. But
+Christian England was not to be pacified with these Asiatic
+pleasantries, and in the autumn of 1876 the country rose in passionate
+indignation against what were known as "the Bulgarian Atrocities."
+Preaching in St. Paul's Cathedral, Liddon made a signal departure from
+his general rule of avoiding politics in the pulpit, and gave splendid
+utterance to the passion which was burning in his heart. "Day by day we
+English are learning that this year of grace 1876 has been signalized by
+a public tragedy which, I firmly believe, is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> without a parallel in
+modern times.... Not merely armed men, but young women and girls and
+babes, counted by hundreds, counted by thousands, subjected to the most
+refined cruelties, subjected to the last indignities, have been the
+victims of the Turk." And then came a fine burst of patriotic
+indignation. "That which makes the voice falter as we say it is that,
+through whatever misunderstanding, the Government which is immediately
+responsible for acts like these has turned for sympathy, for
+encouragement, not to any of the historical homes of despotism or
+oppression, not to any other European Power, but alas! to England&mdash;to
+free, humane, Christian England. The Turk has, not altogether without
+reason, believed himself, amid these scenes of cruelty, to be leaning on
+our country's arm, to be sure of her smile, or at least of her
+acquiescence."</p>
+
+<p>And soon a mightier voice than even Liddon's was added to the chorus of
+righteous indignation. Gladstone had resigned the leadership of the
+Liberal Party at the beginning of 1875, and for sixteen months he
+remained buried in his library at Hawarden. But now he suddenly
+reappeared, and flung himself into the agitation against Turkey with a
+zeal which in his prime he had never excelled, if, indeed, he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>
+equalled it. On Christmas Day, 1876, he wrote in his diary&mdash;"The most
+solemn I have known for long; I see that eastward sky of storm and of
+underlight!" When Parliament met in February, 1877, he was ready with
+all his unequalled resources of eloquence, argumentation, and
+inconvenient enquiry, to drive home his great indictment against the
+Turkish Government and its champion, Disraeli, who had now become Lord
+Beaconsfield. For three arduous years he sustained the strife with a
+versatility, a courage, and a resourcefulness, which raised the
+enthusiasm of his followers to the highest pitch, and filled his
+antagonists with a rage akin to frenzy. I well remember that in July,
+1878, just after Lord Beaconsfield's triumphant return from Berlin, a
+lady asked me as a special favour to dine with her: "Because I have got
+the Gladstones coming, and everyone declines to meet him." Strange, but
+true.</p>
+
+<p>1878 was perhaps the most critical year of the Eastern question. Russia
+and Turkey were at death-grips, and Lord Beaconsfield seemed determined
+to commit this country to a war in defence of the Mahomedan Power, which
+for centuries has persecuted the worshippers of Christ in the East of
+Europe. By frustrating the sinister design <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>Gladstone saved England from
+the indelible disgrace of a second Crimea. But it was not only in
+Eastern Europe that he played the hero's part. In Africa, and India, and
+wherever British arms were exercised and British honour was involved, he
+dealt his resounding blows at that odious system of bluster and swagger
+and might against right, on which the Prime Minister and his colleagues
+bestowed the tawdry nickname of Imperialism. In his own phrase he
+devoted himself to "counterworking the purpose of Lord Beaconsfield,"
+and all that was ardent and enthusiastic and adventurous in Liberalism
+flocked to his standard.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,</div>
+<div>But to be young was very heaven."</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>One could not stand aloof&mdash;the call to arms was too imperious. We saw
+our Leader contending single-handed with "the obscene empires of Mammon
+and Belial," and we longed to be at his side in the thick of the fight.
+To a man born and circumstanced as I was the call came with peculiar
+power. I had the love of Freedom in my blood. I had been trained to
+believe in and to serve the Liberal cause. I was incessantly reminded of
+the verse, which, sixty years before, Moore had addressed to my uncle,
+Lord John Russell,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span><div>"Like the boughs of that laurel, by Delphi's decree</div>
+<div class="i1">Set apart for the Fane and its service divine,</div>
+<div>So the branches that spring from the old Russell tree</div>
+<div class="i1">Are by Liberty claimed for the use of her shrine."</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In 1841 that same uncle wrote thus to his eldest brother: "Whatever may
+be said about other families, I do not think ours ought to retire from
+active exertion. In all times of popular movement, the Russells have
+been on the 'forward' side. At the Reformation, the first Earl of
+Bedford; in Charles the First's days, Francis, the Great Earl; in
+Charles the Second's, William, Lord Russell; in later times, Francis,
+Duke of Bedford; our father; you; and lastly myself in the Reform Bill."</p>
+
+<p>These hereditary appeals were strong, but there were influences which
+were stronger. A kind of romantic and religious glamour, such as one had
+never before connected with politics, seemed to surround this attack on
+the strongholds of Anti-Christ. The campaign became a crusade.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the end of 1879 I accepted an invitation to contest "the Borough
+and Hundreds of Aylesbury" at the next General Election. The "Borough"
+was a compact and attractive-looking town, and the "Hundreds" which
+surrounded it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> covered an area nearly coextensive with the present
+division of Mid Bucks. Close by was Hampden House, unaltered since the
+day when four thousand freeholders of Buckinghamshire rode up to
+Westminster to defend their impeached member, John Hampden. All around
+were those beech-clad recesses of the Chiltern Hills, in which,
+according to Lord Beaconsfield, the Great Rebellion was hatched. I do
+not vouch for that fact, but I can affirm that thirty years ago those
+recesses sheltered some of the stoutest Liberals whom I have ever known.
+The town and its surroundings were, for parliamentary purposes, a
+Borough, and, as all householders in Boroughs had been enfranchised by
+the Reform Act of 1867, the Agricultural Labourers of the district were
+already voters.</p>
+
+<p>It happens that Agricultural Labourers are the class of voters with
+which I am most familiar; and an intimate acquaintance with these men
+has taught me increasingly to admire their staunchness, their
+shrewdness, and their racy humour. Two or three of the old sayings come
+back to memory as I write. "More pigs and less parsons" must have been a
+survival from the days of Tithe. "The Black Recruiting Sergeant" was a
+nickname for a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>canvassing Incumbent. "I tell you how it is with a
+State-Parson," cried a Village Hampden: "if you take away his book, he
+can't preach. If you take away his gown he mayn't preach. If you take
+away his screw, he'll be d&mdash;d if he'll preach." A Radical M.P. suddenly
+deserted his constituency and took a peerage, and this was the verdict
+of the Village Green: "Mister So-and-so says he's going to the House of
+Lords to 'leaven it with Liberal principles.' Bosh! Mr. So-and-so can't
+no more leaven the House of Lords than you can sweeten a cartload of
+muck with a pot of marmalade."</p>
+
+<p>Aylesbury returned two Members to Parliament, and its political history
+had been chequered. When first I came to know it, the two members were
+Mr. Samuel George Smith and Sir Nathaniel de Rothschild (afterwards Lord
+Rothschild). Mr. Smith was a Tory. Sir Nathaniel professed to be a
+Liberal; but, as his Liberalism was of the sort which had doggedly
+supported Lord Beaconsfield all through the Eastern Question, the more
+enthusiastic spirits in the constituency felt that they were wholly
+unrepresented. It was they who invited me to stand. From the first, Sir
+Nathaniel made it known that he would not support or coalesce<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> with me;
+and perhaps, considering the dissimilarity of our politics, it was just
+as well. So there were three candidates, fighting independently for two
+seats; there was no Corrupt Practices Act in those days; and the
+situation was neatly summarized by a tradesman of the town. "Our three
+candidates are Mr. S. G. Smith, head of 'Smith, Payne &amp; Co.;' Sir
+Nathaniel de Rothschild, head of 'N. M. Rothschild &amp; Sons,' and Mr.
+George Russell, who, we understand, has the Duke of Bedford behind him.
+So we are looking forward to a very interesting contest." That word
+<i>interesting</i> was well chosen.</p>
+
+<p>Now began the most vivid and enjoyable portion of my life. Everything
+conspired to make it pleasant. In the first place, I believed absolutely
+in my cause. I was not, as Sydney Smith said, "stricken by the palsy of
+candour." There were no doubts or questionings or ambiguities in my
+mind. My creed with regard both to foreign and to domestic politics was
+clear, positive, and deliberate. I was received with the most
+extraordinary kindness and enthusiasm by people who really longed to
+have a hand in the dethronement of Lord Beaconsfield, and who believed
+in their politics as part of their religion.</p>
+
+<p>After my first speech in the Corn Exchange of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> Aylesbury I was severely
+reprehended because I had called Lord Beaconsfield a "Jew." If I had
+known better, I should have said "a Semite" or "an Israelite," or&mdash;his
+own phrase&mdash;"a Mosaic Arab," and all would have been well. I had and
+have close friends among the Jews, so my use of the offending word was
+not dictated by racial or social prejudice. But it expressed a strong
+conviction. I held then, and I hold now, that it was a heavy misfortune
+for England that, during the Eastern Question, her Prime Minister was
+one of the Ancient Race. The spiritual affinity between Judaism and
+Mahomedanism, founded on a common denial of the Christian Creed, could
+not be without its influence on a statesman whose deepest convictions,
+from first to last, were with the religion of his forefathers. In 1876
+Mr. Gladstone wrote&mdash;"Some new lights about Disraeli's Judaic feeling,
+in which he is both consistent and conscientious, have come in upon me."
+And similar "lights" dictated my action and my language at the crisis of
+1879-1880.</p>
+
+<p>Another element of enjoyment was that I was young&mdash;only twenty-six.
+Youth is an invaluable asset in a first campaign. Youth can canvass all
+day, and harangue all night. It can traverse immense<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> distances without
+fatigue, make speeches in the open air without catching cold, sleep
+anywhere, eat anything, and even drink port with a grocer's label on it,
+at five in the afternoon. Then again, I had a natural and inborn love of
+public speaking, and I have known no enjoyment in life equal to that of
+addressing a great audience which you feel to be actively sympathetic.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, that spring of 1880 was a delightful time. As the condemned
+highwayman said to the chaplain who was exhorting him to repentance for
+his life of adventure on the road&mdash;"You dog, it was delicious." It was
+all so new. One emerged (like Herbert Gladstone) from the obscurity of
+College rooms or from the undistinguished herd of London ball-goers, or
+from the stables and stubbles of a country home, and became, all in a
+moment, a Personage. For the first time in one's life one found that
+people&mdash;grown-up, sensible, vote-possessing people&mdash;wished to know one's
+opinions, and gave heed to one's words. For the first time, one had
+"Colours" of one's own, as if one were a Regiment or a University; for
+the first time one beheld one's portrait, flattering though perhaps
+mud-bespattered, on every wall. For the first time one was cheered in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>
+the street, and entered the Corn-Exchange amid what the Liberal paper
+called "thunders of applause," and the opponent's organ whittled down to
+"cheers."</p>
+
+<p>But canvassing cannot, I think, be reckoned among the pleasures of a
+candidature. One must be very young indeed to find it even tolerable. A
+candidate engaged in a house-to-house canvass has always seemed to me
+(and not least clearly when I was the candidate) to sink beneath the
+level of humanity. To beg for votes, as if they were alms or broken
+victuals, is a form of mendicancy which is incompatible with common
+self-respect, and yet it is a self-abasement which thirty years ago
+custom imperatively demanded. "If my vote ain't worth calling for, I
+suppose it ain't worth 'aving" was the formula in which the elector
+stated his requirement.</p>
+
+<p>To trudge, weary and footsore, dusty and deliquescent, from door to
+door; to ask, with damnable iteration, if Mr. So-and-so is at home, and
+to meet the invariable rejoinder, "No, he isn't," not seldom running on
+with&mdash;"And, if he was, he wouldn't see you;" to find oneself (being
+Blue) in a Red quarter, where the very children hoot at you, and
+inebriate matrons shout personalities from upper windows&mdash;all this is
+detestable enough. But to find the voter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> at home and unfriendly is an
+experience which plunges the candidate lower still. A curious tradition
+of privileged insolence, which runs through all English history from the
+days when great men kept Jesters and the Universities had their <i>Terr&aelig;
+Filii</i>, asserts itself, by immemorial usage, at an election. People who
+would be perfectly civil if one called on them in the ordinary way, and
+even rapturously grateful if they could sell one six boxes of lucifers
+or a pound of toffee, permit themselves a freedom of speech to the
+suppliant candidate, which tests the fibre of his manhood. If he loses
+his temper and answers in like sort, the door is shut on him with some
+Parthian jeer, and, as he walks dejectedly away, the agent says&mdash;"Ah,
+it's a pity you offended that fellow. He's very influential in this
+ward, and I believe a civil word would have won him." If, on the other
+hand, the candidate endures the raillery and smiles a sickly smile, he
+really fares no better. After a prolonged battle of wits (in which he
+takes care not to be too successful) he discovers that the beery
+gentleman in shirtsleeves has no vote, and that, in the time which he
+has spent in these fruitless pleasantries, he might have canvassed half
+the street.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p><p>There is, of course, a pleasanter side to canvassing. It warms the
+cockles of one's heart to be greeted with the words, "Don't waste your
+time here, sir. My vote's yours before you ask for it. There's your
+picture over the chimney-piece." And when a wife says, "My husband is
+out at work, but I know he means to vote for you," one is inclined to
+embrace her on the spot.</p>
+
+<p>These are the amenities of electioneering; but a man who enters on a
+political campaign expecting fair treatment from his opponents is indeed
+walking in a vain shadow. The ordinary rules of fairplay and
+straightforward conduct are forgotten at an election. In a political
+contest people say and do a great many things of which in every-day life
+they would be heartily ashamed. An election-agent of the old school once
+said to me in the confidence of after-dinner claret, "For my own part,
+when I go into a fight, I go in to win, and I'm not particular to a
+shade or two." All this is the common form of electioneering, but in one
+respect I think my experience rather unusual. I have been all my life as
+keen a Churchman as I am a Liberal, and some of my closest friends are
+clergymen. I never found that the Nonconformists were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> the least
+unfriendly to me on this account. They had their own convictions, and
+they respected mine; and we could work together in perfect concord for
+the causes of Humanity and Freedom. But the most unscrupulous opponents
+whom I have ever encountered have been the parochial clergy of the
+Church to which I belong, and the bands of "workers" whom they direct.
+Tennyson once depicted a clergyman who&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div class="i12">"From a throne</div>
+<div>Mounted in heaven should shoot into the dark</div>
+<div>Arrows of lightnings,"</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and graciously added that he "would stand and mark." But, when the Vicar
+from his pulpit-throne launches barbed sayings about "those who would
+convert our schools into seminaries of Atheism or Socialism, and would
+degrade this hallowed edifice into a Lecture-Hall&mdash;nay, a Music-Hall,"
+then the Liberal candidate, constrained to "sit and mark" these bolts
+aimed at his cause, is tempted to a breach of charity. The Vicar's
+"workers" follow suit, but descend a little further into personalities.
+"You know that the Radical Candidate arrived drunk at one of his
+meetings? He had to be lifted out of the carriage, and kept in the
+Committee Room<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> till he was sober. Shocking, isn't it? and then such
+shameful hypocrisy to talk about Local Option! But can you wonder? You
+know he's an atheist? Oh yes, I know he goes to Church, but that's all a
+blind. His one object is to do away with Religion. Yes, they do say he
+has been in the Divorce Court, but I should not like to say I know it,
+though I quite believe it. His great friend, Mr. Comus, certainly was,
+and Mr. Quickly only got off by paying an immense sum in hush-money.
+They're all tarred with the same brush, and it really is a religious
+duty to keep them out of Parliament."</p>
+
+<p>Such I have observed to be the attitude of parochial clergy and
+church-workers towards Liberal candidates.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"They said their duty both to man and God</div>
+<div>Required such conduct&mdash;which seemed very odd."</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>I suppose they would have justified it by that zeal for Established
+Churches and Sectarian Schools which, if it does not actually "eat up"
+its votaries, certainly destroys their sense of proportion and
+perspective.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p><p>Though I have said so much about the pugnacity of the clergy, I would
+not have it supposed that the Tory laity were slack or backward in
+political activity. To verbal abuse one soon became case-hardened; but
+one had also to encounter physical violence. In those days, stones and
+cabbage-stalks and rotten eggs still played a considerable part in
+electioneering. Squires hid their gamekeepers in dark coppices with
+instructions to pelt one as one drove past after dark. The linch-pin was
+taken out of one's carriage while one was busy at a meeting; and it was
+thought seriously unsafe for the candidate to walk unescorted through
+the hostile parts of the borough.</p>
+
+<p>But, after all, this animosity, theological, moral, physical, did no
+great harm. It quickened the zeal and strengthened the resolve of one's
+supporters; and it procured one the inestimable aid of young, active,
+and pugnacious friends, who formed themselves into a body-guard and a
+cycle-corps, protecting their candidate when the play was rough, and
+spreading the light all over the constituency.</p>
+
+<p>Why did not Lord Beaconsfield dissolve Parliament in July, 1878, when he
+returned in a blaze of triumph from the Congress of Berlin? <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>Probably
+because his nerve had failed him, and he chose to retain his supremacy
+unquestioned, rather than commit it to the chances of a General
+Election. Anyhow, he let the moment pass; and from that time on his
+Government began to lose ground. In 1879 <i>Vanity Fair</i>, a strongly
+Disraelitish organ, pronounced (under a cartoon) that Gladstone was the
+most popular man in England. In the autumn of that year, the
+"Mid-Lothian Campaign" raised him to the very summit of his great
+career; and, when Christmas came, most Liberals felt that it was all
+over except the shouting.</p>
+
+<p>On the 9th of March, 1880, Lord Beaconsfield announced that he had
+"advised the Queen to recur to the sense of her people." His opponents
+remarked that the nonsense of her people was likely to serve his turn a
+good deal better; and to the task of exposing and correcting that
+nonsense we vigorously applied ourselves during the remaining weeks of
+Lent. It is true that the same statesman had once declared himself "on
+the side of the Angels" in order to reassure the clergy, and had once
+dated a letter on "Maundy Thursday" in order to secure the High Church
+vote. Encouraged by these signs of grace, some of his followers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> mildly
+remonstrated against a Lenten dissolution and an Easter poll. But
+counsels which might have weighed with Mr. Disraeli, M.P. for Bucks (who
+had clerical constituents), were thrown away on Lord Beaconsfield, who
+had the Crown, Lords, and Commons on his side; and on the 24th of March
+the Parliament which he had dominated for six years was scattered to the
+winds.</p>
+
+<p>Electioneering in rural districts was pure joy. It was a delicious
+spring, bright and yet soft, and the beech-forests of the Chilterns were
+in early leafage.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"There is a rapturous movement, a green growing,</div>
+<div class="i1">Among the hills and valleys once again,</div>
+<div>And silent rivers of delight are flowing</div>
+<div class="i1">Into the hearts of men.</div>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<div>"There is a purple weaving on the heather,</div>
+<div class="i1">Night drops down starry gold upon the furze;</div>
+<div>Wild rivers and wild birds sing songs together,</div>
+<div class="i1">Dead Nature breathes and stirs."<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In the spring of 1880, Nature had no monopoly of seasonable life.
+Humanity was up and doing. Calm people were roused to passion, and
+lethargic people to activity. There was hurrying and rushing and
+plotting and planning, and all the fierce but fascinating bustle of a
+great campaign. One <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>hurried across the Vale from a Farmers' Ordinary,
+where one had been exposing Lord Beaconsfield's nonsense about the
+"Three Profits" of agricultural land, to a turbulent meeting in a chapel
+or a barn (for the use of the schoolroom was denied to the Liberal
+candidate). As we drove through the primrose-studded lanes, or past the
+village green, the bell was ringing from the grey tower of the Parish
+Church, and summoning the villagers to the daily Evensong of Holy Week.
+The contrast was too violent to be ignored; and yet, for a citizen who
+took his citizenship seriously, the meeting was an even more imperative
+duty than the service. Hostilities were suspended for Good Friday,
+Easter Even, and Easter Day, but on Easter Monday they broke out again
+with redoubled vigour; and, before the week was over, the Paschal
+Alleluias were blending strangely with p&aelig;ans of victory over conquered
+foes. When even so grave and spiritually-minded a man as Dean Church
+wrote to a triumphant Gladstonian, "I don't wonder at your remembering
+the Song of Miriam," it is manifest that political fervour had reached a
+very unusual point.</p>
+
+<p>On the 2nd of April I was returned to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>Parliament, as colleague of Sir
+Nathaniel de Rothschild, in the representation of Aylesbury. We were the
+last Members for that ancient Borough, for, before the next General
+Election came round, it had been merged, by Redistribution, in Mid
+Bucks. The Liberal victory was overwhelming. Lord Beaconsfield, who had
+expected a very different result, resigned on the 18th of April, and
+Gladstone became Prime Minister for the second time. Truly his enemies
+had been made his footstool. On the 30th of April I took the oath and my
+seat in the House of Commons, and a fresh stage of life began.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> I must except from this general indictment the Rev. A. T.
+Lloyd, Vicar of Aylesbury in 1880, and afterwards Bishop of Newcastle. A
+strong Conservative, but eminently a Christian gentleman.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Archbishop Alexander.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X</h2>
+
+<h3>PARLIAMENT</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"Still in the Senate, whatsoe'er we lack,</div>
+<div>It is not genius;&mdash;call old giants back,</div>
+<div>And men now living might as tall appear;</div>
+<div>Judged by our sons, not us&mdash;<i>we</i> stand too near.</div>
+<div>Ne'er of the living can the living judge&mdash;</div>
+<div>Too blind the affection, or too fresh the grudge."</div>
+<div class="i12"><span class="smcap">Bulwer-Lytton</span>, <i>St. Stephen's</i>.</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"In old days it was the habit to think and say that the House of Commons
+was an essentially 'queer place,' which no one could understand until he
+was a Member of it. It may, perhaps, be doubted whether that somewhat
+mysterious quality still altogether attaches to that assembly. 'Our own
+Reporter' has invaded it in all its purlieus. No longer content with
+giving an account of the speeches of its members, he is not satisfied
+unless he describes their persons, their dress, and their characteristic
+mannerisms. He tells us how they dine, even the wines and dishes which
+they favour, and follows them into the very mysteries of their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>
+smoking-room. And yet there is perhaps a certain fine sense of the
+feelings, and opinions, and humours of this Assembly which cannot be
+acquired by hasty notions and necessarily superficial remarks, but must
+be the result of long and patient observation, and of that quick
+sympathy with human sentiment, in all its classes, which is involved in
+the possession of that inestimable quality styled tact.</p>
+
+<p>"When Endymion Ferrars first took his seat in the House of Commons, it
+still fully possessed its character of enigmatic tradition. For himself,
+Endymion entered the Chamber with a certain degree of awe, which, with
+use, diminished, but never entirely disappeared. The scene was one over
+which his boyhood even had long mused, and it was associated with all
+those traditions of genius, eloquence, and power that charm and inspire
+youth. His acquaintance with the forms and habits of the House was of
+great advantage to him, and restrained that excitement which dangerously
+accompanies us when we enter into a new life, and especially a life of
+such deep and thrilling interests and such large proportions."<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p><p>I quote these words from a statesman who knew the House of Commons more
+thoroughly than anyone else has ever known it; and, though Lord
+Beaconsfield was describing the Parliament which assembled in August,
+1841, his description would fit, with scarcely the alteration of a word,
+the Parliament in which I took my seat in April, 1880.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a></p>
+
+<p>The "acquaintance with the forms and habits of the House," which Lord
+Beaconsfield attributes to his favourite Endymion, was also mine; from
+my earliest years I had been familiar with every nook and corner of the
+Palace of Westminster. My father's official residence in Speaker's Court
+communicated by a private door with the corridors of the Palace, and my
+father's privilege as Sergeant-at-Arms enabled him to place me in, or
+under, the Gallery whenever there was a debate or a scene of special
+interest. I was early initiated into all the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> forms and ceremonies of
+the House; the man&oelig;uvres of the mace, the obeisances to the Chair,
+the rap of "Black Rod" on the locked door, the daily procession of Mr.
+Speaker and his attendants (which Sir Henry Irving pronounced the most
+theatrically effective thing of its kind in our public life).</p>
+
+<p>The Sergeant-at-Arms has in his gift the appointment of all the
+doorkeepers, messengers, and attendants of the House; and, as my father
+was Sergeant from 1848 to 1875, the staff was almost exclusively
+composed of men who had been servants in our own or our friends'
+families. This circumstance was vividly brought home to me on the day on
+which I first entered the House. In the Members' Lobby I was greeted by
+a venerable-looking official who bowed, smiled, and said, when I shook
+hands with him, "Well, sir, I'm glad, indeed, to see you here; and, when
+I think that I helped to put both your grandfather and your grandmother
+into their coffins, it makes me feel quite at home with you."</p>
+
+<p>The first duty of a new House of Commons is to elect a Speaker, and on
+the 7th of April, 1880, we re-elected Mr. Henry Brand (afterwards Lord
+Hampden), who had been Speaker since 1872. Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> Brand was a short man,
+but particularly well set up, and in his wig and gown he carried himself
+with a dignity which fully made up for the lack of inches. His voice was
+mellow, and his utterance slightly pompous, so that the lightest word
+which fell from his lips conveyed a sense of urbane majesty. He looked
+what he was, and what the traditions of the House required&mdash;a country
+gentleman of the highest type. One of the most noticeable traits was his
+complexion, fresh and rosy as a boy's. I well remember one day, after a
+stormy "all-night sitting," saying to his train-bearer, "The Speaker has
+borne it wonderfully. He looks as fresh as paint." Whereupon the
+train-bearer, a man of a depressed spirit, made answer, "Ah! sir, it's
+the Speaker's 'igh colour that deceives you. 'E'll 'ave that same 'igh
+colour when 'e's laid out in 'is coffin."</p>
+
+<p>The election of the Speaker having been duly accomplished, and the
+Members sworn in, the House adjourned till the 20th of May, then to meet
+for the despatch of business; and this may be a convenient point for a
+brief recapitulation of recent events.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Hartington (afterwards eighth Duke of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> Devonshire) had been, ever
+since the beginning of 1875, the recognized leader of the Liberal Party.
+But, when Gladstone re-entered the field as the foremost assailant of
+Lord Beaconsfield's policy, Lord Hartington's authority over his party
+was sensibly diminished. Indeed, it is not too much to say that he was
+brushed on one side, and that all the fervour and fighting power of the
+Liberal Party were sworn to Gladstone's standard.</p>
+
+<p>When the General Election of 1880 reached its close, everyone felt that
+Gladstone was now the real, though not the titular, leader of the
+Liberal Party, and the inevitable Prime Minister. Lord Beaconsfield did
+not wait for an adverse vote in the new House, but resigned on the 18th
+of April. We do not at present know, but no doubt we shall know when Mr.
+Monypenny's "Life" is completed, whether Queen Victoria consulted Lord
+Beaconsfield as to his successor. A friend of mine once asked the Queen
+this plain question: "When a Prime Minister goes out, does he recommend
+a successor?" And the Queen replied, with equal plainness, "Not unless I
+ask him to do so." There can, I think, be little doubt that Her Majesty,
+in April, 1880, asked Lord Beaconsfield's advice in this delicate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>
+matter, and we may presume that the advice was that Her Majesty should
+follow the constitutional practice, and send for Lord Hartington, as
+being the leader of the victorious party. This was done, and on the 22nd
+of April Lord Hartington waited on Her Majesty at Windsor, and was
+invited to form an Administration. Feeling in the Liberal Party ran very
+high. It was not for this that we had fought and won. If Gladstone did
+not become Prime Minister, our victory would be robbed of half its joy;
+and great was our jubilation when we learned that the task had been
+declined. As the precise nature of the transaction has often been
+misrepresented, it is as well to give it in Lord Hartington's own
+words&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The advice which Lord Hartington gave to the Queen from first to last
+was that Her Majesty should send for Mr. Gladstone, and consult him as
+to the formation of a Government; and that, if he should be willing to
+undertake the task, she should call upon him to form an Administration.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Hartington had up to that time had no communication with Mr.
+Gladstone on the subject, and did not know what his views as to
+returning to office might be. With the Queen's permission, Lord
+Hartington, on his return from Windsor, informed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> Mr. Gladstone and Lord
+Granville, but no other person, of what had passed between Her Majesty
+and himself."</p>
+
+<p>The result of that interview was a foregone conclusion. If Lord
+Hartington consented to form an Administration, Gladstone would not take
+a place in it. If he was not to be Prime Minister, he must remain
+outside. Having put this point beyond the reach of doubt, Lord
+Hartington returned next day to Windsor, accompanied by Lord Granville,
+who led the Liberal Party in the House of Lords. They both assured the
+Queen that the victory was Gladstone's, and that the Liberal Party would
+be satisfied with no other Prime Minister. The two statesmen returned to
+London in the afternoon, and called on Gladstone. He was expecting them
+and the message which they brought. He went down to Windsor without an
+hour's delay, and that evening "kissed hands" as Prime Minister for the
+second time.</p>
+
+<p>This was the climax of his career. He had dethroned Lord Beaconsfield.
+He had vindicated the cause of humanity and freedom all over the world;
+and he had been recalled, by unanimous acclamation, to the task of
+governing the British Empire. On the 20th of May he met his twelfth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>
+Parliament, and the second in which he had been Chief Minister of the
+Crown. "At 4.15," he wrote in his diary, "I went down to the House with
+Herbert.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> There was a great and fervent crowd in Palace Yard, and
+much feeling in the House. It almost overpowered me, as I thought by
+what deep and hidden agencies I have been brought into the midst of the
+vortex of political action and contention.... Looking calmly on the
+course of experience, I do believe that the Almighty has employed me for
+His purposes in a manner larger or more special than before, and has
+strengthened me and led me on accordingly, though I must not forget the
+admirable saying of Hooker, that even ministers of good things are like
+torches&mdash;a light to others, waste and destruction to themselves."</p>
+
+<p>The conviction so solemnly expressed by Gladstone was entertained by not
+a few of his followers. We felt that, <i>Deo adjuvante</i>, we had won a
+famous victory for the cause of Right; and, as a Party, we "stood on the
+top of golden hours." An overwhelming triumph after a desperate fight;
+an immense majority, in which internecine jealousies were, at least for
+the moment, happily <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>composed; a leader of extraordinary powers and
+popularity; an administration of All the Talents; an attractive and
+practicable programme of Ministerial measures&mdash;these were some of the
+elements in a condition unusually prosperous and promising. But trained
+observers of political phenomena laid even greater stress on Gladstone's
+personal ascendancy over the House of Commons. Old and experienced
+Members of Parliament instructed the newcomer to watch carefully the
+methods of his leadership, because it was remarkable for its
+completeness, its dexterity, and the willing submission with which it
+was received.</p>
+
+<p>The pre-eminence of the Premier was, indeed, the most noteworthy feature
+which the new House presented to the student of Parliamentary life.
+Whether considered morally or intellectually, he seemed to tower a head
+and shoulders above his colleagues, and above the Front Opposition
+Bench. The leader of the Opposition was the amiable and accomplished Sir
+Stafford Northcote, afterwards Lord Iddesleigh, a</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div class="i8">"scrupulous, good man,</div>
+<div>Who would not, with a peremptory tone,</div>
+<div>Assert the nose upon his face his own."</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In his youth he had been Gladstone's Private<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> Secretary, and he still
+seemed to tremble at his old chief's glance.</p>
+
+<p>But, when everything looked so fair and smiling, Speaker Brand quietly
+noted in his diary, that the Liberal Party "were not only strong, but
+determined to have their way in spite of Mr. Gladstone." And this
+determination to "have their way" was soon and startlingly manifested,
+and challenged the personal ascendancy of which we had heard so much.</p>
+
+<p>Charles Bradlaugh, a defiant Atheist, and the teacher of a social
+doctrine which decent people abhor, had been returned as one of the
+Members for Northampton. When the other Members were sworn, he claimed a
+right to affirm, which was disallowed on legal grounds. He thereupon
+proposed to take the oath in the ordinary way; the Tories objected, and
+the Speaker weakly gave way. The House, on a division, decided that
+Bradlaugh must neither affirm nor swear. In effect, it decreed that a
+duly elected Member was not to take his seat. On the 23rd of June,
+Bradlaugh came to the table of the House, and again claimed his right to
+take the oath. The Speaker read the Resolution of the House forbidding
+it. Thereupon Bradlaugh asked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> to be heard, and addressed the House from
+the Bar. I happened to be dining that night with Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone
+in Downing Street. Gladstone came in full of excitement, and pronounced
+Bradlaugh's speech "consummate." However, it availed nothing. Bradlaugh
+was ordered to withdraw from the House; refused, and was committed to a
+farcical imprisonment of two days in the Clock Tower; and so, as Lord
+Morley says, there "opened a series of incidents that went on as long as
+the Parliament, clouded the radiance of the Party triumph, threw the new
+Government at once into a minority, dimmed the ascendancy of the great
+Minister, and showed human nature at its worst." From the day when
+Bradlaugh's case was first mooted, it became apparent that the Liberal
+Party contained a good many men who had only the frailest hold on the
+primary principles of Liberalism, and who, under the pressure of social
+and theological prejudice, were quite ready to join the Tories in a
+tyrannical negation of Religious Liberty. Gladstone, though deserted and
+defeated by his own followers, maintained the righteous cause with a
+signal consistency and courage. There was no one in the world to whom
+Bradlaugh's special opinions could have been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> more abhorrent; but he
+felt&mdash;and we who followed him felt the same&mdash;that the cause of God and
+morality can never be served by the insolent refusal of a civil right.</p>
+
+<p>There is no need to recapitulate the story in all its stages, but one
+incident deserves commemoration. In April, 1883, Gladstone brought in an
+Affirmation Bill, permitting Members of Parliament (as witnesses in
+Law-Courts were already permitted) to affirm their allegiance instead of
+swearing it. On the 26th of April he moved the Second Reading of the
+Bill in the finest speech which I have ever heard. Under the existing
+system (which admitted Jews to Parliament, but excluded Atheists), to
+deny the existence of God was a fatal bar, but to deny the Christian
+Creed was no bar at all. This, as Gladstone contended, was a formal
+disparagement of Christianity, which was thereby relegated to a place of
+secondary importance. And then, on the general question of attaching
+civil penalties to religious misbelief, he uttered a passage which no
+one who heard it can forget. "Truth is the expression of the Divine
+Mind; and, however little our feeble vision may be able to discern the
+means by which God may provide for its preservation, we may leave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> the
+matter in His hands, and we may be sure that a firm and courageous
+application of every principle of equity and of justice is the best
+method we can adopt for the preservation and influence of Truth."</p>
+
+<p>The Bill was lost by a majority of three, recreant Liberals again
+helping to defeat the just claim of a man whom they disliked; and
+Bradlaugh did not take his seat until the new Parliament in 1886
+admitted, without a division, the right which the old Parliament had
+denied. Meanwhile, a few of us, actuated by the desperate hope of
+bringing the clergy to a right view of the controversy, printed
+Gladstone's speech as a pamphlet, and sent a copy, with a covering
+letter, to every beneficed clergyman in England, Scotland, and Ireland.
+One of the clergy thus addressed sent me the following reply, which has
+ever since been hoarded among my choicest treasures:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p class="right">June 16th, 1883.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Sir</span>,</p>
+
+<p>I have received your recommendation to read carefully the speech of
+Mr. Gladstone in favour of admitting the infidel Bradlaugh into
+Parliament. I did so, when it was delivered, and I must say that
+the strength of argument rests with the Opposition. I fully expect,
+in the event of a dissolution, the Government will lose between 50
+and 60 seats.</p>
+
+<p>Any conclusion can be arrived at, according to the premises laid
+down. Mr. G. avoided the Scriptural lines and followed his own. All
+parties knew the feeling of the country on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> subject, and,
+notwithstanding the bullying and majority of Gladstone, he was
+defeated.</p>
+
+<p>Before the Irish Church was robbed, I was nominated to the Deanery
+of Tuam; but, Mr. Disraeli resigning, I was defrauded of my just
+right by Mr. Gladstone, and my wife, Lady &mdash;&mdash; &mdash;&mdash;, the only
+surviving child of an Earl, was sadly disappointed, but there is a
+just Judge above. The letter of nomination is still in my
+possession.</p>
+
+<p class="center">I am, dear Sir,</p>
+
+<p class="right">Yours faithfully,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<br />
+&mdash;&mdash; &mdash;&mdash;, D.D. and LL.D.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>One is often asked if Gladstone had any sense of humour. My simple and
+sufficient reply is that, when he had read this letter, he returned it
+to my hands with a knitted brow and flashing eyes, and this indignant
+question: "What does the fellow mean by quoting an engagement entered
+into by my predecessor as binding on me?"</p>
+
+<p>The good fortune, which had so signally attended Gladstone's campaign
+against Lord Beaconsfield, seemed to desert him as soon as the victory
+was won. The refusal of the House to follow his lead in Bradlaugh's case
+put heart of grace into his opponents, who saw thus early in the new
+Parliament a hopeful opening for vicious attack. The Front Opposition
+Bench, left to its own devices, would not have accomplished much, but it
+was splendidly reinforced by the Fourth Party&mdash;a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> Party of Four&mdash;Lord
+Randolph Churchill, Sir Henry Drummond-Wolff, Sir John Gorst, and Mr.
+Arthur Balfour. Some light has been cast by recent memoirs on the mutual
+relations of the Four; but beyond question the head and front of the
+Party was Lord Randolph. That ingenious man possessed a deadly knack of
+"drawing" Gladstone, as the boys say. He knew the great man's
+"vulnerable temper and impetuous moods,"<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> and delighted in exercising
+them. He pelted Gladstone with rebukes and taunts and gibes, and the
+recipient of these attentions "rose freely." There was something rather
+unpleasant in the spectacle of a man of thirty playing these tricks upon
+a man of seventy; but one could not deny that the tricks were extremely
+clever; and beyond doubt they did a vast deal to consolidate the
+performer's popularity out of doors. It is not too much to say that, by
+allowing himself to be drawn, Gladstone made Lord Randolph.</p>
+
+<p>The most formidable enemy of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons
+was Parnell; and, when he joined forces with the Fourth Party and their
+adherents, the conjunction was disastrous to Liberalism. He figures in
+Lord Morley's "Life" of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> Gladstone as a high-souled and amiable patriot.
+I always thought him entirely destitute of humane feeling, and a bitter
+enemy of England. I remember the late Lord Carlisle, then George Howard
+and Member for East Cumberland, gazing at Parnell across the House and
+quoting from <i>The Newcomes</i>&mdash;"The figure of this gar&ccedil;on is not
+agreeable. Of pale, he has become livid." A lady who met him in a
+country house wrote me this interesting account of him:</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot exaggerate the impression he made on me. I never before felt
+such power and magnetic force in any man. As for his eyes, if he looks
+at you, you can't look away, and, if he doesn't, you are wondering how
+soon he will look at you again. I'm afraid I have very little trust in
+his goodness&mdash;I should think it a very minus quantity; but I believe
+absolutely in his strength and his power of influence. I should be sorry
+if he were my enemy, for I think he would stop at nothing."</p>
+
+<p>At the General Election of 1880, Irish questions were completely in the
+background. The demand for Home Rule was not taken seriously, even by
+Mr. John Morley,<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> who stood unsuccessfully for Westminster. Ireland
+was politically tranquil, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> the distress due to the failure of the
+crops had been alleviated by the combined action of Englishmen
+irrespective of party. But during the summer of 1880 it was found that
+the Irish landlords were evicting wholesale the tenants whom famine had
+impoverished. To provide compensation for these evicted tenants was the
+object of a well-meant but hastily drawn "Disturbance Bill," which the
+Government passed through the Commons. It was rejected by an
+overwhelming majority in the Lords, and the natural consequence of its
+rejection was seen in the ghastly record of outrage and murder which
+stained the following winter.</p>
+
+<p>The Session of 1881 opened on the 6th of January. The speech from the
+Throne announced two Irish Bills&mdash;one to reform the tenure of land, and
+one to repress crime and outrage. The combination was stigmatized by Mr.
+T. P. O'Connor as "weak reform and strong coercion"; and the same
+vivacious orator, alluding to Mr. Chamberlain's supposed sympathy with
+the Irish cause, taunted the Right Honourable gentleman with having had
+"if not the courage of his convictions, at least the silence of his
+shame."</p>
+
+<p>The debate on the Address in the Commons<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> lasted eleven nights, the
+Irish Members moving endless amendments, with the avowed object of
+delaying the Coercion Bill, which was eventually brought in by Forster
+on the 24th January. The gist of the Bill was arrest on suspicion and
+imprisonment without trial. The Irish Members fought it tooth and nail,
+and were defied by Gladstone in a speech of unusual fire. "With fatal
+and painful precision," he exclaimed, "the steps of crime dogged the
+steps of the Land League; and it is not possible to get rid of facts
+such as I have stated, by vague and general complaints, by imputations
+against parties, imputations against England, or imputations against
+Government. You must meet them, and confute them, if you can. None will
+rejoice more than myself if you can attain such an end. But in the
+meantime they stand, and they stand uncontradicted, in the face of the
+British House of Commons." The speech in which this tremendous
+indictment was delivered attracted loud cheers from Liberals and
+Conservatives alike, but stirred the Irish to fury. I remember Mr.
+O'Connor saying to me, "If only Gladstone had been in opposition, how he
+would have enjoyed tearing into shreds the statistics which he has just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>
+quoted!" The resistance to the Bill became impassioned. The House sat
+continuously from the afternoon of January 31st to the forenoon of
+February 2nd. Members were divided, like miners, into Day-Shifts and
+Night-Shifts. The Refreshment-Rooms at the House were kept open all
+night, and we recruited our exhausted energies with grilled bones,
+oysters, and champagne, and went to bed at breakfast-time. At 9.30 on
+Wednesday morning, February 2nd, Mr. Speaker Brand, who had been absent
+from the House for some hours, suddenly resumed the Chair, and, without
+waiting for J. G. Biggar to finish his speech, put the question that
+leave be given to bring in the Coercion Bill. The Irish raved and
+stormed, and cried out against the Speaker's action as "a Breach of
+Privilege." That it was not; but it was an unexpected and a salutary
+revolution. When questioned, later in the day, as to the authority on
+which he had acted, the Speaker said, "I acted on my own responsibility,
+and from a sense of my duty to the House." Thus was established,
+summarily and under unprecedented circumstances, that principle of
+Closure which has since developed into an indispensable feature of
+Parliamentary procedure.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p><p>The Session as a whole was extremely dull. The Irish Land Bill was so
+complicated that, according to common report, only three persons in the
+House understood it, and they were Gladstone, the Irish Chancellor,<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a>
+and Mr. T. M. Healy. The only amusing incident was that on the 16th of
+June, owing to the attendance of Liberal Members at Ascot Races, the
+majority on a critical division fell to twenty-five. Having occupied the
+whole Session, the Bill was so mangled by the House of Lords that the
+best part of another year had to be spent on mending it. Meanwhile, the
+Coercion Bill proved, in working, a total failure. Forster had averred
+that the police knew the "Village Ruffians" who incited to crime, and
+that, if only he were empowered to imprison them without trial, outrages
+would cease. But either he did not lay hold of the right men, or else
+imprisonment had no terrors; for all through the autumn and winter of
+1881 agrarian crimes increased with terrible rapidity. In a fit of
+desperation, Forster cast Parnell into prison, and Gladstone announced
+the feat amid the tumultuous applause of the Guildhall. But things only
+went from bad to worse, and soon there were forty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> agrarian murders
+unpunished. Having imprisoned Parnell without trial, and kept him in
+prison for six months, the Government now determined to release him, in
+the hope, for certainly there was no assurance, that he would behave
+like a repentant child who has been locked up in a dark cupboard, and
+would use his influence to restore order in Ireland. Dissenting, as well
+he might, from this policy, Forster resigned. His resignation was
+announced on the 2nd of May. That evening I met Gladstone at a party,
+and, in answer to an anxious friend, he said: "The state of Ireland is
+very greatly improved." Ardent Liberals on both sides of the Channel
+shared this sanguine faith, but they were doomed to a cruel
+disappointment. On the 6th of May, the Queen performed the public
+ceremony of dedicating Epping Forest, then lately rescued from
+depredation, to the service of the public. It was a forward spring; the
+day was bright, and the forest looked more beautiful than anything that
+Dor&eacute; ever painted. I was standing in the space reserved for the House of
+Commons, by W. H. O'Sullivan, M.P. for the County of Limerick. He was an
+ardent Nationalist, but recent events had touched his heart, and he
+overflowed with friendly feeling. "This is a fine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> sight," he said to
+me, "but, please God, we shall yet see something like it in Ireland. We
+have entered at last upon the right path. You will hear no more of the
+Irish difficulty." Within an hour of the time at which he spoke, the
+newly-appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland&mdash;the gallant and high-minded
+Lord Frederick Cavendish&mdash;and the Under Secretary, Mr. Burke, were
+stabbed to death in the Ph&oelig;nix Park at Dublin, and the "Irish
+difficulty" entered on the acutest phase which it has ever known.</p>
+
+<p>At that time Lord Northbrook was First Lord of the Admiralty, and on
+Saturday evening, the 6th of May, he gave a party at his official
+residence. The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh were among the guests, and
+there was some music after dinner. In the middle of the performance, I
+noticed a slight commotion, and saw a friend leading Mrs. Gladstone out
+of the room. The incident attracted attention, and people began to
+whisper that Gladstone, who was not at the party, must have been taken
+suddenly ill. While we were all wondering and guessing, a waiter leaned
+across the buffet in the tea-room, and said to me, "Lord Frederick
+Cavendish has been murdered in Dublin. I am a Messenger at the Home
+Office, and we heard it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> by telegram this evening." In an incredibly
+short time the ghastly news spread from room to room, and the guests
+trooped out in speechless horror. That night brought a condition more
+like delirium than repose. One felt as though Hell had opened her mouth,
+and the Powers of Darkness had been let loose. Next day London was like
+a city of the dead, and by Monday all England was in mourning. Sir
+Wilfrid Lawson thus described that awful Sunday: "The effect was
+horrifying&mdash;almost stupefying. No one who walked in the streets of
+London that day can ever forget the sort of ghastly depression which
+seemed to affect everyone. Perfect strangers seemed disposed to speak in
+sympathizing, horror-stricken words with those whom they met. In short,
+there was a moral gloom which could be felt over the whole place."</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Lord Beaconsfield. <i>Endymion.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> The following incident may be worth recording for the
+information of such as are interested in the antiquities of Parliament.
+I first took my seat on the highest bench above and behind the Treasury
+Bench, under the shadow of the Gallery. A few days later, an old
+Parliamentarian said to me, "That's quite the wrong place for you. That
+belongs to ancient Privy Councillors, and they sit there because, if any
+difficulty arises, the Minister in charge of the business can consult
+them, without being observed by everyone in the House." That was the
+tradition in 1880, but it has long since died out.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Afterwards Lord Gladstone.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> Gladstone's own phrase.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Afterwards Lord Morley of Blackburn.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> The Right Hon. Hugh Law.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI</h2>
+
+<h3>POLITICS</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"Ne'er to these chambers, where the mighty rest,</div>
+<div>Since their foundation came a nobler guest;</div>
+<div>Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss conveyed</div>
+<div>A fairer spirit, or more welcome shade."</div>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<div class="i12"><span class="smcap">T. Tickell</span>, <i>On the death of Mr. Addison</i>.</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Lord Frederick Cavendish was laid to rest with his forefathers at
+Edensor, near Chatsworth, on the 11th of May, 1882&mdash;and on the evening
+of that day the Home Secretary, Sir William Harcourt, brought in a
+"Prevention of Crimes Bill" for Ireland, designed to supersede the
+Coercion Act which had proved such a dismal failure. The new Bill
+provided for the creation of special tribunals composed of Judges of the
+Superior Courts, who could sit without juries; and gave the police the
+right of search at any time in proclaimed districts, and authorized them
+to arrest any persons unable to give an account of themselves. The Bill
+was succinctly described as "Martial Law in a Wig," and, as such, it
+was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> exactly adapted to the needs of a country in which social war had
+raged unchecked for two years. The murderous conspiracy died hard, but
+experience soon justified those who had maintained that, as soon as a
+proper tribunal was constituted, evidence would be forthcoming. The Act
+was courageously administered by Lord Spencer and Sir George Trevelyan,
+under circumstances of personal and political peril which the present
+generation can hardly realize. In less than two years the murderers of
+Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke had been hanged; the conspiracy
+which organized the murders had been broken up; and social order was
+permanently re-established.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the excellent effects of the Crimes Act of 1882, and annalists
+treating of this period have commonly said that the Act was due to the
+murders in the Ph&oelig;nix Park. Some years ago Lord James of Hereford,
+who, as Attorney-General, had been closely associated with these events,
+placed in my hands a written statement of the circumstances in which the
+Act originated, and begged that, if possible, the truth of the matter
+might be made known. This may be a convenient opportunity for giving his
+testimony.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p><p>"The Bill of 1882 was designed, and on the stocks, during the month of
+April. I saw F. Cavendish as to some of its details almost immediately
+before his starting for Ireland. As Chief Secretary, he discussed with
+me the provisions the Bill should contain. On Sunday, May 7, 1882, when
+the news of F. Cavendish's murder became known, I went to see Harcourt.
+He begged me to see that the drawing of the Bill was hastened on. About
+2 o'clock I went to the Irish Office, and found the Irish
+Attorney-General hard at work on the Bill. The first draft of it was
+then in print. No doubt F. Cavendish's death tended to affect the
+subsequent framing of the Bill. Harcourt came upon the scenes. T&mdash;&mdash; and
+J&mdash;&mdash; were called to the assistance of the Irish draftsmen, and no doubt
+the Bill was rendered stronger in consequence of the events of May 6.</p>
+
+<p>"I also well remember the change of front about the power of Search. The
+Irish Members in the most determined manner fought against the creation
+of this power.... Harcourt, who had charge of the Bill, would listen to
+none of these arguments, but Mr. Gladstone was much moved by them. There
+was almost a crisis produced in consequence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> of this disagreement; but
+Harcourt gave way, and the concession was announced."</p>
+
+<p>It is not my purpose in these chapters to speak about my own
+performances in Parliament, but the foregoing allusion to the concession
+on the Right of Search tempts me to a personal confession. In the Bill,
+as brought in, there was a most salutary provision giving the police the
+right to search houses in which murders were believed to be plotted.
+After making us vote for this clause three times&mdash;on the First Reading,
+on the Second Reading, and in Committee&mdash;the Government, as we have just
+seen, yielded to clamour, and proposed on Report to alter the clause by
+limiting the Right of Search to day-time. I opposed this alteration, as
+providing a "close time for murder," and had the satisfaction of helping
+to defeat the Government. The Big-Wigs of the Party were extremely
+angry, and Mr. R. H. Hutton, in <i>The Spectator</i>, rebuked us in his most
+grandmotherly style. In reply, I quoted some words of his own. "There is
+nothing which injures true Liberalism more than the sympathy of its left
+wing with the loose ruffianism of unsettled States." "Such a State," I
+said, "is Ireland; and if, under the pressure of extraordinary
+difficulties, Ministers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> vacillate or waver in their dealings with it,
+the truest Liberalism, I believe, is that which holds them firmly to
+their duty."</p>
+
+<p>In that sad Session of 1882 the troubles of the Government "came not
+single spies, but in battalions," and the most enduring of those
+troubles arose in Egypt. For the benefit of a younger generation, let me
+recall the circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>Ismail Pasha, the ruler of Egypt, had accumulated a national debt of
+about &pound;100,000,000, and the pressure on the wretched peasants who had to
+pay was crushing. Presently they broke out in revolt, partly with the
+hope of shaking off this burden, and partly with a view to establishing
+some sort of self-government. But the financiers who had lent money to
+Egypt took fright, and urged the Government to interfere and suppress
+the insurrection. A meeting of Tories was held in London on June 29th
+and the Tory Leaders made the most inflammatory speeches. Unhappily, the
+Government yielded to this show of violence. It was said by a close
+observer of Parliamentary institutions that "When the Government of the
+day and the Opposition of the day take the same side, one may be almost
+sure that some great wrong is at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> hand," and so it was now. On July 10th
+our fleet bombarded Alexandria, smashing its rotten forts with the
+utmost ease, and killing plenty of Egyptians. I remember to this day the
+sense of shame with which I read our Admiral's telegraphic despatch:
+"Enemy's fire weak and ineffectual."</p>
+
+<p>The protest delivered on the following day, by Sir Wilfrid Lawson, the
+most consistent and the most disinterested politician whom I ever knew,
+deserves to be remembered.</p>
+
+<p>"I say deliberately, and in doing so I challenge either Tory or Liberal
+to contradict me, that no Tory Government could have done what the
+Liberal Government did yesterday in bombarding those forts. If such a
+thing had been proposed, what would have happened? We should have had
+Sir William Harcourt stumping the country, and denouncing Government by
+Ultimatum. We should have had Lord Hartington coming down, and moving a
+Resolution condemning these proceedings being taken behind the back of
+Parliament. We should have had Mr. Chamberlain summoning the Caucuses.
+We should have had Mr. Bright declaiming in the Town Hall of Birmingham
+against the wicked Tory Government;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> and as for Mr. Gladstone, we all
+know that there would not have been a railway-train, passing a roadside
+station, that he would not have pulled up at, to proclaim
+non-intervention as the duty of the Government."</p>
+
+<p>On the 12th of July John Bright retired from the Government, as a
+protest against the bombardment, and made a short speech full of solemn
+dignity. "I asked my calm judgment and my conscience what was the path I
+ought to take. They pointed it out to me, as I think, with an unerring
+finger, and I am humbly endeavouring to follow it."</p>
+
+<p>But it was too late. The mischief was done, and has not been undone to
+this day. I remember Mr. Chamberlain saying to me: "Well, I confess I
+was tired of having England kicked about all over the world. I never
+condemned the Tory Government for going to war; only for going to war on
+the wrong side." It was a characteristic saying; but this amazing lapse
+into naked jingoism spread wonder and indignation through the Liberal
+Party, and shook the faith of many who, down to that time, had regarded
+Gladstone as a sworn servant of Peace. The Egyptian policy of 1882 must,
+I fear, always remain the blot on Gladstone's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> scutcheon; and three
+years later he gave away the whole case for intervention, and threw the
+blame on his predecessors in office. In his Address to the Electors of
+Midlothian before the General Election of 1885 he used the following
+words: "We have, according to my conviction from the very first (when
+the question was not within the sphere of Party contentions), committed
+by our intervention in Egypt a grave political error, and the
+consequence which the Providential order commonly allots to such error
+is not compensation, but retribution."</p>
+
+<p>But, though Providence eventually allotted "retribution" to our crimes
+and follies in Egypt, and though they were always unpopular with the
+Liberal Party out of doors, it was curious to observe that the position
+of the Government in the House of Commons was stronger at the end of
+1882 than it was at the beginning. That this was so was due, I think, in
+part to the fact that for the moment we were victorious in Egypt,<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a>
+and in part to admiration for the vigour with which Lord Spencer was
+fighting the murderous conspiracy in Ireland. The Government enjoyed the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>dangerous praise of the Opposition; obstruction collapsed; and some new
+Rules of Procedure were carried by overwhelming majorities. Here let me
+interpolate an anecdote. Mr. M&mdash;&mdash; L&mdash;&mdash; was a barrister, an obsequious
+supporter of the Government, and, as was generally surmised, on the
+lookout for preferment. Mr. Philip Callan, M.P. for County Louth, was
+speaking on an amendment to one of the new Rules, and Mr. M&mdash;&mdash; L&mdash;&mdash;
+thrice tried to call him to order on the ground of irrelevancy. Each
+time, the Chairman of Committee ruled that, though the Honourable Member
+for Louth was certainly taking a wide sweep, he was not out of order.
+Rising the third time from the seat Callan said: "I may as well take the
+opportunity of giving notice that I propose to move the insertion of a
+new Standing Order, which will read as follows: 'Any Hon. Member who
+three times unsuccessfully calls another Hon. Member to order, shall be
+ineligible for a County Court Judgeship.'" Mr. M&mdash;&mdash; L&mdash;&mdash; looked coy,
+and everyone else shouted with glee.</p>
+
+<p>The Session of 1883 opened very quietly. The speech from the Throne
+extolled the success of the Ministerial policy in Ireland and Egypt, and
+promised a series of useful but not exciting <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>measures. Meanwhile the
+more active Members of the Liberal Party, among whom I presumed to
+reckon myself, began to agitate for more substantial reforms. We had
+entered on the fourth Session of the Parliament. A noble majority was
+beginning to decline, and we felt that there was no time to lose if we
+were to secure the ends which we desired. Knowing that I felt keenly on
+these subjects, Mr. T. H. S. Escott, then Editor of the <i>Fortnightly</i>,
+asked me to write an article for his Review, and in that article I spoke
+my mind about the Agricultural Labourers' Suffrage, the Game Laws, the
+reform of the City of London, and an English Land Bill. "The action of
+the Peers," I said, "under Lord Salisbury's guidance will probably force
+on the question of a Second Chamber, and those who flatter themselves
+that the Liberal Party will shrink from discussing it will be grievously
+disillusioned. Disestablishment, begun in Ireland, will inevitably work
+round, by Scotland, to England. And who is to preside over these
+changes?"</p>
+
+<p>I returned to the charge in the June number of the <i>Nineteenth Century</i>,
+and urged my points more strongly. I pleaded for social reform, and for
+"a Free Church in a Free State." I crossed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> swords with a noble Lord who
+had pronounced dogmatically that "A Second Chamber is absolutely
+necessary." I gave my reasons for thinking that now-a-days there is very
+little danger of hasty and ill-considered legislation, and I pointed out
+that, when this danger disappears, the reason for a Second Chamber
+disappears with it. "But," I said, "granting, for the sake of argument,
+that something of this danger still survives, would it not be fully met
+by limiting the power of the Lords to a Veto for a year on a measure
+passed by the Commons?"</p>
+
+<p>These articles, coupled with my speeches in the House and in my
+constituency, gave dire offence to the Whigs; and I was chastened with
+rebukes which, if not weighty, were at any rate ponderous. "Not this
+way," wrote the <i>St. James's Gazette</i>, in a humorous apostrophe, "not
+this way, O Junior Member for Aylesbury, lies the road to the Treasury
+Bench," and so, indeed, it seemed. But, on returning from an evening
+party at Sir Matthew Ridley's, on the 5th of June, 1883, I found a
+letter from Mr. Gladstone, offering me the post of Parliamentary
+Secretary to the Local Government Board. One sentence of that letter I
+may be allowed to quote:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p><p>"Your name, and the recollections it suggests, add much to the
+satisfaction which, independently of relationship, I should have felt in
+submitting to you this request." It was like Gladstone's courtesy to
+call his offer a "request."</p>
+
+<p>Thus I became harnessed to the machine of Government, and my friends,
+inside the House and out of it, were extremely kind about the
+appointment. Nearly everyone who wrote to congratulate me used the same
+image: "You have now set your foot on the bottom rung of the ladder."
+But my staunch friend George Trevelyan handled the matter more
+poetically, in the following stanza:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"As long as a plank can float, or a bolt can hold together,</div>
+<div class="i1">When the sea is smooth as glass, or the waves run mountains high,</div>
+<div>In the brightest of summer skies, or the blackest of dirty weather,</div>
+<div class="i1">Wherever the ship swims, there swim I."</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The part of "the ship" to which I was now fastened was certainly not the
+most exalted or exciting of the public offices. The estimation in which
+it was held in official circles is aptly illustrated by a pleasantry of
+that eminent Civil Servant, Sir Algernon West. When the Revised Version
+of the New Testament appeared, Gladstone asked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> Sir Algernon (who had
+begun life in the Treasury), if he thought it as good as the Authorized
+Version. "Certainly not," was the reply. "It is so painfully lacking in
+dignity." Gladstone, always delighted to hear an innovation censured
+(unless he himself had made it), asked for an illustration. "Well," said
+West, "look at the Second Chapter of St. Luke. <i>There went out a decree
+from C&aelig;sar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.</i> Now that always
+struck me as a sublime conception&mdash;a tax levied on the whole world by a
+stroke of the pen&mdash;an act worthy of an Imperial Treasury. But I turn to
+the Revised Version, and what do I read? <i>That all the world should be
+enrolled</i>&mdash;a census&mdash;the sort of thing the Local Government Board could
+do. That instance, to my mind, settles the question between Old and
+New."</p>
+
+<p>But in the office thus contemned by the Paladins of the Treasury, there
+was plenty of interesting though little-observed work. In the autumn of
+1883 I undertook, in conjunction with the President of the Board, a
+mission of enquiry into the worst slums in London. There is no need to
+recapitulate here all the horrors we encountered, for they can be read
+in the evidence given before the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> Royal Commission on the Housing of the
+Poor which was appointed in the following year; but one incident made a
+peculiar impression on my mind. The Sanitary Officer reported some
+underground dwellings in Spitalfields as being perhaps the worst
+specimens of human habitation which we should find, and he offered to be
+my guide. I entered a cellar-like room in a basement, which, till one's
+eyes got used to the dimness, seemed pitch-dark. I felt, rather than
+saw, the presence of a woman, and, when we began to talk, I discerned by
+her voice that she was not a Londoner. "No, sir," she replied, "I come
+from Wantage, in Berkshire." Having always heard of Wantage as a kind of
+Earthly Paradise, where the Church, the Sisterhood, and the "Great
+House" combined to produce the millennium, I said, involuntarily, "How
+you must wish to be back there!" "Back at Wantage!" exclaimed the Lady
+of the Cellar. "No, indeed, sir. This is a poor place, but it's better
+than Wantage." It was instructive to find this love of freedom, and
+resentment of interference, in the bowels of the earth of Spitalfields.</p>
+
+<p>An incident which helps to illustrate Gladstone's personal ascendancy
+belongs to this period.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> Those were the days of agitation for and
+against a Channel Tunnel, eagerly promoted by speculative tunnel-makers,
+and resolutely opposed by Mr. Chamberlain, then President of the Board
+of Trade. Gladstone, when asked if he was for or against the Tunnel,
+said very characteristically, "I am not so much in favour of the Tunnel,
+as opposed to the opponents of it"; and this of course meant that he was
+really in favour of it. About this time I met him at dinner, and after
+the ladies had gone, I think we were eight men round the table.
+Gladstone began praising the Tunnel; one of the hearers echoed him, and
+the rest of us were silent. Looking round triumphantly, Gladstone said,
+"Ah, this is capital! Here we are&mdash;eight sensible men&mdash;and all in favour
+of the Tunnel." Knowing that several of us were against the Tunnel, I
+challenged a division and collected the votes. Excepting Gladstone and
+his echo, we all were anti-tunnelites, and yet none of us would have had
+the hardihood to say so.</p>
+
+<p>In this year&mdash;1883&mdash;Gladstone's Government had regained some portion of
+the popularity and success which they had lost; but when the year ran
+out, their success was palpably on the wane, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> their popularity of
+course waned with it. The endless contradictions and perplexities,
+crimes and follies, of our Egyptian policy became too obvious to be
+concealed or palliated, and at the beginning of 1884 the Government
+resolved on their crowning and fatal blunder. On the 18th of January,
+Lord Hartington (Secretary of State for War), Lord Granville, Lord
+Northbrook, and Sir Charles Dilke had an interview with General Gordon,
+and determined that he should be sent to evacuate the Soudan. Gladstone
+assented, and Gordon started that evening on his ill-starred errand. In
+view of subsequent events, it is worth recording that there were some
+Liberals who, from the moment they heard of it, condemned the
+undertaking. The dithyrambics of the <i>Pall Mall Gazette</i> drew from
+William Cory<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> the following protest:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p class="right">"January 21, 1884.</p>
+
+<p>"It's really ludicrous&mdash;the P. M. G. professing a clearly
+suprarational faith in an elderly Engineer, saying that he will
+cook the goose if no one interferes with him ... as if he could go
+to Suakim, 'summon' a barbarous potentate, make him supply his
+escort to Khartoum, and, when at Khartoum, issue edicts right and
+left; as if he could act without subaltern officers, money, stores,
+gold, etc.; as if he were an <i>homme drapeau</i>, and had an old army
+out there ready to troop round him, as the French veterans round
+Bonaparte at Fr&eacute;jus."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p><p>In Parliament, the principal work of 1884 was to extend the
+Parliamentary Franchise to the Agricultural Labourer. A Tory Member said
+in debate that the labourers were no more fit to have the franchise than
+the beasts they tended; and Lord Goschen, who had remained outside the
+Cabinet of 1880 sooner than be party to giving them the vote, used to
+say to the end of his life that, if the Union were ever destroyed, it
+would be by the agricultural labourers. I, however, who had lived among
+them all my life and knew that they were at least as fit for political
+responsibility as the artisans, threw myself with ardour into the
+advocacy of their cause. (By the way, my speech of the Second Reading of
+the Franchise Bill was answered by the present Speaker<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> in his maiden
+speech.) All through the summer the battle raged. The Lords did not
+refuse to pass the Bill, but said that, before they passed it, they must
+see the accompanying scheme of Redistribution. It was not a very
+unreasonable demand, but Gladstone denounced it as an unheard-of
+usurpation. We all took our cue from him, and vowed that we would smash
+the House of Lords into atoms before we consented<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> to this insolent
+claim. Throughout the Parliamentary recess, the voices of protest
+resounded from every Liberal platform, and even so lethargic a
+politician as Lord Hartington harangued a huge gathering in the Park at
+Chatsworth. Everything wore the appearance of a constitutional crisis.
+Queen Victoria, as we now know, was seriously perturbed, and did her
+utmost to avert a rupture between Lords and Commons. But still we
+persisted in our outcry. The Lords must pass the Franchise Bill without
+conditions, and when it was law, we would discuss Redistribution. A new
+Session began on 23rd of October. The Franchise Bill was brought in
+again, passed, and sent up to the Lords. At first the Lords seemed
+resolved to insist on their terms; then they wavered; and then again
+they hardened their hearts. Lord Salisbury reported that they would not
+let the Franchise Bill through till they got the Redistribution Bill
+from the Commons. Meanwhile, all sorts of mysterious negotiations were
+going on between the "moderate" men on both sides; and it was known that
+Gladstone dared not dissolve on the old franchise, as he was sure to be
+beaten in the Boroughs. His only hope was in the agricultural
+labourers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> Then, acting under pressure which is not known but can be
+easily guessed, he suddenly announced, on the 17th of November, that he
+was prepared to introduce the Redistribution Bill before the Lords went
+into Committee on the Franchise Bill. It was the point for which the
+Tories had been contending all along, and by conceding it, Gladstone
+made an absolute surrender. All the sound and fury of the last six
+months had been expended in protesting that we could never do what now
+we meekly did. It was the beginning of troubles which have lasted to
+this day. The House of Lords learned the welcome lesson that, when the
+Liberal Party railed, they only had to sit still; and the lesson learnt
+in 1884 was applied in each succeeding crisis down to August 1911. It
+has always been to me an amazing instance of Gladstone's powers of
+self-deception that to the end of his life he spoke of this pernicious
+surrender as a signal victory.</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Early in 1885, it became my duty to receive at the Local Government
+Board a deputation of the Unemployed, who then were beginning to agitate
+the habitual calm of the well-fed and the easy-going.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> It was a curious
+experience. The deputation consisted of respectable-looking and
+apparently earnest men, some of whom spoke the language of <i>Alton
+Locke</i>, while others talked in a more modern strain of dynamite, Secret
+Societies, and "a life for a life." The most conspicuous figure in the
+deputation was an engineer called John Burns,<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> and those who are
+interested in political development may find something to their mind in
+the report of the deputation in <i>The Times</i> of February 17th, 1885.
+There they will read that, after leaving Whitehall, the crowd adjourned
+to the Embankment, where the following resolution was carried, and
+despatched to the President of the Local Government Board:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"That this meeting of the unemployed, having heard the answer given
+by the Local Government Board to their deputation, considers the
+refusal to start public works to be a sentence of death on
+thousands of those out of work, and the recommendation to bring
+pressure to bear on the local bodies to be a direct incitement to
+violence; further, it will hold Mr. G. W. E. Russell and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>
+members of the Government, individually and collectively, guilty of
+the murder of those who may die in the next few weeks, and whose
+lives would have been saved had the suggestion of the deputation
+been acted on.</p>
+
+<p>(Signed)&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <span class="smcap">John Burns</span>, <i>Engineer</i>.<br />
+&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <span class="smcap">John E. Williams</span>, <i>Labourer</i>.<br />
+&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <span class="smcap">William Henry</span>, <i>Foreman</i>.<br />
+&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <span class="smcap">James Macdonald</span>, <i>Tailor</i>."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The threats with which the leaders of the Unemployed regaled us derived
+a pleasing actuality from the fact that on the 24th of January
+simultaneous explosions had occurred at the Tower and in the House of
+Commons. I did not see the destruction at the Tower, but I went straight
+across from my office to the House of Commons, and saw a curious
+object-lesson in scientific Fenianism. In Westminster Hall there was a
+hole in the pavement six feet wide, and another in the roof. I had
+scarcely done examining these phenomena when another crash shook the
+whole building, and we found that an infernal machine had been exploded
+in the House of Commons, tearing the doors off their hinges, wrecking
+the galleries, and smashing the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> Treasury Bench into matchwood. The
+French Ambassador, M. Waddington, entered the House with me, and for a
+while stood silent and amazed. At length he said, "There's no other
+country in the world where this could happen." Certainly it must be
+admitted that at that moment our detective organization was not at its
+best.</p>
+
+<p>However, neither mock-heroics nor actual outrage could obscure the fact
+that during the spring of 1885 there Was an immense amount of
+unemployment, and consequent suffering, among the unskilled labourers. I
+suggested that we should issue from the Local Government Board a
+Circular Letter to all the Local Authorities in London, asking them, not
+to invent work, but to push forward works which, owing to the rapid
+extension of London into the suburbs, were becoming absolutely
+necessary. But the President of the Board, a bond slave of Political
+Economy, would not sanction even this very mild departure from the
+precepts of the Dismal Science. The distress was peculiarly acute at the
+Docks, where work is precarious and uncertain in the highest degree.
+Some well-meaning people at the West End instituted a plan of "Free
+Breakfasts" to be served at the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>Dock-Gates to men who had failed to
+obtain employment for the day. On one of these occasions&mdash;and very
+pathetic they were&mdash;I was the host, and the <i>Saturday Review</i> treated me
+to some not unkindly ridicule.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>Child of the Whigs whose name you flout,</div>
+<div class="i1">Slip of the tree you fain would fell;</div>
+<div>Your colleagues own, I cannot doubt,</div>
+<div class="i1">Your plan, George Russell, likes them well,</div>
+<div>"What will regain," you heard them cry,</div>
+<div class="i1">"That popular praise we once enjoyed?"</div>
+<div>And instant was your smart reply,</div>
+<div class="i1">"Free Breakfasts to the Unemployed."</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And then, after six more verses of rhythmical chaff, this prophetic
+stanza:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>And howsoe'er profusely flow</div>
+<div class="i1">The tea and coffee round the board,</div>
+<div>The hospitality you show</div>
+<div class="i1">Shall nowise lack its due reward.</div>
+<div>For soon, I trust, our turn 'twill be,</div>
+<div class="i1">With joy by no regret alloyed,</div>
+<div>To give the present Ministry</div>
+<div class="i1">A Breakfast for the Unemployed.</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The Parliamentary work of 1885 was Redistribution. The principles had
+been settled in secret conclave by the leaders on both sides; but the
+details were exhaustively discussed in the House of Commons. By this
+time we had become inured to Tory votes of censure on our Egyptian
+policy, and had always contrived to escape by the skin of our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> teeth;
+but we were in a disturbed and uneasy condition. We knew&mdash;for there was
+an incessant leakage of official secrets&mdash;that the Cabinet was rent by
+acute dissensions. The Whiggish section was in favour of renewing the
+Irish Crimes Act. The Radicals wished to let it expire, and proposed to
+conciliate Ireland by a scheme of National Councils. Between the middle
+of April and the middle of May, nine members of the Cabinet, for one
+cause or another, contemplated resignation. After one of these disputes
+Gladstone said to a friend: "A very fair Cabinet to-day&mdash;only three
+resignations." Six months later, after his Government had fallen, he
+wrote: "A Cabinet does not exist out of office, and no one in his senses
+could covenant to call <i>the late Cabinet</i> together." The solution of
+these difficulties came unexpectedly. The Budget introduced by Hugh
+Childers on the 30th of April proposed to meet a deficit by additional
+duties on beer and spirits; and was therefore extremely unpopular.
+Silently and skilfully, the Tories, the Irish, and the disaffected
+Liberals laid their plans. On Sunday, June 7th, Lord Henry Lennox&mdash;a
+leading Tory&mdash;told me at luncheon that we were to be turned out on the
+following<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> day, and so, sure enough, we were, on an amendment to the
+Budget moved by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach.<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> It was thought at the time
+that the Liberal wirepullers welcomed this defeat, as a way out of
+difficulties. Certainly no strenuous efforts were made to avert it. The
+scene in the House when the fatal figures were announced has been often
+described, and in my mind's eye I see clearly the image of Lord Randolph
+Churchill, dancing a kind of triumphant hornpipe on the bench which for
+five momentous years had been the seat of the Fourth Party. On the 24th
+of June Lord Salisbury became Prime Minister for the first time.</p>
+
+<p>The break-up of the Government revealed to all the world the fact that
+the Liberal Party was cleft in twain. The Whig section was led by Lord
+Hartington, and the Radical section by Mr. Chamberlain. Gladstone did
+his best to mediate between the two, and so to present an unbroken front
+to the common foe. But the parting of the ways soon became painfully
+apparent. The fall of the Government involved, of course, the return of
+Lord Spencer from Ireland, and some of his friends resolved, after the
+manner of admiring Englishmen,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> to give him a public dinner. The current
+phrase was that we were to "Dine Spencer for coercing the Irish." As he
+had done that thoroughly for the space of three years, and, at the risk
+of his own life, had destroyed a treasonable and murderous conspiracy,
+he was well entitled to all the honours which we could give him. So it
+was arranged that the dinner was to take place at the Westminster Palace
+Hotel on the 24th of July. Shortly before the day arrived, Mr.
+Chamberlain said to me: "I think you had better not attend that dinner
+to Spencer. I am not going, nor is D&mdash;&mdash;. Certainly Spencer has done his
+duty, and shown capital pluck; but I hope we should all have done the
+same, and there's no reason to mark it by a dinner. And, after all,
+coercion is not a nice business for Liberals, though we may be forced
+into it." However, as I had greatly admired Lord Spencer's
+administration, and as his family and mine had been politically
+associated for a century, I made a point of attending, and a capital
+evening we had. There was an enthusiastic and representative company of
+two hundred Liberals. Lord Hartington presided, and extolled Lord
+Spencer to the skies; and Lord Spencer justified the Crimes Act by
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>saying that, when it was passed, there was an organization of thirty
+thousand Fenians, aided by branches in Scotland and England, and by
+funds from America, defying the law of the land in Ireland. Not a word
+in all this about Home Rule, or the Union of Hearts, but we cheered it
+to the echo, little dreaming what the next six months had in store for
+us.</p>
+
+<p>Though I was thoroughly in favour of resolute dealing with murder and
+outrage, I was also&mdash;and this was a combination which sorely puzzled
+<i>The Spectator</i>&mdash;an enthusiastic Radical, and specially keen on the side
+of social reform. My views on domestic politics were substantially the
+same as those set forth with extraordinary vigour and effect in a long
+series of speeches by Mr. Chamberlain, who was now unmuzzled, and was
+making the fullest use of his freedom. He was then at the very zenith of
+his powers, and the scheme of political and social reform which he
+expounded is still, in my opinion, the best compendium of Radical
+politics; but it tended in the direction of what old-fashioned people
+called Socialism, and this was to Gladstone an abomination. One day, to
+my consternation, he asked me if it was true that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> Socialism had made
+some way among the younger Liberals, of whom I was then one.
+Endeavouring to parry a question which must have revealed my own guilt,
+I feebly asked if by Socialism my venerable Leader meant the practice of
+taking private property for public uses, or the performance by the State
+of what ought to be left to the individual; whereupon he replied, with
+startling emphasis: "I mean both, but I reserve my worst Billingsgate
+for the attack on private property."</p>
+
+<p>On the 18th of September Gladstone issued his Address to the Electors of
+Midlothian&mdash;an exceedingly long-winded document, which seemed to commit
+the Liberal Party to nothing in particular. <i>Verbosa et grandis
+epistola</i>, said Mr. John Morley. "An old man's manifesto," wrote the
+<i>Pall Mall</i>. By contrast with this colourless but authoritative
+document, Mr. Chamberlain's scheme became known as "The Unauthorized
+Programme," and of that programme I was a zealous promoter.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the Franchise Bill and the Redistribution Bill had passed
+into law, it was arranged that the dissolution should take place in
+November. The whole autumn was given up to electioneering. The
+newly-enfranchised labourers seemed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> friendly to the Liberal cause, but
+our bewildered candidates saw that their leaders were divided into two
+sections&mdash;one might almost say, two camps. This was a condition of
+things which boded disaster to the Liberal Party; but Gladstone never
+realized that Chamberlain was a power which it was madness to alienate.</p>
+
+<p>On the 2nd of October I went on a visit to Hawarden, and the next day
+Gladstone opened a conversation on the state of the Party and the
+prospects of the Election. He said: "I believe you are in Chamberlain's
+confidence. Can you tell me what he means?" I replied that I was not the
+least in Chamberlain's confidence, though he had always been very
+friendly to me, and I admired his Programme. "But," I said, "I think
+that what he means is quite clear. He has no thought of trying to oust
+you from the Leadership of the Liberal Party; but he is determined that,
+when you resign it, he, and not Hartington, shall succeed you." This
+seemed to give the Chief some food for reflection, and then I ventured
+to follow up my advantage. "After all," I said, "Chamberlain has been
+your colleague for five years. Surely your best plan would be to invite
+him here, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>ascertain his intentions from himself." If I had
+suggested that my host should invite the Sultan or the Czar, he could
+not have looked more surprised. "I have always made a point," he said,
+"of keeping this place clear of political transactions. We never invite
+anyone except private friends." "Well," I said, "but we are within six
+weeks of the Election, and it will never do for us to go to the country
+with you and Chamberlain professing two rival policies."</p>
+
+<p>Backed by Mrs. Gladstone, I carried my point, and with my own hand wrote
+the telegram inviting Mr. Chamberlain. Unfortunately I had to leave
+Hawarden on the 6th of October, so I was not present at the meeting
+which I had brought about; but a few days later I had a letter from Mr.
+Chamberlain saying that, though his visit had been socially pleasant, it
+had been politically useless. He had not succeeded in making Gladstone
+see the importance of the Unauthorized Programme, and "if I were to drop
+it now," he said, "the stones would immediately cry out."</p>
+
+<p>What then ensued is matter of history. Parliament was dissolved on the
+18th of November. When the elections were finished, the Liberal Party
+was just short of the numerical strength<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> which was requisite to defeat
+a combination of Tories and Parnellites. Lord Salisbury, therefore,
+retained office, but the life of his administration hung by a thread.</p>
+
+<p>On the 24th of November, 1884, the great Lord Shaftesbury, moved by the
+spirit of prophecy, had written: "In a year or so we shall have Home
+Rule disposed of (at all hazards) to save us from daily and hourly
+bores." On the 17th of December, 1885, the world was astonished by an
+anonymous announcement in two newspapers&mdash;and the rest followed suit
+next day&mdash;that, if Gladstone were returned to power, he would be
+prepared to deal, in a liberal spirit, with the demand for Home Rule.
+This announcement was an act of folly not easy to explain or condone. We
+now know whose act it was, and we know that it was committed without
+Gladstone's privity. As Lord Morley says: "Never was there a moment when
+every consideration of political prudence more imperatively counselled
+silence." But now every political tongue in the United Kingdom was set
+wagging, and Gladstone could neither confirm nor deny. Our bewilderment
+and confusion were absolute. No one knew what was coming next; who was
+on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> what side; or whither his party&mdash;or, indeed, himself&mdash;was tending.
+One point only was clear: if Gladstone meant what he seemed to mean, the
+Parnellites would support him, and the Tories would be turned out. The
+new Parliament met on the 21st of January, 1886. On the&mdash;, the
+Government were defeated on an amendment to the Address, in favour of
+Municipal Allotments, and Lord Salisbury resigned. It was a moment of
+intense excitement, and everyone tasted for a day or two "the joy of
+eventful living."</p>
+
+<p>On the 29th of January, I dined with Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone. The host
+was in a grim mood of suppressed excitement, anger, and apprehension.
+All day long he had been expecting a summons from the Queen, and it had
+not arrived. "It begins to look," he said, "as if the Government meant
+after all to ignore the vote of the House of Commons, and go on. All I
+can say is that, if they do, the Crown will be placed in a worse
+position than it has ever occupied in my lifetime." But after the party
+had broken up, Sir Henry Ponsonby arrived with the desired message from
+the Queen; and on the 1st of February Gladstone kissed hands, as Prime
+Minister for the third time.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p><p>"When Gladstone runs down a steep place, his immense majority, like the
+pigs in Scripture but hoping for a better issue, will go with him,
+roaring in grunts of exultation." This was Lord Shaftesbury's prediction
+in the previous year; but it was based on an assumption which proved
+erroneous. It took for granted the unalterable docility of the Liberal
+Party. I knew little at first hand of the transactions and tumults which
+filled the spring and early summer of 1886. At the beginning of February
+I was laid low by serious illness, resulting from the fatigue and
+exposure of the Election; and when, after a long imprisonment, I was out
+of bed, I went off to the seaside for convalescence. But even in the
+sick-room I heard rumours of the obstinate perversity with which the
+Liberal Government was rushing on its fate, and the admirably effective
+resistance to Home Rule engineered by Lord Hartington and Mr.
+Chamberlain. The Liberal leaders ran down the steep place, but an
+important minority of the pigs refused to follow them. The Home Rule
+Bill was thrown out on the 8th of June. Parliament was immediately
+dissolved. The General Election gave a majority of more than a hundred
+against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> Home Rule; the Government retired and Lord Salisbury again
+became Prime Minister.</p>
+
+<p>In those distant days, there was a happy arrangement by which once a
+year, when my father was staying with me, Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone dined
+with me to meet him. My father and Gladstone had both entered public
+life at the General Election of 1832, and my father loved to describe
+him as he appeared riding in Hyde Park on a grey Arabian mare, "with his
+hat, narrow-brimmed, high up on the centre of his head, sustained by a
+crop of thick, curly hair," while a passer-by said: "That's Gladstone.
+He is to make his maiden speech to-night. It will be worth hearing." The
+annual rencounter took place on the 21st of July, 1886. After dinner,
+Gladstone drew me into a window and said: "Well, this Election has been
+a great disappointment." I replied that we could certainly have wished
+it better, but that the result was not unexpected. To my amazement,
+Gladstone replied that it was completely unexpected. "The experts
+assured me that we should sweep the country." (I always wish that I
+could have had an opportunity of speaking my mind to those "experts.")
+Pursuing the subject, Gladstone said that the Queen had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> demurred to a
+second election in six months, and that some of his colleagues had
+recommended more moderate courses. "But I said that, if we didn't
+dissolve, we should be showing the white feather."</p>
+
+<p>It is no part of my purpose to trace the dismal history of the Liberal
+Party between 1886 and 1892. But one incident in that time deserves to
+be recorded. I was dining with Lord and Lady Rosebery on the 4th of
+March, 1889; Gladstone was of the company, and was indulging in
+passionate diatribes against Pitt. One phrase has always stuck in my
+memory. "There is no crime recorded in history&mdash;I do not except the
+Massacre of St. Bartholomew&mdash;which will compare for a moment with the
+means by which the Union was brought about." When the party was breaking
+up, one of the diners said: "I hope Mr. Gladstone won't draw that
+parallel, between the Union and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, on a
+public platform, or we shall stand even less well with the thinking
+public than we do now."</p>
+
+<p>Parliament was dissolved in June, 1892, and, when the elections were
+over, it was found that the Liberal Party, including the Irish, had only
+a majority of 40. When Gladstone knew the final<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> figures, he saw the
+impossibility of forcing Home Rule through the Lords, and exclaimed: "My
+life's work is done." However, as we all remember, he took the
+Premiership for a fourth time, and during the Session of 1893 passed a
+Home Rule Bill through the House of Commons. The Lords threw it out by
+419 to 41, the minority being mainly wage-receivers. Other troubles
+there were, both inside the Government and outside it; Mr. Gladstone
+told his friends that the Naval Estimates demanded by the Admiralty were
+"mad and drunk"; and people began to suspect that the great change was
+at hand.</p>
+
+<p>On the 1st of March, 1894, Gladstone made his last speech in the House
+of Commons. In that speech he bequeathed to his party the legacy of a
+nobly-worded protest against the irresponsible power of the "Nominated
+Chamber"; and then, having accomplished sixty-one years of Parliamentary
+service, he simply disappeared, without ceremony or farewell. In my
+mind's eye I see him now, upright as ever, and walking fast, with his
+despatch-box dangling from his right hand, as he passed the Speaker's
+Chair, and quitted the scene of his life's work for ever.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of warnings and anticipations, the end<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> had, after all, come
+suddenly; and, with a sharp pang of regretful surprise, we woke to the
+fact that "our master was taken away from our head to-day." Strong men
+were shaken with emotion and hard men were moved to unaccustomed tears,
+as we passed out of the emptied House in the dusk of that gloomy
+afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>On the 6th of March, 1894, Gladstone wrote to me as follows, in reply to
+my letter of farewell:</p>
+
+<p>"My speculative view into the future shows me a very mixed spectacle,
+and a doubtful atmosphere. I am thankful to have borne a part in the
+emancipating labours of the last sixty years; but entirely uncertain
+how, had I now to begin my life, I could face the very different
+problems of the next sixty years. Of one thing I am, and always have
+been, convinced&mdash;it is not by the State that man can be regenerated, and
+the terrible woes of this darkened world effectually dealt with. In
+some, and some very important, respects, I yearn for the impossible
+revival of the men and the ideas of my first twenty years, which
+immediately followed the first Reform Act. But I am stepping out upon a
+boundless plain.</p>
+
+<p>"May God give you strength of all kinds to perform your appointed work
+in the world."</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> The British troops entered Cairo on the 14th of September,
+1882.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Better known as "Billy Johnson," the famous Eton Tutor.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> The Right Hon. J. W. Lowther.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Afterwards the Right Hon. John Burns, M.P., President of
+the Local Government Board.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> Afterwards Lord St. Aldwyn.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII</h2>
+
+<h3>ORATORY</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p>&#7953;&#963;&#964;&#953; &#948;' &#959;&#8017;&#967; &#8001; &#955;&#959;&#947;&#8001;&#962; &#964;&#8001;&#965;
+&#8165;&#7969;&#964;&#959;&#961;&#959;&#962;, &#913;&#953;&#963;&#967;&#7985;&#957;&#951;, &#964;&#7985;&#956;&#953;&#959;&#957;,
+&#959;&#8017;&#948;' &#8001; &#964;&#959;&#957;&#8001;&#962; &#964;&#7969;&#962; &#966;&#969;&#957;&#7969;&#962;, &#7937;&#955;&#955;&#7937; &#964;&#8001; &#964;&#945;&#8017;&#964;&#7937; &#960;&#961;&#959;&#945;&#953;&#961;&#949;&#7985;&#963;&#952;&#945;&#953; &#964;&#959;&#7985;&#962; &#960;&#959;&#955;&#955;&#959;&#7985;&#962;,
+&#954;&#945;&#7985; &#964;&#8001; &#964;&#959;&#8017;&#962; &#945;&#8017;&#964;&#959;&#8017;&#962; &#956;&#953;&#963;&#949;&#7985;&#957; &#954;&#945;&#7985; &#966;&#953;&#955;&#949;&#7985;&#957;, &#959;&#8017;&#963;&#960;&#949;&#961; &#7937;&#957; &#7969; &#960;&#945;&#964;&#961;&#7985;&#962;.</p>
+
+<p>[Greek: esti d' ouch ho logos tou rh&ecirc;toros, Aischin&ecirc;, timion, oud'
+ho tonos t&ecirc;s ph&ocirc;n&ecirc;s, alla to tauta proaireisthai tois pollois, kai
+to tous autous misein kai philein, housper an h&ecirc; patris.]</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Demosthenes</span>. <i>De Corona</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The important thing in public speaking is neither the diction nor
+the voice. What is important is that the speaker should have the
+same predilections as the majority, and that his country's friends
+and foes should be also his own.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>I hope that I shall not be reproached with either Pedantry or Vanity
+(though I deserve both) if, having begun so classically, I here
+introduce some verses which, when I was a boy at Harrow, my kind Head
+Master addressed to my Father. The occasion of these verses was that the
+recipient of them, who was then Sergeant-at-Arms in the House of Commons
+and was much exhausted by the long Session which passed the first Irish
+Land Act, had said in his haste that he wished all mankind were dumb.
+This petulant ejaculation drew from Dr. Butler the following
+remonstrance:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span><div>Semper ego auditor? Requies data nulla loquel&aelig;</div>
+<div class="i1">Qu&aelig; miseras aures his et ubique premit?</div>
+<div>Tot mala non tulit ipse Jobas, cui constat amicos</div>
+<div class="i1">Septenos saltem conticuisse dies.</div>
+<div>"Si mihi non dabitur talem sperare quietem,</div>
+<div class="i1">Sit, precor, humanum sit sine voce genus!"</div>
+<div>Mucius<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> h&aelig;c secum, sortem indignatus iniquam,</div>
+<div class="i1">(Tum primum proavis creditus esse minor)</div>
+<div>Seque malis negat esse parem: cui Musa querenti,</div>
+<div class="i1">"Tu genus humanum voce carere cupis?</div>
+<div>Tene adeo fatis diffidere! Non tibi Natus</div>
+<div class="i1">Quem jam signavit Diva Loquela suum?</div>
+<div>En! ego qu&aelig; vindex 'mutis quoque piscibus' adsum,</div>
+<div class="i1">Donatura cycni, si ferat hora, sonos,</div>
+<div>Ipsa loquor vates: Patri&aelig; decus addere lingu&aelig;</div>
+<div class="i1">Hic sciet, ut titulis laus eat aucta tuis.</div>
+<div>Hunc sua fata vocant; hunc, nostro numine fretum,</div>
+<div class="i1">Apta jubent aptis ponere verba locis.</div>
+<div>Hunc olim domus ipsa canet, silv&aelig;que patern&aelig;,</div>
+<div class="i1">Curiaque, et felix vatibus Herga parens.</div>
+<div>Nec lingua caruisse voles, quo vindice vestr&aelig;</div>
+<div class="i1">Gentis in &aelig;ternum fama superstes erit."</div>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<div class="i12">H. M. B.,</div>
+<div class="i12"> &nbsp; &nbsp;Aug., 1870.</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The prophecy has scarcely been fulfilled; but it is true that from my
+earliest days I have had an inborn love of oratory. The witchery of
+words, powerful enough on the printed page, is to me ten times more
+powerful when it is reinforced by voice and glance and gesture. Fine
+rhetoric and lofty declamation have always stirred my blood; and yet I
+suppose that Demosthenes was right, and that, though rhetoric<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> and
+declamation are good, still the most valuable asset for a public speaker
+is a complete identification with the majority of his countrymen, in
+their prejudices, their likings, and their hatreds.</p>
+
+<p>If Oratory signifies the power of speaking without premeditation,
+Gladstone stands in a class by himself, far above all the public
+speakers whom I have ever heard. The records of his speaking at Eton and
+Oxford, and the reports of his earliest performances in Parliament,
+alike give proof that he had, as Coleridge said of Pitt, "a premature
+and unnatural dexterity in the combination of words"; and this developed
+into "a power of pouring forth, with endless facility, perfectly
+modulated sentences of perfectly chosen language, which as far surpassed
+the reach of a normal intellect as the feats of an acrobat exceed the
+capacities of a normal body."</p>
+
+<p>His voice was flexible and melodious (in singing it was a baritone);
+though his utterance was perceptibly marked by a Lancastrian "burr"; his
+gestures were free and graceful, though never violent; every muscle of
+his face seemed to play its part in his nervous declamation; and the
+flash of his deep-set eyes revealed the fiery spirit that was at work
+within. It may be remarked in passing that he considered a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> moustache
+incompatible with effective speaking&mdash;"Why should a man hide one of the
+most expressive features of his face?" With regard to the still more
+expressive eyes, Lecky ruefully remarked that Gladstone's glance was
+that of a bird of prey swooping on its victim.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Chief Justice Coleridge told me that he had once asked Gladstone if
+he ever felt nervous in public speaking. "In opening a subject," said
+Gladstone, "often; in reply never," and certainly his most triumphant
+speeches were those in which, when winding up a debate, he recapitulated
+and demolished the hostile arguments that had gone before. One writes
+glibly of his "most triumphant" speeches; and yet, when he was among us,
+he always delivered each Session at least one speech, of which we all
+used to say, with breathless enthusiasm, "That's the finest speech he
+ever made." On the platform he was incomparable. His fame as an orator
+was made within the walls of Parliament; but, when he ceased to
+represent the University of Oxford, and was forced by the conditions of
+modern electioneering to face huge masses of electors in halls and
+theatres and in the open air, he adapted himself with the utmost ease to
+his new <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>environment, and captivated the constituencies as he had
+captivated the House. His activities increased as his life advanced. He
+diffused himself over England and Wales and Scotland. In every
+considerable centre, men had the opportunity of seeing and hearing this
+supreme actor of the political stage; but Midlothian was the scene of
+his most astonishing efforts. When, on the 2nd of September, 1884, he
+spoke on the Franchise Bill in the Waverley Market at Edinburgh, it was
+estimated that he addressed thirty thousand people.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"Beneath his feet the human ocean lay,</div>
+<div>And wave on wave flowed into space away,</div>
+<div>Methought no clarion could have sent its sound</div>
+<div>Even to the centre of the hosts around;</div>
+<div>And, as I thought, rose the sonorous swell,</div>
+<div>As from some church-tower swings the silvery bell.</div>
+<div>Aloft and clear, from airy tide to tide,</div>
+<div>It glided, easy as a bird may glide;</div>
+<div>To the last verge of that vast audience sent,</div>
+<div>It played with each wild passion as it went;</div>
+<div>Now stirred the uproar, now the murmur stilled:</div>
+<div>And sobs or laughter answered as it willed:"<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It is painful to descend too abruptly from such a height as that: but
+one would be giving a false notion of Gladstone's speaking if one
+suggested that it was always equally effective. Masterly in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> appeal
+to a popular audience, supernaturally dexterous in explaining a
+complicated subject to the House of Commons, supremely solemn and
+pathetic in a Memorial Oration, he was heard to least advantage on a
+social or festive occasion. He would use a Club-dinner or a
+wedding-breakfast, a flower-show or an Exhibition, for the utterance of
+grave thoughts which had perhaps been long fermenting in his mind; and
+then his intensity, his absorption in his theme, and his terrible
+gravity, disconcerted hearers who had expected a lighter touch. An
+illustration of this piquant maladroitness recurs to my memory as I
+write. In 1882 I was concerned with a few Radical friends in founding
+the National Liberal Club.<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> We certainly never foresaw the palatial
+pile of terra-cotta and glazed tiles which now bears that name.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> Our
+modest object was to provide a central meeting-place for Metropolitan
+and provincial Liberals, where all the comforts of life should be
+attainable at what are called "popular prices." Two years<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> later,
+Gladstone laid the foundation-stone of the present Club-house, and, in
+one of his most austere orations, drew a sharp contrast between our poor
+handiwork and those "Temples of Luxury and Ease" which gaze in haughty
+grandeur on Pall Mall. We had hoped to provide what might seem like
+"luxury" to the unsophisticated citizen of Little Pedlington; and, at
+the least, we meant our Club to be a place of "ease" to the Radical
+toiler. But Gladstone insisted that it was to be a workshop dedicated to
+strenuous labour; and all the fair promises of our Prospectus were
+trodden under foot.<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a></p>
+
+<p>I have often heard Gladstone say that, in the nature of things, a speech
+cannot be adequately reported. You may get the words with literal
+precision, but the loss of gesture, voice, and intonation, will
+inevitably obscure the meaning and impede the effect. Of no one's
+speaking is this more true than of his own. Here and there, in the
+enormous mass of his reported eloquence, you will come upon a fine
+peroration, a poetic image, a verse aptly cited, or a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> phrase which can
+be remembered. But they are few and far between&mdash;<i>oases</i> in a wilderness
+of what reads like verbiage. Quite certainly, his speeches, in the mass,
+are not literature, as those found to their cost who endeavoured to
+publish them in ten volumes.</p>
+
+<p>For speeches which are literature we must go to John Bright; but then
+Bright's speaking was not spontaneous, and therefore, according to the
+definition suggested above, could not be reckoned as Oratory. Yet, when
+delivered in that penetrating voice, with its varied emphasis of scorn
+and sympathy and passion; enforced by the dignity of that noble head,
+and punctuated by the aptest gesture, they sounded uncommonly like
+oratory. The fact is that Bright's consummate art concealed the
+elaborate preparation which went to make the performance. When he was
+going to make a speech, he was encompassed by safeguards against
+disturbance and distraction, which suggested the rites of Lucina. He was
+invisible and inaccessible. No bell might ring, no door might bang, no
+foot tread too heavily. There was a crisis, and everyone in the house
+knew it; and when at length the speech had been safely uttered, there
+was the joy of a great reaction.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></p><p>My Father, unlike most of the Whigs, had a warm admiration for Bright;
+and Bright showed his appreciation of this feeling by being extremely
+kind to me. Early in my Parliamentary career, he gave me some hints on
+the art of speech-making, which are interesting because they describe
+his own practice. "You cannot," he said, "over-prepare the substance of
+a speech. The more completely you have mastered it, the better your
+speech will be. But it is very easy to over-prepare your words. Arrange
+your subject, according to its natural divisions, under three or four
+heads&mdash;not more. Supply each division with an 'island'; by which I mean
+a carefully-prepared sentence to clinch and enforce it. You must trust
+yourself to swim from one 'island' to another, without artificial aids.
+Keep your best 'island'&mdash;your most effective passage&mdash;for your
+peroration; and, when once you have uttered it, sit down at once. Let no
+power induce you to go on."</p>
+
+<p>Anyone who studies Bright's speeches will see that he exactly followed
+his own rule. The order and symmetry are perfect. The English is simple
+and unadorned. Each department of the speech has its notable phrase; and
+the peroration is a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> masterpiece of solemn rhetoric. And yet after all
+what Demosthenes said is true of these two great men&mdash;the Twin Stars of
+Victorian Oratory. Each had all the graces of voice and language, and
+yet each failed conspicuously in practical effect whenever he ran
+counter to the predilections and passions of his countrymen. Gladstone
+succeeded when he attacked the Irish Church, and denounced the
+abominations of Turkish misrule: he failed when he tried to palliate his
+blunders in Egypt, and to force Home Rule down the throat of the
+"Predominant Partner." Bright succeeded when he pleaded for the Repeal
+of the Corn Laws and the extension of the Suffrage: he failed when he
+opposed the Crimean War, and lost his seat when he protested against our
+aggression on China. It must often fall to the lot of the patriotic
+orator thus to set himself against the drift of national sentiment, and
+to pay the penalty. No such perils beset the Demagogue.</p>
+
+<p>I should not ascribe the title of orator to Mr. Chamberlain. He has
+nothing of the inspiration, the poetry, the "vision splendid," the
+"faculty divine," which make the genuine orator. But as a speaker of the
+second, and perhaps most useful,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> class, he has never been surpassed.
+His speaking was the perfection of clearness. Each argument seemed
+irresistible, each illustration told. His invective was powerful, his
+passion seemed genuine, his satire cut like steel and froze like ice.
+His perception of his hearers' likes and dislikes was intuitive, and was
+heightened by constant observation. His friends and his enemies were
+those whom he esteemed the friends and the enemies of England; and he
+never committed the heroic but perilous error of setting himself against
+the passing mood of national feeling. He combined in rare harmony the
+debating instinct which conquers the House of Commons, with the power of
+appeal to popular passion which is the glory of the Demagogue.</p>
+
+<p>The word with which my last sentence closed recalls inevitably the
+tragic figure of Lord Randolph Churchill. The adroitness, the courage,
+and the persistency with which between 1880 and 1885 he sapped
+Gladstone's authority, deposed Northcote, and made himself the most
+conspicuous man in the Tory Party, have been described in his Biography,
+and need not be recapitulated here. Mr. Chamberlain, who was exactly
+qualified to resist and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> abate him, had not yet acquired a commanding
+position in the House of Commons; and on the platform Churchill could
+not be beaten. In these two men each party possessed a Demagogue of the
+highest gifts, and it would have puzzled an expert to say which was the
+better exponent of his peculiar art. In January, 1884, Churchill made a
+speech at Blackpool, and thus attacked his eminent rival&mdash;"Mr.
+Chamberlain a short time ago attempted to hold Lord Salisbury up to the
+execration of the people as one who enjoyed great riches for which he
+had neither toiled nor spun, and he savagely denounced Lord Salisbury
+and his class. As a matter of fact, Lord Salisbury from his earliest
+days has toiled and spun in the service of the State, and for the
+advancement of his countrymen in learning, in wealth, and in prosperity;
+but no Radical ever yet allowed himself to be embarrassed by a question
+of fact. Just look, however, at what Mr. Chamberlain himself does; he
+goes to Newcastle, and is entertained at a banquet there, and procures
+for the president of the feast a live Earl&mdash;no less a person than the
+Earl of Durham. Now, Lord Durham is a young person who has just come of
+age, who is in the possession of immense hereditary estates, who is well
+known<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> on Newmarket Heath, and prominent among the gilded youth who
+throng the doors of the Gaiety Theatre; but he has studied politics
+about as much as Barnum's new white elephant, and the idea of rendering
+service to the State has not yet commenced to dawn on his ingenuous
+mind. If by any means it could be legitimate, and I hold it is
+illegitimate, to stigmatize any individual as enjoying great riches for
+which he has neither toiled nor spun, such a case would be the case of
+the Earl of Durham; and yet it is under the patronage of the Earl of
+Durham, and basking in the smiles of the Earl of Durham, and bandying
+vulgar compliments with the Earl of Durham, that this stern patriot,
+this rigid moralist, this unbending censor, the Right Honourable Joseph
+Chamberlain, flaunts his Radical and levelling doctrines before the
+astonished democrats of Newcastle. 'Vanity of Vanities,' saith the
+preacher, 'all is vanity.' 'Humbug of Humbugs,' says the Radical, 'all
+is humbug.'"</p>
+
+<p>And with that most characteristic specimen of popular eloquence, we may
+leave the two great demagogues of the Victorian Age.</p>
+
+<p>At the period of which I am speaking the House of Commons contained two
+or three orators <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>surviving from a class which had almost died away.
+These were men who, having no gift for extempore speaking, used to study
+the earlier stages of a debate, prepare a tremendous oration, and then
+deliver it by heart. Such, in days gone by, had been the practice of
+Bulwer-Lytton, and, as far as one can see, of Macaulay. In my day it was
+followed by Patrick Smyth, Member for Tipperary, and by Joseph Cowen,
+Member for Newcastle. Both were real rhetoricians. Both could compose
+long discourses, couched in the most flowery English, interlarded with
+anecdotes and decorated with quotations; and both could declaim these
+compositions with grace and vigour. But the effect was very droll. They
+would work, say, all Tuesday and Wednesday at a point which had been
+exhausted by discussion on Monday, and then on Thursday they would burst
+into the debate just whenever they could catch the Speaker's eye, and
+would discharge these cascades of prepared eloquence without the
+slightest reference to time, fitness, or occasion.</p>
+
+<p>My uncle, Lord Russell, who entered Parliament in 1813, always said that
+the first Lord Plunket was, on the whole, the finest speaker he had ever
+heard, because he combined a most cogent logic with a most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> moving
+eloquence; and these gifts descended to Plunket's grandson, now Lord
+Rathmore, and, in the days of which I am speaking, Mr. David Plunket,
+Member for the University of Dublin. Voice, manner, diction, delivery,
+were all alike delightful; and, though such finished oratory could
+scarcely be unprepared, Mr. Plunket had a great deal too much of his
+nation's tact to produce it except when he knew that the House was
+anxious to receive it. In view of all that has happened since, it is
+curious to remember that Mr. Arthur Balfour was, in those days, a
+remarkably bad speaker. No one, I should think, was ever born with less
+of the orator's faculty, or was under heavier obligations to the
+Reporters' Gallery. He shambled and stumbled, and clung to the lapels of
+his coat, and made immense pauses while he searched for the right word,
+and eventually got hold of the wrong one. In conflict with Gladstone, he
+seemed to exude the very essence of acrimonious partisanship, and yet he
+never exactly scored. As Lord Beaconsfield said of Lord Salisbury, "his
+invective lacked finish."</p>
+
+<p>A precisely opposite description might befit Sir Robert Peel, the
+strangely-contrasted son of the great Free Trader. Peel was naturally an
+orator.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> He could make the most slashing onslaughts without the
+appearance of ill-temper, and could convulse the House with laughter
+while he himself remained to all appearance unconscious of the fun. His
+voice, pronounced by Gladstone the most beautiful he ever heard in
+Parliament, was low, rich, melodious, and flexible. His appearance was
+striking and rather un-English, his gestures were various and animated,
+and he enforced his points with beautifully shaped hands. If voice and
+manner could make a public speaker great, Sir Robert Peel might have led
+the Tory Party; but Demosthenes was right after all. The graces of
+oratory, though delightful for the moment, have no permanent effect. The
+perfection of Parliamentary style is to utter cruel platitudes with a
+grave and informing air; and, if a little pomposity be superadded, the
+House will instinctively recognize the speaker as a Statesman. I have
+heard Sir William Harcourt say, "After March, comes April," in a tone
+which carried conviction to every heart.</p>
+
+<p>A word must be said about speakers who read their speeches. I do not
+think I shall be contradicted if I say that in those distant days Sir
+William Harcourt, Sir George Trevelyan, and Mr. Gibson, now Lord
+Ashbourne, wrote every word, and delivered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> their speeches from the
+manuscript. In late years, when Harcourt had to pilot his famous Budget
+through Committee, he acquired a perfect facility in extempore speech;
+but at the beginning it was not so. The Irish are an eloquent nation,
+and we are apt to send them rather prosy rulers. "The Honourable Member
+for Bletherum was at that time perambulating the district with very
+great activity, and, I need not say, with very great ability." Such a
+sentence as that, laboriously inscribed in the manuscript of a Chief
+Secretary's speech, seems indeed to dissipate all thoughts of oratory.
+Mr. Henry Richard, a "Stickit Minister" who represented Merthyr, was the
+worst offender against the Standing Order which forbids a Member to read
+his speech, though it allows him to "refresh his memory with notes"; and
+once, being called to order for his offence, he palliated it by saying
+that he was ready to hand his manuscript to his censor, and challenged
+him to read a word of it.</p>
+
+<p>The least oratorical of mankind was the fifteenth Lord Derby, whose
+formal adhesion to the Liberal Party in 1882 supplied <i>Punch</i> with an
+admirable cartoon of a female Gladstone singing in impassioned strain&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span><div>"Always the same, Derby my own!</div>
+<div>Always the same to your old Glad-stone."</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Lord Derby wrote every word of his speeches, and sent them in advance to
+the press. It was said that once he dropped his manuscript in the
+street, and that, being picked up, it was found to contain such entries
+as "Cheers," "Laughter," and "Loud applause," culminating in "'But I am
+detaining you too long.' (Cries of 'No, no,' and 'Go on.')"</p>
+
+<p>The mention of Lord Derby reminds me of the much-criticized body to
+which he belonged. When I entered Parliament, the Chief Clerk of the
+House of Commons was Sir Thomas Erskine May, afterwards Lord
+Farnborough&mdash;an hereditary friend. He gave me many useful hints, and
+this among the rest&mdash;"Always go across to the House of Lords when they
+are sitting, even if you only stop five minutes. You may often happen on
+something worth hearing; and on no account ever miss one of their
+full-dress debates." I acted on the advice, and soon became familiar
+with the oratory of "the Gilded Chamber," as Pennialinus calls it. I
+have spoken in a former chapter of the effect produced on me as a boy by
+the predominance of Disraeli during the debates on the Reform Bill of
+1867. He had left<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> the House of Commons before I entered it, but that
+same mysterious attribute of predominance followed him to the House of
+Lords, and indeed increased with his increasing years. His strange
+appearance&mdash;un-English features, corpse-like pallor, blackened locks,
+and piercing eyes&mdash;marked him out as someone quite aloof from the common
+population of the House of Lords. When he sat, silent and immovable, on
+his crimson bench, everyone kept watching him as though they were
+fascinated. When he rose to speak, there was strained and awe-stricken
+attention. His voice was deep, his utterance slow, his pronunciation
+rather affected. He had said in early life that there were two models of
+style for the two Houses of Parliament&mdash;for the Commons, <i>Don Juan</i>: for
+the Lords, <i>Paradise Lost</i>. As the youthful Disraeli, he had out-Juaned
+Juan; when, as the aged Beaconsfield, he talked of "stamping a
+deleterious doctrine with the reprobation of the Peers of England," he
+approached the dignity of the Miltonic Satan. It was more obviously true
+of him than of most speakers that he "listened to himself while he
+spoke"; and his complete mastery of all the tricks of speech
+countervailed the decay of his physical powers. He had always known the
+value of an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>artificial pause, an effective hesitation, in heralding the
+apt word or the memorable phrase; and just at the close of his life he
+used the method with a striking though unrehearsed effect. On the 4th of
+March, 1881, he was speaking in support of Lord Lytton's motion
+condemning the evacuation of Kandahar. "My Lords," he said, "the Key of
+India is not Merv, or Herat, or,"&mdash;here came a long pause, and rather
+painful anxiety in the audience; and then the quiet resumption of the
+thread&mdash;"It is not the place of which I cannot recall the name&mdash;the Key
+of India is London."</p>
+
+<p>At a dinner at Lord Airlie's in the previous month Lord Beaconsfield,
+talking to Matthew Arnold, had described the great (that is, the
+fourteenth) Lord Derby as having been "a man full of nerve, dash, fire,
+and resource, who carried the House irresistibly along with him." Bishop
+Samuel Wilberforce was reckoned by Mr. Gladstone as one of the three men
+who, of all his acquaintance, had the greatest natural gift of public
+speaking.<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> Both the Bishop and the Statesman found, each in the
+other, a foeman worthy of his steel; but both<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> had passed beyond these
+voices before I entered Parliament, leaving only tantalizing
+traditions&mdash;"Ah! but you should have heard Derby on the Irish Church,"
+or "It was a treat to hear 'Sam' trouncing Westbury." Failing those
+impossible enjoyments, I found great pleasure in listening to Lord
+Salisbury. I should reckon him as about the most interesting speaker I
+ever heard. His appearance was pre-eminently dignified: he looked,
+whether he was in or out of office, the ideal Minister of a great
+Empire&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"With that vast bulk of chest and limb assigned</div>
+<div>So oft to men who subjugate their kind;</div>
+<div>So sturdy Cromwell pushed broad-shouldered on;</div>
+<div>So burly Luther breasted Babylon;</div>
+<div>So brawny Cleon bawled his agora down;</div>
+<div>And large-limb'd Mahomed clutched a Prophet's crown."</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In public speaking, Lord Salisbury seemed to be thinking aloud, and to
+be quite unconscious of his audience. Though he was saturated with his
+subject there was apparently no verbal preparation. Yet his diction was
+peculiarly apt and pointed. He never looked at a note; used no gesture;
+scarcely raised or lowered his voice. But in a clear and penetrating
+monotone he uttered the workings of a profound and reflective mind, and
+the treasures<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> of a vast experience. Though massive, his style was never
+ponderous: and it was constantly lightened by the sallies of a pungent
+humour. In the debate on the Second Reading of the Home Rule Bill of
+1893, Lord Ribblesdale, then recently converted from Unionism to
+Gladstonianism, and Master of the Buckhounds in the Liberal government,
+had given the history of his mental change. In replying, Lord Salisbury
+said, "The next speech, my lords, was a confession. Confessions are
+always an interesting form of literature&mdash;from St. Augustine to
+Rousseau, from Rousseau to Lord Ribblesdale." The House laughed, and the
+Master of the Buckhounds laughed with it.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most vigorous orators whom I have ever heard, in the House of
+Lords or out of it, was Dr. Magee, Bishop of Peterborough, and
+afterwards Archbishop of York. He had made his fame by his speech on the
+Second Reading of the Irish Church Bill, and was always at his best when
+defending the temporal interests of ecclesiastical institutions. No
+clergyman ever smacked so little of the pulpit. His mind was essentially
+legal&mdash;clear, practical, logical, cogent. No one on earth could make a
+better case for a bad cause; no one could argue<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> more closely, or
+declaim more vigorously. When his blood was up, he must either speak or
+burst; but his indignation, though it found vent in flashing sarcasms,
+never betrayed him into irrelevancies or inexactitudes.</p>
+
+<p>A fine speaker of a different type&mdash;and one better fitted for a
+Churchman&mdash;was Archbishop Tait, whose dignity of speech and bearing,
+clear judgment, and forcible utterance, made him the worthiest
+representative of the Church in Parliament whom these latter days have
+seen. To contrast Tait's stately calm with Benson's fluttering
+obsequiousness<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> or Temple's hammering force, was to perceive the
+manner that is, and the manners that are not, adapted to what Gladstone
+called "the mixed sphere of Religion and the <i>S&aelig;culum</i>."</p>
+
+<p>By far the greatest orator whom the House of Lords has possessed in my
+recollection was the late Duke of Argyll. I have heard that Lord
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>Beaconsfield, newly arrived in the House of Lords and hearing the Duke
+for the first time, exclaimed, "And has this been going on all these
+years, and I have never found it out?" It is true that the Duke's
+reputation as an administrator, a writer, a naturalist, and an amateur
+theologian, distracted public attention from his power as an orator; and
+I have been told that he himself did not realize it. Yet orator indeed
+he was, in the highest implication of the term. He spoke always under
+the influence of fiery conviction, and the live coal from the altar
+seemed to touch his lips. He was absolute master of every mood of
+oratory&mdash;pathos, satire, contemptuous humour, ethical passion, noble
+wrath; and his unstudied eloquence flowed like a river through the
+successive moods, taking a colour from each, and gaining force as it
+rolled towards its close.</p>
+
+<p>On the 6th of September, 1893, I heard the Duke speaking on the Second
+Reading of the Home Rule Bill. He was then an old man, and in broken
+health; the speech attempted little in the way of argument, and was
+desultory beyond belief. But suddenly there came a passage which lifted
+the whole debate into a nobler air. The orator <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>described himself
+standing on the Western shores of Scotland, and gazing across towards
+the hills of Antrim: "We can see the colour of their fields, and in the
+sunset we can see the glancing of the light upon the windows of the
+cabins of the people. This is the country, I thought the other day when
+I looked on the scene&mdash;this is the country which the greatest English
+statesman tells us must be governed as we govern the Antipodes." And he
+emphasized the last word with a downward sweep of his right hand, which
+in a commonplace speaker would have been frankly comic, but in this
+great master of oratory was a master-stroke of dramatic art.</p>
+
+<p>Before I close this chapter, I should like to recall a word of
+Gladstone's which at the time when he said it struck me as memorable. In
+August, 1895, I was staying at Hawarden. Gladstone's Parliamentary life
+was done, and he talked about political people and events with a freedom
+which I had never before known in him. As perhaps was natural, we fell
+to discussing the men who had been his colleagues in the late Liberal
+Ministry. We reviewed in turn Lord Spencer, Sir William Harcourt, Lord
+Rosebery, Mr. John Morley, Sir George Trevelyan, and Mr. Asquith. It is
+perhaps a little curious, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> view of what happened later on, that Sir
+Henry Campbell-Bannerman was not mentioned; but, with regard to the
+foregoing names, I perfectly recollect, though there is no need to
+repeat, the terse and trenchant judgment passed on each. When we had
+come to the end of my list, the ex-Premier turned on me with one of
+those compelling glances which we knew so well, and said with emphasis,
+"But you haven't mentioned the most important man of all." "Who is
+that?" "Edward Grey&mdash;there is the man with the real Parliamentary gift."
+I am happy to make the Foreign Secretary a present of this handsome
+compliment.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Mucius Sc&aelig;vola per multos annos "Princeps Senat&ucirc;s."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Bulwer-Lytton, <i>St. Stephen's</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> Mr. A. J. Willams, Mr. A. G. Symond, Mr. Walter Wren, Mr.
+W. L. Bright, and Mr. J. J. Tylor were some of them; and we used to meet
+in Mr. Bright's rooms at Storey's Gate.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> "It is an extraordinary big club done in a bold,
+wholesale, shiny, marbled style, richly furnished with numerous
+paintings, steel engravings, busts, and full-length statues of the late
+Mr. Gladstone."&mdash;H. G. Wells, <i>The New Machiavelli</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> "Speaking generally, I should say there could not be a
+less interesting occasion than the laying of the foundation-stone of a
+Club in London. For, after all, what are the Clubs of London? I am
+afraid little else than temples of luxury and ease. This, however, is a
+club of a very different character."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> The others were the late Duke of Argyll and the eighth
+Lord Elgin.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> "I had to speak in the House of Lords last night. It is a
+really terrible place for the unaccustomed. Frigid impatience and
+absolute goodwill, combined with a thorough conviction of the
+infallibility of laymen (if not too religious) on all sacred subjects,
+are the tone, <i>morale</i>, and reason, of the House as a living being. My
+whole self-possession departs, and ejection from the House seems the
+best thing which could happen to one."&mdash;Archbishop Benson to the Rev. B.
+F. Westcott, March 22, 1884.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>LITERATURE</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p>There was Captain Sumph, an ex-beau, still about town, and related
+in some indistinct manner to Literature and the Peerage. He was
+said to have written a book once, to have been a friend of Lord
+Byron, to be related to Lord Sumphington.... This gentleman was
+listened to with great attention by Mrs. Bungay; his anecdotes of
+the Aristocracy, of which he was a middle-aged member, delighted
+the publisher's lady.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">W. M. Thackeray</span>, <i>Pendennis</i>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>When I am writing Reminiscences, I always feel dreadfully like Captain
+Sumph; but, in order to make the resemblance quite exact, I must devote
+a chapter to Literature.</p>
+
+<p>I seem, from my earliest conscious years, to have lived in a world of
+books; and yet my home was by no means "bookish." I was trained by
+people who had not read much, but had read thoroughly; who regarded good
+literature with unfeigned admiration; and who, though they would never
+have dreamt of forcing or cramming, yet were pleased when they saw a boy
+inclined to read, and did their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> best to guide his reading aright. As I
+survey my early life and compare it with the present day, one of the
+social changes which impresses me most is the general decay of
+intellectual cultivation. This may sound paradoxical in an age which
+habitually talks so much about Education and Culture; but I am persuaded
+that it is true. Dilettantism is universal, and a smattering of
+erudition, infinitely more offensive than honest and manly ignorance,
+has usurped the place which was formerly occupied by genuine and liberal
+learning. A vast deal of specialism, "mugged up," as boys say, at the
+British Museum or the London Library, may coexist with a profound
+ignorance of all that is really worth knowing. It sounds very
+intellectual to chatter about the authorship of the Fourth Gospel, or to
+scoff at St. John's "senile iterations and contorted metaphysics"; but,
+when a clergyman read St. Paul's eulogy on Charity, instead of an
+address, at the end of a fashionable wedding, one of his hearers said,
+"How very appropriate that was! Where did you get it from?" Everyone can
+patter nonsense about the traces of Bacon's influence in <i>The Merry
+Wives of Windsor</i>, and can ransack their family histories for the
+original of "Mr. W.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> H." But, when <i>Cymbeline</i> was put on the stage,
+Society was startled to find that the principal part was not a woman's.
+When some excellent scenes from Jane Austen were given in a Belgravian
+drawing-room, a lady of the highest notoriety, enthusiastically praising
+the performance, enquired who was the author of the dialogue between Mr.
+and Mrs. John Dashwood, and whether he had written anything else. I have
+known a Lord Chief Justice who had never seen the view from Richmond
+Hill; a publicist who had never heard of Lord Althorp; and an authoress
+who did not know the name of Izaak Walton.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps these curious "ignorances," as the Prayer Book calls them,
+impressed me the more forcibly because I was born a Whig, and brought up
+in a Whiggish society; for the Whigs were rather specially the allies of
+learning; and made it a point of honour to know, though never to parade,
+the best that has been thought and written. Very likely they had no
+monopoly of culture: the Tories may have been just as well-informed. But
+a man "belongs to his belongings"; one can only describe what one has
+seen; and here the contrast between Past and Present is palpable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span>
+enough. I am not thinking of professed scholars and students, such as
+Lord Stanhope the Historian, and Sir Edward Bunbury the Senior Classic;
+or of professed blue-stockings, such as Barbarina, Lady Dacre, and
+Georgiana, Lady Chatterton; but of ordinary men and women of good family
+and good position, who had received the usual education of their class,
+and had profited by it.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gladstone used to say that, in his schooldays at Eton, a boy might
+learn much, or learn nothing; but he could not learn superficially. A
+similar remark would have applied to the attainments of people who were
+old when I was young. They might know much, or they might know nothing;
+but they did not know superficially. What they professed to know, that
+you could be sure they knew. The affectation of culture was despised;
+and ignorance, where it existed, was avowed. For example, everyone knew
+Italian, but no one pretended to know German. I remember men who had
+never been at a University, but had passed straight from a Public School
+to a Cavalry Regiment or the House of Commons, and who yet could quote
+Horace as easily as the present generation quotes Kipling. These people
+inherited the traditions of Mrs. Montagu, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> "vindicated the genius of
+Shakespeare against the calumnies of Voltaire," and they knew the
+greatest poet of all time with an absolute ease and familiarity. They
+did not trouble themselves about various readings, and corrupt texts,
+and difficult passages. They had nothing in common with that true father
+of all Shakespearean criticism, Mr. Curdle, in <i>Nicholas Nickleby</i>, who
+had written a treatise on the question whether Juliet's nurse's husband
+was really "a merry man," or whether it was only his widow's
+affectionate partiality that induced her so to report him. But they knew
+the whole mass of the Plays with a natural and unforced intimacy; their
+speech was saturated with the immortal diction, and Hamlet's
+speculations were their nearest approach to metaphysics. Pope was quoted
+whenever the occasion suggested him, and Johnson was esteemed the Prince
+of Critics. Broadly speaking, all educated people knew the English poets
+down to the end of the eighteenth century. Byron and Moore were enjoyed
+with a sort of furtive and fearful pleasure; Wordsworth was tolerated,
+and Tennyson was "coming in." Everyone knew Scott's novels by heart, and
+had his or her favourite heroine and hero.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p><p>I said in a former chapter that I had from my earliest days free access
+to an excellent library; and, even before I could read comfortably by
+myself, my interest in books was stimulated by listening to my elders as
+they read aloud. The magic of words and cadence&mdash;the purely sensuous
+pleasure of melodious sound&mdash;stirred me from the time when I was quite a
+child. Poetry, of course, came first; but prose was not much later. I
+had by nature a good memory, and it retained, by no effort on my part,
+my favourite bits of Macaulay and Scott. <i>The Battle of Lake Regillus</i>
+and <i>The Lay of the Last Minstrel</i>, the impeachment of Warren Hastings
+and the death of Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, are samples of the literature
+with which my mind was stored. Every boy, I suppose, attempts to imitate
+what he admires, and I was eternally scribbling. When I was eleven, I
+began a novel, of which the heroine was a modern Die Vernon. At twelve,
+I took to versification, for which the swinging couplets of <i>English
+Bards and Scotch Reviewers</i> supplied the model. Fragments of prose and
+verse came thick and fast. When I was thirteen, I made my first
+appearance in print; with a set of verses on a Volunteer Encampment,
+which really were not at all bad;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> and at fourteen I published
+(anonymously) a religious tract, which had some success in Evangelical
+circles.</p>
+
+<p>The effect of Harrow was both to stimulate and to discipline my taste
+for literature. It was my good fortune to be taught my Sophocles and
+Euripides, Tacitus and Virgil, by scholars who had the literary sense,
+and could enrich school-lessons with all the resources of a generous
+culture. My sixteenth and seventeenth years brought me a real and
+conscious growth in the things of the mind, and with that period of my
+life I must always gratefully associate the names of Frederic Farrar,
+Edward Bowen, and Arthur Watson.<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a></p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile I was not only learning, but also practising. My teachers with
+one accord incited me to write. Essay-writing formed a regular part of
+our work in school and pupil-room, and I composed a great deal for my
+own amusement. I wrote both prose and verse, and verse in a great many
+metres; but it was soon borne in upon me&mdash;conclusively after I had been
+beaten for the Prize Poem<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a>&mdash;that the Muse of Poetry was not mine. In
+prose,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> I was more successful. My work for <i>The Harrovian</i> gave me
+constant practice, and I twice won the School-Prize for an English
+Essay. In writing, I indulged to the full my taste for resonant and
+rolling sound; and my style was ludicrously rhetorical. The subject for
+the Prize Essay in 1872 was "Parliamentary Oratory: its History and
+Influence," and the discourse which I composed on that attractive theme
+has served me from that day to this as the basis of a popular lecture.
+The "Young Lion" of the <i>Daily Telegraph</i> thus "roared" over my
+performance&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The English Essay now takes a higher place on Speech Day than it did in
+the old season; and the essay which was crowned yesterday was notable
+alike for the theme, the opinions, and the literary promise of the
+writer. The young author bore the historical name of Russell, and he was
+really reviewing the forerunners and the fellow-workers of his own
+ancestors, in describing the rhetorical powers of the elder and the
+younger Pitt, Fox, Burke, Sheridan, Canning and Grey.... The well-known
+Constitutional note of Lord Russell was heard in every page, and the
+sonorous English was such as the Earl himself might have written<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> fifty
+years ago, if the undergraduates of that day had been able to copy a
+Macaulay. The essayist has read the prose of that dangerous model until
+he has imitated the well-known and now hackneyed devices of the great
+rhetorician with a closeness which perilously brought to mind the show
+passages of the 'Essays' and the 'History.' Mr. Russell has caught the
+trick of cutting up his paragraphs into rolling periods, and short,
+sharp, and disjointed sentences; but he will go to more subtle and more
+simple masters of style than Macaulay, when he shall have passed the
+rhetorical stage of youth."</p>
+
+<p>This prophecy was soon fulfilled, and indeed the process of fulfilment
+had already begun. In the Sixth Form, we naturally were influenced by
+Dr. Butler, who, though he certainly did not despise fine rhetoric,
+wrote a beautifully simple style, and constantly instructed us in the
+difference between eloquence and journalese. "Let us leave <i>commence</i>
+and <i>partake</i> to the newspapers," was an admonition often on his lips.
+Our Composition Masters were Edward Young, an exquisite scholar of the
+Eton type, and the accomplished Henry Nettleship, who detested
+flamboyancy, and taught us to admire Newman's incomparable easiness and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>
+grace. And there was Matthew Arnold living on the Hill, generously
+encouraging every bud of literary promise, and always warning us against
+our tendency to "Middle-class Macaulayese."</p>
+
+<p>At Oxford, the chastening process went on apace. Newman became my
+master, as far as language was concerned; and I learned to bracket him
+with Arnold and Church as possessing "The Oriel style." Thackeray's
+Latinized constructions began to fascinate me; and, though I still loved
+gorgeous diction, I sought it from Ruskin instead of Macaulay.</p>
+
+<p>All this time I was writing&mdash;in a very humble and obscure way,
+certainly, but still writing. I wrote in local newspapers and Parish
+Magazines. I published anonymous comments on current topics. I
+contributed secretly to ephemeral journals. I gave lectures and printed
+them as pamphlets. It was all very good exercise; but the odd part of it
+seems to me, in looking back, that I never expected pay, but rather
+spent my own money in printing what I wrote. That last infirmity of
+literary minds I laid aside soon after I left Oxford. I rather think
+that the first money which I made with my pen was payment for a
+character-study of my uncle, Lord<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> Russell, which I wrote for <i>The
+World</i>; thereby eliciting from Matthew Arnold the urbane remark, "Ah, my
+dear George, I hear you have become one of Yates's hired stabbers."</p>
+
+<p>After I entered Parliament, opportunities of writing, and of writing for
+profit, became more frequent. I contributed to the <i>Quarterly</i>, the <i>New
+Quarterly</i>, the <i>Nineteenth Century</i>, the <i>Fortnightly</i>, the
+<i>Contemporary</i>, the <i>Spectator</i>, and the <i>Pall Mall</i>. Yet another
+magazine recurs pleasantly to my mind, because of the warning which was
+inscribed on one's proof-sheet&mdash;"The cost of <i>corrigenda</i> will be
+deducted from <i>honoraria</i>." What fine language! and what a base economy!</p>
+
+<p>It did not take me long to find that the society in which I habitually
+lived, and which I have described in a former chapter, was profoundly
+ignorant. A most amusing law-suit between a Duchess and her maid took
+place about the time of which I am writing, and the Duchess's
+incriminated letter, beginning in the third person, wandering off into
+the first, and returning with an effort to the third, was indeed an
+object-lesson in English composition. A young sprig of fashion once said
+to me, in the tone of a man who utters an accepted truth, "It is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> so
+much more interesting to talk about people than things"&mdash;even though
+those "things" were the literary triumphs of humour or tragedy. In one
+great house, Books were a prohibited subject, and the word "Books" was
+construed with such liberal latitude that it seemed to include
+everything except Bradshaw. Even where people did not thus truculently
+declare war against literature, they gave it an uncommonly wide berth,
+and shrank with ill-concealed aversion from such names as Meredith and
+Browning. "Meredith," said Oscar Wilde, "is a prose-Browning&mdash;and so is
+Browning." And both those forms of prose were equally eschewed by
+society.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, when one is surveying a whole class, one sees some
+conspicuous exceptions to the prevailing colour; and here and there one
+had the pleasure of meeting in society persons admirably accomplished. I
+have already mentioned Lord Houghton, poet, essayist, pamphleteer,
+book-lover, and book-collector, who was equally at home in the world of
+society and the world of literature. Nothing that was good in books,
+whether ancient or modern, escaped his curious scrutiny, and at his
+hospitable table, which might truly be called a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> "Festive Board,"
+authors great and small rubbed shoulders with dandies and diplomats and
+statesmen. On the 16th of June, 1863, Matthew Arnold wrote&mdash;"On Sunday I
+dined with Monckton Milnes,<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> and met all the advanced Liberals in
+religion and politics, and a Cingalese in full costume.... The
+philosophers were fearful! George Lewes, Herbert Spencer, a sort of
+pseudo-Shelley called Swinburne, and so on. Froude, however, was there,
+and Browning, and Ruskin."</p>
+
+<p>The mention of Matthew Arnold reminds me that, though I had admired and
+liked him in a reverent sort of way, when I was a Harrow boy and he was
+a man, I found him even more fascinating when I met him on the more even
+terms of social life in London. He was indeed the most delightful of
+companions; a man of the world entirely free from worldliness, and a man
+of letters without the faintest trace of pedantry. He walked through the
+world enjoying it and loving it; and yet all the time one felt that his
+"eyes were on the higher loadstars" of the intellect and the spirit. In
+those days I used to say that, if one could fashion oneself,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> I should
+wish to be like Matthew Arnold; and the lapse of years has not altered
+my desire.</p>
+
+<p>Of Robert Browning, as he appeared in society, I have already spoken;
+but here let me add an instance which well illustrates his tact and
+readiness. He once did me the honour of dining with me, and I had
+collected a group of eager disciples to meet him. As soon as dinner was
+over, one of these enthusiasts led the great man into a corner, and
+began cross-examining him about the identity of <i>The Lost Leader</i> and
+the meaning of <i>Sordello</i>. For a space Browning bore the catechism with
+admirable patience; and then, laying his hand on the questioner's
+shoulder, he exclaimed, "But, my dear fellow, this is too bad. <i>I</i> am
+monopolizing <i>you</i>," and skipped out of the corner.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Tennyson was scarcely ever to be encountered in society; but I was
+presented to him at a garden-party by Mr. James Knowles, of the
+<i>Nineteenth Century</i>. He was, is, and always will be, one of the chief
+divinities of my poetical heaven; but he was more worshipful at a
+distance than at close quarters, and I was determined not to dispel
+illusion by a too near approach to the shrine. J. A. Froude was a man of
+letters whom from time to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> time one encountered in society. No one could
+doubt his cleverness; but it was a cleverness which rather repelled than
+attracted. With his thin lips, his cold smile, and his remorseless,
+deliberate, way of speaking, he always seemed to be secretly gloating
+over the hideous scene in the hall of Fotheringay, or the last agonies
+of a disembowelled Papist. Lord Acton was, or seemed to be, a man of the
+world first and foremost; a politician and a lover of society; a gossip,
+and, as his "Letters" show, not always a friendly gossip.<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> His
+demeanour was profoundly sphinx-like, and he seemed to enjoy the sense
+that his hearers were anxious to learn what he was able but unwilling to
+impart. His knowledge and accomplishments it would, at this time of day,
+be ridiculous to question; and on the main concerns of human
+life&mdash;Religion and Freedom&mdash;I was entirely at one with him. All the more
+do I regret that in society he so effectually concealed his higher
+enthusiasms, and that, having lived on the vague fame of his "History of
+Liberty," he died leaving it unwritten.</p>
+
+<p>I am writing of the years when I first knew <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>London socially, and I may
+extend them from 1876 to 1886. All through those years, as through many
+before and since, the best representative of culture in society was Mr.,
+now Sir, George Trevelyan&mdash;a poet, a scholar to his finger-tips, an
+enthusiast for all that is best in literature, ancient or modern, and
+author of one of the six great Biographies in the English language.
+There is no need to recapitulate Sir George's services to the State, or
+to criticize his performances in literature. It is enough to record my
+lively and lasting gratitude for the unbroken kindness which began when
+I was a boy at Harrow, and continues to the present hour.</p>
+
+<p>I have spoken, so far, of literary men who played a more or less
+conspicuous part in society; but, as this chapter is dedicated to
+Literature, I ought to say a word about one or two men of Letters who
+always avoided society, but who, when one sought them out in their own
+surroundings, were delightful company. Foremost among these I should
+place James Payn.</p>
+
+<p>Payn was a man who lived in, for, and by Literature. He detested
+exercise. He never travelled. He scarcely ever left London. He took no
+holidays. If he was forced into the country for a day or two, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> used
+the exile as material for a story or an essay. His life was one
+incessant round of literary activity. He had published his first book
+while he was an Undergraduate at Trinity, and from first to last he
+wrote more than a hundred volumes. <i>By Proxy</i> has been justly admired
+for the wonderful accuracy of its local colour, and for a masterly
+knowledge of Chinese character; but the writer drew exclusively from
+encyclop&aelig;dias and books of travel. In my judgment, he was at his best in
+the Short Story. He practised that difficult art long before it became
+popular, and a book called originally <i>People, Places, and Things</i>, but
+now <i>Humorous Stories</i>, is a masterpiece of fun, invention, and
+observation. In 1874, he became "Reader" to Messrs. Smith and Elder, and
+in that capacity had the happiness of discovering <i>Vice Versa</i>, and the
+less felicitous experience of rejecting <i>John Inglesant</i> as unreadable.</p>
+
+<p>It was at this period of his life that I first encountered Payn, and I
+fell at once under his charm. His was not a faultless character, for he
+was irritable, petulant, and prejudiced. He took the strongest dislikes,
+sometimes on very slight grounds; was unrestrained in expressing them,
+and was apt to treat opinions which he did not share very <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span>cavalierly.
+But none of these faults could obscure his charm. He was the most
+tender-hearted of human beings, and the sight, even the thought, of
+cruelty set his blood on fire. But, though he was intensely humane, he
+was absolutely free from mawkishness; and a wife-beater, or a
+child-torturer, or a cattle-maimer would have had short shrift at his
+hands. He was genuinely sympathetic, especially towards the hopes and
+struggles of the young and the unbefriended. Many an author, once
+struggling but now triumphant, could attest this trait. But his chief
+charm was his humour. It was absolutely natural; bubbled like a
+fountain, and danced like light. Nothing escaped it, and solemnity only
+stimulated it to further activities. He had the power, which Sydney
+Smith described, of "abating and dissolving pompous gentlemen with the
+most successful ridicule;" and, when he was offended, the ridicule had a
+remarkably sharp point. It was of course, impossible that all the humour
+of a man who joked incessantly could be equally good. Sometimes it was
+rather boyish, playing on proper names or personal peculiarities; and
+sometimes it descended to puns. But, for sheer rapidity, I have never
+known Payn's equal. When a casual word<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> annoyed him, his repartee
+flashed out like lightning. I could give plenty of instances, but to
+make them intelligible I should have to give a considerable amount of
+introduction, and that would entirely spoil the sense of flashing
+rapidity. There was no appreciable interval of time between the
+provoking word and the repartee which it provoked.</p>
+
+<p>Another great element of charm in Payn was his warm love of Life,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"And youth, and bloom, and this delightful world."</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>While he hated the black and savage and sordid side of existence with a
+passionate hatred, he enjoyed all its better&mdash;which he believed to be
+its larger&mdash;part with an infectious relish. Never have I known a more
+blithe and friendly spirit; never a nature to which Literature and
+Society&mdash;books and men&mdash;yielded a more constant and exhilarating joy. He
+had unstinted admiration for the performances of others, and was wholly
+free from jealousy. His temperament indeed was not equable. He had ups
+and downs, bright moods and dark, seasons of exaltation and seasons of
+depression. The one succeeded the other with startling rapidity, but the
+bright moods triumphed, and it was impossible to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> keep him permanently
+depressed. His health had always been delicate, but illness neither
+crushed his spirit nor paralysed his pen. Once he broke a blood-vessel
+in the street, and was conveyed home in an ambulance. During the
+transit, though he was in some danger of bleeding to death, he began to
+compose a narrative of his adventure, and next week it appeared in the
+<i>Illustrated London News</i>.</p>
+
+<p>During the last two years of his life he was painfully crippled by
+arthritic rheumatism, and could no longer visit the Reform Club, where
+for many years he had every day eaten his luncheon and played his
+rubber. Determining that he should not completely lose his favourite, or
+I should rather say his only, amusement, some members of the Club banded
+themselves together to supply him with a rubber in his own house twice a
+week; and this practice was maintained to his death. It was a striking
+testimony to the affection which he inspired. In those years I was a
+pretty frequent visitor, and, on my way to the house, I used to bethink
+me of stories which might amuse him, and I used even to note them down
+between one visit and another, as a provision for next time. One day
+Payn said, "A collection of your stories would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> make a book, and I think
+Smith and Elder would publish it." I thought my anecdotage scarcely
+worthy of so much honour; but I promised to make a weekly experiment in
+the <i>Manchester Guardian</i>. My <i>Collections and Recollections</i> ran
+through the year 1897, and appeared in book-form at Easter, 1898. But
+Payn died on the 25th of the previous March; and the book, which I had
+hoped to put in his hand, I could only inscribe to his delightful
+memory.</p>
+
+<p>Another remarkable man of letters, wholly remote from the world, was
+Richard Holt Hutton, for thirty-six years (1861-1897) the honoured
+Editor of <i>The Spectator</i>. Hutton was a "stickit minister" of the
+Unitarian persuasion, who had been led, mainly by the teaching of F. D.
+Maurice, to the acceptance of orthodox Christianity; and who devoted all
+the rest of his life to the inculcation of what he conceived to be moral
+and religious truth, through the medium of a weekly review. He lived, a
+kind of married hermit, on the edge of Windsor Forest, and could hardly
+be separated, even for a week's holiday, from his beloved <i>Spectator</i>.
+His output of work was enormous and incessant, and was throughout
+critical and didactic. The style was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> pre-eminently characteristic of
+the man&mdash;tangled, untidy, ungraceful, disfigured by "trailing relatives"
+and accumulated epithets; and yet all the time conveying the sense of
+some real and even profound thought that strove to express itself
+intelligibly. As the style, so the substance. "<i>The Spectator</i>," wrote
+Matthew Arnold in 1865, "is all very well, but the article has Hutton's
+fault of seeing so very far into a mill-stone." And, two years later,
+"<i>The Spectator</i> has an article in which Hutton shows his strange
+aptitude for getting hold of the wrong end of the stick." Both were
+sound criticisms. When Hutton addressed himself to a deep topic of
+abstract speculation, he "saw so very far into it" that even his most
+earnest admirers could not follow the visual act. When he handled the
+more commonplace subjects of thought or action with which ordinary men
+concern themselves, he seemed to miss the most obvious and palpable
+points. He was a philosophical thinker, with a natural bent towards the
+abstract and the mystical&mdash;a Platonist rather than an Aristotelian. He
+saw things invisible to grosser eyes; he heard voices not audible to
+ordinary ears; and, when he was once fairly launched in speculation on
+such a theme as Personal Identity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> or the Idea of God, he "found no end,
+in wandering mazes lost."</p>
+
+<p>But the very quality of aloofness from other men and their ways of
+thinking, which made it impossible for him to be the exponent of a
+system or the founder of a school, made him a peculiarly interesting
+friend. In homely phrase, you never knew where to have him; he was
+always breaking out in a fresh place. Whatever subject he handled, from
+impaled Bulgarians to the credibility of miracles, was certain to be
+presented in a new and unlooked-for aspect. He was as full of splendid
+gleams as a landscape by Turner, and as free from all formal rules of
+art and method. He was an independent thinker, if ever there was one,
+and as honest as he was independent. In his belief, truth was the most
+precious of treasures, to be sought at all hazards, and, when acquired,
+to be safeguarded at all costs. His zeal for truth was closely allied
+with his sense of justice. His mind came as near absolute fairness as is
+possible for a man who takes any part in live controversies. He never
+used an unfair argument to establish his point, nor pressed a fair
+argument unduly. He was scrupulously careful in stating his adversary's
+case, and did all in his power<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> to secure a judicial and patient hearing
+even for the causes with which he had least sympathy. His own
+convictions, which he had reached through stern and self-sacrificing
+struggles, were absolutely solid. By the incessant writing of some forty
+years, he enforced the fundamental truth of human redemption through God
+made Man on the attention of people to whom professional preachers speak
+in vain, and he steadily impressed on his fellow-Christians those
+ethical duties of justice and mercy which should be, but sometimes are
+not, the characteristic fruits of their creed. It was a high function,
+excellently fulfilled.</p>
+
+<p>The transition is abrupt, but no catalogue of the literary men with whom
+I was brought in contact could be complete without a mention of Mr.
+George Augustus Sala. He was the very embodiment of Bohemia; and, alike
+in his views and in his style, the fine flower of such journalism as is
+associated with the name of the <i>Daily Telegraph</i>. His portrait,
+sketched with rare felicity, may be found in Letter XII. of that
+incomparable book, <i>Friendship's Garland</i>. "Adolescens Leo" thus
+describes him&mdash;"Sala, like us his disciples, has studied in the book of
+the world even more than in the world<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> of books. But his career and
+genius have given him somehow the secret of a literary mixture novel and
+fascinating in the last degree: he blends the airy epicureanism of the
+<i>salons</i> of Augustus with the full-bodied gaiety of our English
+cider-cellar. With our people and country, <i>mon cher</i>, this mixture is
+now the very thing to go down; there arises every day a larger public
+for it; and we, Sala's disciples, may be trusted not willingly to let it
+die."</p>
+
+<p>That was written in 1871; and, when sixteen years had elapsed, I thought
+it would be safe, and I knew it would be amusing, to bring Sala and
+Matthew Arnold face to face at dinner. For the credit of human nature
+let it be recorded that the experiment was entirely successful; for, as
+Lord Beaconsfield said, "Turtle makes all men equal," and vindictiveness
+is exorcised by champagne.</p>
+
+<p>The Journalist of Society in those days was Mr. T. H. S. Escott, who was
+also Editor of the <i>Fortnightly</i> and leader-writer of the <i>Standard</i>. I
+should be inclined to think that no writer in London worked so hard; and
+he paid the penalty in shattered health. It is a pleasure to me, who in
+those days owed much to his kindness, to witness the renewal of his
+early activities, and to welcome volume<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> after volume from his prolific
+pen. Mr. Kegan Paul, essayist, critic, editor, and ex-clergyman, was
+always an interesting figure; and his successive transitions from
+Tractarianism to Latitudinarianism, and from Agnosticism to
+Ultramontanism, gave a peculiar piquancy to his utterances on religion.
+He deserves remembrance on two quite different scores&mdash;one, that he was
+the first publisher to study prettiness in the production of even cheap
+books; and the other, that he was an early and enthusiastic worker in
+the cause of National Temperance. It was my privilege to be often with
+him in the suffering and blindness of his last years, and I have never
+seen a trying discipline more bravely borne.</p>
+
+<p>More than once in these chapters I have referred to "Billy Johnson," as
+his pupils and friends called William Cory in remembrance of old times.
+He was from 1845 to 1872 the most brilliant tutor at Eton: an
+astonishing number of eminent men passed through his hands, and retained
+through life the influence of his teaching. After leaving Eton, he
+changed his name from Johnson to Cory, and established himself on the
+top of the hill at Hampstead, where he freely imparted the treasures of
+his exquisite scholarship to all who cared to seek them,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> and not least
+willingly to young ladies. He was a man of absolutely original mind;
+paradoxical, prejudiced, and intellectually independent to the point of
+eccentricity. His range was wide, his taste infallible, and his love of
+the beautiful a passion. He lived, from boyhood to old age, the life of
+the Intellect; and yet posterity will know him only as having written
+one thin book of delightful verse;<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> a fragmentary History of England;
+and some of the most fascinating letters in the language.</p>
+
+<p>A friend and brother-Scholar of mine at Oxford was "Willy" Arnold, son
+of Mr. Thomas Arnold, and nephew of Matthew. After taking his degree, he
+joined the staff of the <i>Manchester Guardian</i>, and before long became
+one of the first journalists of his time. He was not merely a
+journalist, but also a publicist, and could have made his mark in public
+life by his exceptional knowledge of European politics. We had not seen
+one another for a good many years, when we met casually at dinner in the
+summer of 1887. To that chance meeting I owed my introduction to the
+<i>Manchester Guardian</i>. My first contribution to it was a description of
+the Jubilee Garden-Party at Buckingham Palace on the 29th<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> of June,
+1887; so I can reckon almost a quarter of a century of association with
+what I am bold to call (defying all allusion to the fabled Tanner) the
+best newspaper in Great Britain.</p>
+
+<p>But journalism, though now practised on a more dignified level, was only
+a continuation and development of a life-long habit; whereas, though I
+had been scribbling ever since I was a boy, I had never written a book.
+In 1890 Messrs. Sampson Low started a series of <i>The Queen's Prime
+Ministers</i>. Froude led off, brilliantly, with Lord Beaconsfield; and the
+editor<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> asked me to follow with Mr. Gladstone. Before acceding to
+this proposal, I thought it right to ask whether Gladstone had any
+objection; and, supposing that he had not, whether he would give me any
+help. His reply was eminently characteristic,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"When someone proposed to write a book about Harry Phillpotts, Bishop of
+Exeter, the Bishop procured an Injunction in Chancery to stop him. I
+shall not seek an Injunction against you&mdash;but that is all the help I can
+give you."</p>
+
+<p>Thus encouraged, or rather, I should say, not discouraged, I addressed
+myself to the task, and the book came out in July, 1891. I was told
+that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> Gladstone did not read it, and this assurance was in many respects
+a relief. But someone told him that I had stated, on the authority of
+one of his school-fellows, that he played no games at Eton. The next
+time I met him, he referred to this point; declared that I had been
+misinformed; and affirmed that he played both cricket and football, and
+"was in the Second Eleven at Cricket." In obedience to his request, I
+made the necessary correction in the Second Edition; but <i>a priori</i> I
+should not have been inclined to suspect my venerated leader of having
+been a cricketer.</p>
+
+<p>It is no part of my plan to narrate my own extremely humble performances
+in the way of authorship. The heading of the chapter speaks not of
+Book-making, but of Literature; and for a man to say that he has
+contributed to Literature would indeed be to invite rebuff. I am
+thinking now, not of what I have done, but of what I have received; and
+my debt to Literature is great indeed. I do not know the sensation of
+dulness, but, like most human beings, I know the sensation of sorrow;
+and with a grateful heart I record the fact that the darkest hours of my
+life have been made endurable by the Companionship of Books.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> To Mr. Watson I owed my introduction to Matthew Arnold's
+<i>Essays in Criticism</i>&mdash;a real event in one's mental life.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> By Sir Walter Strickland; whose poem on William Tyndale
+was justly admired.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> Richard Monckton Milnes was created Lord Houghton, August
+20, 1863.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> It is only fair to observe that those "Letters" were
+written in the strictest confidence.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> Ionica.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> Mr. Stuart J. Reid.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>SERVICE</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p>May He "in knowledge of Whom standeth our eternal life, Whose
+service is perfect freedom"&mdash;<i>Quem nosse vivere, Cui servire
+regnare est</i>&mdash;teach us the rules and laws of that eternal service,
+which is now beginning on the scene of time.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">R. W. Church</span>, <i>Human Life and its Conditions</i>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It was my happiness to be born and brought up in a home where Religion
+habitually expressed itself in Social Service. I cannot remember a time
+when those nearest to me were not actively engaged in ministering to the
+poor, the sick, the underfed, and the miserable. The motive of all this
+incessant ministration was the Christian Faith, and its motto was
+<i>Charitas Christi urget nos</i>. The religion in which the children of an
+Evangelical home were reared was an intensely vivid and energetic
+principle, passionate on its emotional side, definite in its theory,
+imperious in its demands, practical, visible, and tangible in its
+effects. If a boy's heart&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"Were less insensible than sodden clay</div>
+<div>In a sea-river's bed at ebb of tide,"</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span></p><p>it could scarcely fail to carry with it into the world outside the
+impressions stamped by such a training. I can remember quite clearly
+that, even in my Harrow days, the idea of Life as Service was always
+present to my mind: and it was constantly enforced by the preaching of
+such men as Butler, Westcott, and Farrar.</p>
+
+<p>"Here you are being educated either for life or for fashion. Which is
+it? What is your ambition? Is it to continue, with fewer restrictions,
+the amusements which have engrossed you here? Is it to be favourite or
+brilliant members of a society which keeps want and misery at a
+distance? Would this content you? Is this your idea of life? Or may we
+not hope that you will have a nobler conception of what a Christian
+manhood may be made in a country so rich in opportunities as our own now
+presents?"<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a></p>
+
+<p>In Dr. Butler's sermons our thoughts were directed to such subjects as
+the Housing of the Working Classes, Popular Education, and the contrast
+between the lot of the rich and the lot of the poor. "May God never
+allow us to grow proud, or to grow indolent, or to be deaf to the cry of
+human<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> suffering." "Pray that God may count you worthy to be foremost in
+the truly holy and heroic work of bringing purity to the homes of the
+labouring classes, and so hastening the coming of the day when the
+longing of our common Lord shall be accomplished." "Forget not the
+complaints, and the yet more fatal silence, of the poor, and pray that
+the ennobling of your own life, and the gratification of your own
+happiness, may be linked hereafter with some public Christian labour."</p>
+
+<p>Thus the influences of school co-operated with the influences of home to
+give one, at the most impressionable age, a lively interest in Social
+Service; and that interest found a practical outlet at Oxford. When
+young men first attempt good works, they always begin with teaching; and
+a Sunday School at Cowley and a Night School at St. Frideswide's were
+the scenes of my (very unsuccessful) attempts in that direction. Through
+my devotion to St. Barnabas', I became acquainted with the homes and
+lives of the poor in the then squalid district of "Jericho"; and the
+experience thus acquired was a valuable complement to the knowledge of
+the agricultural poor which I had gained at home. It was at this time
+that I first read <i>Yeast</i> and <i>Alton Locke</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> The living voice of Ruskin
+taught us the sanctity of work for others. A fascinating but awful book
+called <i>Modern Christianity a Civilized Heathenism</i> laid compelling
+hands on some young hearts; and in 1875 Dr. Pusey made that book the
+subject of a sermon before the University, in which he pleaded the cause
+of the poor with an unforgettable solemnity.<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a></p>
+
+<p>For two or three years, illness and decrepitude interfered with my
+active service, but the ideal was still enthroned in my heart; and, as
+health returned, the shame of doing nothing for others became
+intolerable. Return to activity was a very gradual process, and, if one
+had ever "despised the day of small things," one now learned to value
+it. When I came up to London, two or three of us, who had been
+undergraduate friends at Oxford, formed a little party for
+workhouse-visiting. One of the party has since been a Conservative
+Minister, one a Liberal Minister, and one a high official of the Central
+Conservative Association. Sisters joined their brothers, and we used to
+jog off together on Saturday afternoons to the Holborn Workhouse,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span>
+which, if I remember right, stood in a poetically-named but
+prosaic-looking street called "Shepherdess Walk." The girls visited the
+women, and we the men. We used to take oranges and flowers to the wards,
+give short readings from amusing books, and gossip with the bedridden
+about the outside world. We always had the kindest of welcomes from our
+old friends; and great was their enthusiasm when they learned that two
+of their visitors had been returned to Parliament at the General
+Election of 1880. As one of the two was a Conservative and one a
+Liberal, the political susceptibilities of the ward were not offended,
+and we both received congratulations from all alike. One quaint incident
+is connected with these memories. Just outside the Workhouse was a sort
+of booth, or "lean-to," where a very respectable woman sold daffodils
+and wall-flowers, which we used to buy for our friends inside. One day,
+when one of the girls of our party was making her purchase, the
+flower-seller said, "Would your Ladyship like to go to the Lady
+Mayoress's Fancy Dress Ball? If so, I can send you and your brother
+tickets. You have been good customers to me, and I should be very glad
+if you would accept them." The explanation was that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> flower-seller
+was sister to the Lady Mayoress, whom the Lord Mayor had married when he
+was in a humbler station. The tickets were gratefully accepted; and,
+when we asked the giver if she was going to the Ball, she replied, with
+excellent sense and taste, "Oh, no. My sister, in her position, is
+obliged to give these grand parties, but I should be quite out of place
+there. You must tell me all about it next time you come to the
+Workhouse."</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, during this "day of small things" a quiet but momentous
+revolution had been going on all round us, in the spheres of thought and
+conscience; and the earlier idea of individual service had been, not
+swamped by, but expanded into, the nobler conception of corporate
+endeavour.</p>
+
+<p>It had been a work of time. The Christian Socialism of 1848&mdash;one of the
+finest episodes in our moral history&mdash;had been trampled underfoot by the
+wickedness of the Crimean War. To all appearance, it fell into the
+ground and died. After two years of aimless bloodshed, peace was
+restored in 1856, and a spell of national prosperity succeeded. The
+Repeal of the Corn Laws had done its work; food was cheaper; times were
+better; the revenue<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> advanced "by leaps and bounds." But commercialism
+was rampant. It was the heyday of the Ten Pound Householder and the
+Middle Class Franchise. Mr. Podsnap and Mr. Gradgrind enounced the
+social law. Bright and Cobden dominated political thinking. The
+Universities were fast bound in the misery and iron of Mill and Bain.
+Everywhere the same grim idols were worshipped&mdash;unrestricted
+competition, the survival of the fittest, and universal selfishness
+enthroned in the place which belonged to universal love. "The Devil take
+the hindermost" was the motto of industrial life. "In the huge and
+hideous cities, the awful problem of Industry lay like a bad dream; but
+Political Economy warned us off that ground. We were assured that the
+free play of competitive forces was bound to discover the true
+equipoise. No intervention could really affect the inevitable outcome.
+It could only hinder and disturb."<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> The Church, whose pride it had
+been in remoter ages to be the Handmaid of the Poor, was bidden to leave
+the Social Problem severely alone; and so ten years rolled by, while the
+social pressure on labour became daily more grievous to be borne.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> But
+meanwhile the change was proceeding underground, or at least out of
+sight. Forces were working side by side which knew nothing of each
+other, but which were all tending to the same result. The Church, boldly
+casting aside the trammels which had bound her to wealth and culture,
+went down into the slums; brought the beauty and romance of Worship to
+the poorest and the most depraved, and compelled them to come in.
+Whenever such a Church as St. Alban's, Holborn, or St. Barnabas, Oxford,
+was established in the slums of a populous city, it became a centre not
+only of religious influence, but of social, physical, and educational
+reform. Ruskin's many-coloured wisdom, long recognized in the domain of
+Art, began to win its way through economic darkness, and charged
+cheerfully against the dismal strongholds of Supply and Demand. <i>Unto
+this Last</i> became a handbook for Social Reformers. The teaching of
+Maurice filtered, through all sorts of unsuspected channels, into
+literature and politics and churchmanship. In the intellectual world,
+Huxley transformed "the Survival of the Fittest," by bidding us devote
+ourselves to the task of fitting as many as possible to survive. At
+Oxford, the "home" not of "lost" but of victorious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> "causes," T. H.
+Green, wielding a spiritual influence which reached farther than that of
+many bishops, taught that Freedom of Contract, if it is to be anything
+but a callous fraud, implies conditions in which men are really free to
+contract or to refuse; and insisted that all wholesome competition
+implies "adequate equipment for the competitors."</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to say exactly how all these influences intertwined and
+co-operated. One man was swayed by one force; another by another; and,
+after long years of subterranean working, a moment came, as it comes to
+the germinating seed deep-hidden in the furrow, when it must pierce the
+superincumbent mass, and show its tiny point of life above ground.<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a>
+The General Election of 1880, by dethroning Lord Beaconsfield and
+putting Gladstone in power, had fulfilled the strictly political objects
+which during the preceding three years my friends and I had been trying
+to attain. So we, who entered Parliament at that Election, were set
+free, at the very outset of our public career, to work for the Social
+Reform which we had at heart. We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> earnestly desired to make the lives of
+our fellow-men healthier, sweeter, brighter, and more humane; and it was
+an ennobling and invigorating ambition, lifting the pursuit of politics,
+out of the vulgar dust of office-seeking and wire-pulling, into the
+purer air of unselfish endeavour. To some of us it was much more; for it
+meant the application of the Gospel of Christ to the practical business
+of modern life. But the difficulties were enormous. The Liberal party
+still clung to its miserable old mumpsimus of <i>Laissez-faire</i>, and
+steadily refused to learn the new and nobler language of Social Service.
+Alone among our leading men, Mr. Chamberlain seemed to apprehend the
+truth that political reform is related to social reform as the means to
+the end, and that Politics, in its widest sense, is the science of human
+happiness.</p>
+
+<p>But, in spite of all discouragements, we clung to "a Social Philosophy
+which, however materialistic some of its tendencies might have become,
+had been allied with the spiritual Hegelianism with which we had been
+touched. It took its scientific shape in the hands of Karl Marx, but it
+also floated to us, in dreams and visions, using our own Christian
+language, and invoking the unity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> of the Social Body, as the Law of
+Love, and the Solidarity of Humanity."<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a></p>
+
+<p>At the sound of these voices the old idols fell&mdash;<i>Laissez-faire</i> and
+<i>Laissez-aller</i>, Individualism and Self-content, Unrestricted
+Competition and the Survival of the Fittest. They all went down with a
+crash, like so many dishonoured Dagons; and, before their startled
+worshippers had time to reinstate them, yet another voice of warning
+broke upon our ears. <i>The Bitter Cry of Outcast London</i>, describing the
+enormous amount of preventable misery caused by over-crowding, startled
+men into recognizing the duty of the State to cope with the evil. Then
+came Henry George with his <i>Progress and Poverty</i>, and, as Dr. Holland
+says, he "forced us on to new thinking." That "new thinking" took
+something of this form&mdash;"Here are the urgent and grinding facts of human
+misery. The Political Economy of such blind guides as Ricardo and
+Bastiat and Fawcett has signally failed to cure or even mitigate them.
+Now comes a new prophet with his gospel of the Single Tax. He may, or
+may not, have found the remedy, but at any rate he has shown us more
+clearly than ever the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span>immensity of the evil, and our responsibility for
+suffering it to continue. We profess and call ourselves Christians. Is
+it not about time that, casting aside all human teachings, whether
+Economic or Socialistic, we tried to see what the Gospel says about the
+subject, and about our duty in regard to it?"</p>
+
+<p>Out of this stress of mind and heart arose "The Christian Social Union."
+It was founded in Lent, 1889, and it set forth its objects in the
+following statement&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"This Union consists of Churchmen who have the following objects at
+heart:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>(i) To claim for the Christian Law the ultimate authority to rule
+social practice.</p>
+
+<p>(ii) To study in common how to apply the moral truths and
+principles of Christianity to the social and economic difficulties
+of the present time.</p>
+
+<p>(iii) To present <span class="smcap">Christ</span> in practical life as the Living Master and
+King, the enemy of wrong and selfishness, the power of
+righteousness and love."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The Christian Social Union, originating with some Oxford men in London,
+was soon reinforced from Cambridge, which had fallen under the inspiring
+though impalpable influence of Westcott's teaching. Westcott was, in
+some sense, the continuator of Mauricianism; and so, when Westcott
+joined the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> Union, the two streams, of Mauricianism and of the Oxford
+Movement, fused. Let Dr. Holland, with whom the work began, tell the
+rest of the story&mdash;"We founded the C. S. U. under Westcott's
+presidentship, leaving to the Guild of St. Matthew their old work of
+justifying God to the People, while we devoted ourselves to converting
+and impregnating the solid, stolid, flock of our own church folk within
+the fold.... We had our work cut out for us in dislodging the horrible
+cast-iron formul&aelig;, which were indeed wholly obsolete, but which seemed
+for that very reason to take tighter possession of their last refuge in
+the bulk of the Church's laity."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"Let no man think that sudden in a minute</div>
+<div class="i1">All is accomplished and the work is done;&mdash;</div>
+<div>Though with thine earliest dawn thou shouldst begin it,</div>
+<div class="i1">Scarce were it ended in thy setting sun."<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The spirit which created the Christian Social Union found, in the same
+year, an unexpected outlet in the secular sphere. In the Session of
+1888, the Conservative Ministry, noting the general disgust which had
+been aroused by the corrupt misgovernment of Greater London, passed the
+"Local<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> Government Act," which, among other provisions, made London into
+a County, gave it a "County Council," and endowed that Council with
+far-reaching powers. To social reformers this was a tremendous event.
+For forty years they had been labouring to procure something of the
+sort, and now it dropped down from the skies, and seemed at first almost
+too good to be true. Under the shock of the surprise, London suddenly
+awoke to the consciousness of a corporate life. On every side men were
+stirred by an honest impulse to give the experiment a good start; to
+work the new machine for all it was worth; and to make the
+administration of Greater London a model for all lesser municipalities.
+The Divisions of London, for the purposes of its new Council, were the
+same as its Parliamentary Divisions, but each constituency returned two
+members, and the City four. Every seat (except those for St. George's,
+Hanover Square) was contested, and there were often as many as six or
+seven candidates for one division. It was said at the time that "the
+uncertainty of the issues, the multitude of candidates, and the
+vagueness of parties made it impossible to tabulate the results with the
+same accuracy and completeness which are possible in the case of the
+House of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> Commons." Some candidates stood professedly as Liberals, and
+others as Conservatives. The majority, however, declared themselves to
+be "strictly non-political." Some leading objects, such as Better
+Housing of the Poor, Sanitary Reform, and the abolition of jobbery and
+corruption, were professed by all alike; and the main issues in dispute
+were the control of the Police by the Council, the reform of the
+Corporation of London and of the City Guilds, the abolition of dues on
+coal coming into the Port of London, and the taxation of ground-rents.</p>
+
+<p>In such projects as these it was easy to discern the working of the new
+spirit. Men were trying, earnestly though amid much confusion, to
+translate the doctrines of Social Reform into fact. "Practicable
+Socialism" became the ideal of the reforming party, who styled
+themselves "Progressives." Their opponents got the unfortunate name of
+"Moderates"; and between the ideas roughly indicated by those two names
+the battle was fought. The Election took place in January, 1889. The
+result was that 71 candidates labelled "Progressive" were returned, and
+47 "Moderates." The Act empowered the Council to complete its number by
+electing 19 Aldermen. Of these, 18 were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span>Progressives, and one was a
+Moderate; so the total result was a "Progressive" majority of 41.</p>
+
+<p>By the time of which I write I had become, by habitual residence, a
+Londoner; and I hope I was as keen on Social Reform as anyone in London,
+or outside it. But, after what I said in an earlier chapter, it will
+surprise no one that I declined to be a candidate for the London County
+Council. My dislike of electioneering is so intense that nothing on
+earth except the prospect of a seat in Parliament would tempt me to
+undertake it; so to all suggestions that I should stand in the
+Progressive interest I turned a resolutely deaf ear. But, when the
+election was over and the Progressive majority had to choose a list of
+Aldermen, I saw my opportunity and volunteered my services. By the
+goodwill of my friends on the Council, I was placed on the "Progressive
+List," and on the 5th of February I was elected an Alderman for six
+years. Among my colleagues were Lord Meath, Lord Lingen, Lord Hobhouse,
+Mr. Quintin Hogg, Sir Thomas Farrer, and Mr. Frederic Harrison. Lord
+Meath was accepted by the Progressive party, in recognition of his
+devoted services to the cause of social amelioration, especially in the
+matter of Public Gardens and Open Spaces; but,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> with this sole
+exception, the list was frankly partisan. The Progressives had got a
+majority on the new "Parliament of London," and had no notion of
+watering it down.</p>
+
+<p>Before the Council was created, the governing body for Greater London
+had been the "Metropolitan Board of Works," which had its dwelling in
+Spring Gardens. The old building had to be adapted to its new uses, and,
+while the reconstruction was in progress, the County Council was
+permitted by the Corporation to meet in the Guildhall. There we
+assembled on the 12th of February, a highly-diversified, and, in some
+respects, an interesting company. A careful analysis of our quality and
+occupations gave the following results: Peers, 4; M.P.'s and ex-M.P.'s,
+9; Clergymen, 2; Barristers, 14; Solicitors, 3; Soldiers, 4; Doctors, 5;
+Tutors, 2; Architects, 2; Builders, 4; Engineers, 3; Journalists, 4;
+Publisher, 1; Bankers, 5; Stock-Exchange men, 5; Auctioneers, 3; Brewer,
+1; Clothiers, 2; Confectioner, 1; Drapers, 2; Grocers, 2; Mineral
+Water-maker, 1; Optician, 1; Shoemaker, 1; Merchants, 22; Manufacturers,
+13; Gentlemen at large, 8; "Unspecified," 10. And to these must be added
+three ladies, who had been illegally elected<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> and were soon unseated. A
+current joke of the time represented one of our more highly-cultured
+Councillors saying to a colleague drawn from another rank,&mdash;"The
+acoustics of this Hall seem very defective"&mdash;to which the colleague,
+after sniffing, replies&mdash;"Indeed? I don't perceive anything unpleasant."
+Which things were an allegory; but conveyed a true impression of our
+social and educational diversities.</p>
+
+<p>The first business which we had to transact was the election of a
+Chairman. Lord Rosebery was elected by 104 votes to 17; and so began the
+most useful portion of his varied career. The honorary office of
+Vice-Chairman was unanimously conferred on Sir John Lubbock, afterwards
+Lord Avebury; and for the Deputy Chairmanship, a salaried post of
+practical importance, the Council chose Mr. J. F. B. Firth, who had made
+his name as an exponent of the intricacies of Metropolitan Government.</p>
+
+<p>To watch the methods of Lord Rosebery's chairmanship was an interesting
+study. After much experience of public bodies and public meetings, I
+consider him the best chairman but one under whom I ever sat. The best
+was Mr. Leonard Courtney, now Lord Courtney of Penwith, who to the gifts
+of accuracy, promptness, and mastery of detail, added the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> rarer grace
+of absolute impartiality. Lord Rosebery had the accuracy, the
+promptness, and the mastery, but he was not impartial. He was inclined
+to add the functions of Leader of the House to those of Speaker, which
+were rightly his. When a subject on which he felt strongly was under
+discussion, and opinion in the Council was closely balanced, Lord
+Rosebery would intervene just at the close of the debate, with a short,
+strong, and emphatic speech, and so influence the division in favour of
+his own view. This practice is, in my judgment, inconsistent with ideal
+chairmanship, but in the early days of the Council it was not without
+its uses.</p>
+
+<p>We had to furnish ourselves with a constitution, to distribute our
+various powers, to frame rules of debate, and to create an order of
+business. To do all this in a full Council of 137 members, most of them
+quite unversed in public life, many of them opinionated, all articulate,
+and not a few vociferous, was a work of the utmost difficulty, and Lord
+Rosebery engineered it to perfection. He was suave and courteous;
+smoothed acrid dissensions with judicious humour; used sarcasm
+sparingly, but with effect; and maintained a certain dignity of bearing
+which profoundly impressed the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span>representatives of the Great Middle
+Class. "By Jove, how these chaps funk Rosebery!" was the candid
+exclamation of Sir Howard Vincent; and his remark applied quite equally
+to his own "Moderate" friends and to my "Progressives." It was
+characteristic of these gentry that they longed to call Lord Rosebery
+"My Lord," and were with difficulty induced to substitute "Mr.
+Chairman." The one member of the Council who stands out in my memory as
+not having "funked" the Chairman is Mr. John Burns, whose action and
+bearing in the Council formed one of my most interesting studies. The
+events of February, 1885, were still present to my memory, though the
+Councillor for Battersea had probably forgotten them. The change which
+four years had wrought was extraordinary. He spoke constantly and
+effectively, but always with moderation, good feeling, and common sense.
+At the same time, he maintained a breezy independence, and, when he
+thought that the Chair ought to be defied, defied it. This was awkward,
+for the Chairman had no disciplinary powers, and there was no executive
+force to compel submission to his rulings. As far as I could observe,
+Mr. Burns never gave way, and yet he soon ceased to enter into conflict<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span>
+with the Chair. What was the influence which tamed him? I often
+wondered, but never knew.</p>
+
+<p>The Council had got itself duly divided into Committees, and it was
+noticeable that there was an enormous rush of Councillors anxious to
+serve on the Housing Committee. The "Bitter Cry of Outcast London" had
+not been raised in vain, and every man in the Council seemed anxious to
+bear his part in the work of redressing an intolerable wrong. The weekly
+Session of the Council was fixed for Tuesday afternoon, to the disgust
+of some Progressives who hankered after the more democratic hour of 7
+p.m. The main part of the business was the discussion of the Reports
+brought up from the various Committees, and, when those were disposed
+of, abstract motions could be debated. Some earnest Liberals were always
+trying to raise such questions as Home Rule, Land Law, Enfranchisement
+of Leaseholds, and other matters which lay outside the purview of the
+Council; and it was delightful to see Lord Rosebery damping down these
+irregular enthusiasms, and reminding his hearers of the limits which
+Parliament had set to their activities. Those limits were, in all
+conscience, wide enough, and included in their scope Housing, Asylums,
+Bridges, Fire-Brigades, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span>Highways, Reformatory Schools, Main Drainage,
+Parks, Theatres, and Music-Halls, besides the complicated system of
+finance by which all our practice was regulated. The Committees dealing
+with these subjects, and several others of less importance, were manned
+by able, zealous, and conscientious servants of the public, who gave
+ungrudgingly of their time (which in many cases was also money),
+thought, and labour. The Council as a whole displayed a voracious
+appetite for work, and rendered, without fee or reward, a service to
+Greater London which no money could have purchased.</p>
+
+<p>In the autumn of this year&mdash;1889&mdash;some correspondence appeared in
+newspapers and reviews about what was called "The New Liberalism." By
+that title was meant a Liberalism which could no longer content itself
+with the crudities of official politics, but longed to bear its part in
+the social regeneration of the race. In an article in the <i>Nineteenth
+Century</i>, I commented on the insensibility of the Liberal Leaders to
+this new inspiration. "Who would lead our armies into Edom?" I confess
+that I thought of Lord Rosebery as our likeliest champion; but I put the
+cause above the man. "Wherever our leader may come from, I am <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span>confident
+that the movement will go on. <i>&Ccedil;a ira! &Ccedil;a ira! Malgr&eacute; les mutins, tout
+r&eacute;ussira!</i> The cause of Social Service arouses that moral enthusiasm
+which cannot be bought and cannot be resisted, and which carries in
+itself the pledge of victory. The terrible magnitude and urgency of the
+evils with which we have to cope cannot be overstated. Those who set out
+to fight them will have to encounter great and manifold
+difficulties&mdash;ignorance, stupidity, prejudice, greed, cruelty,
+self-interest, instincts of class, cowardly distrust of popular
+movements, 'spiritual wickedness in high places.' And, in the face of
+these opposing forces, it is cheering to think that, after long years of
+single-handed striving, the good cause now has its workers everywhere.
+And to none does it make a more direct or a more imperious appeal than
+to us Liberal politicians. If we are worthy of the name, we must be in
+earnest about a cause which promises happiness, and health, and length
+of days to those who by their daily labour of hand and head principally
+maintain the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon race. We must be impatient of
+a state of society in which healthy dwellings and unadulterated food and
+pure water and fresh air are made the monopolies of the rich. We must be
+eager to do our part<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> towards abolishing filth and eradicating disease,
+and giving free scope to those beneficent laws of Nature which, if only
+we will obey them, are so manifestly designed to promote the welfare and
+the longevity of man. If we believe that every human being has equally
+and indefeasibly the right to be happy, we must find our chief interest
+and most satisfying occupation in Social Service. Our aim is, first, to
+lighten the load of existence for those thronging thousands of the human
+family whose experience of life is one long suffering, and then to 'add
+sunshine to daylight by making the happy happier.' The poor, the
+ignorant, the weak, the hungry, the over-worked, all call for aid; and,
+in ministering to their wants, the adherent of the New Liberalism knows
+that he is fulfilling the best function of the character which he
+professes, and moreover is helping to enlarge the boundaries of the
+Kingdom of God."</p>
+
+<p>When those words were written, the London County Council had just begun
+its work. I served on it till March, 1895; and during those six years it
+had proved in practice what a right-minded Municipality can do towards
+brightening and sweetening human life. It cut broad roads through
+squalid slums, letting in light and air where all had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> been darkness and
+pollution. It cleared wide areas of insanitary dwellings, where only
+vice could thrive, and re-housed the dispossessed. It broke up the
+monotony of mean streets with beautiful parks and health-giving
+pleasure-grounds. It transfigured the Music-Halls, and showed that, by
+the exercise of a little firmness and common sense, the tone and
+character of the "Poor Man's Theatre" could be raised to the level of
+what would be applauded in a drawing-room. By forbidding the sale of
+refreshments in the auditorium, it crushed the old-fashioned
+superstition that public entertainment and alcoholic drink are
+inseparably connected. In some of these good works it was my privilege
+to bear a part; and, in that matter of the purification of the
+Music-Halls, I was proud to follow the lead of Sir John McDougall, who
+has since been Chairman of the Council, and who, at the time of which I
+am writing, fearlessly exposed himself to unbounded calumny, and even
+physical violence, in his crusade for the moral purity of popular
+amusement. Those were six years of fruitful service; and, though a long
+time has elapsed since I left the Council, I have constantly watched its
+labours, and can heartily assent to the eulogy pronounced by my friend
+Henry Scott <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span>Holland, when he was quitting his Canonry at St. Paul's for
+his Professorship at Oxford:</p>
+
+<p>"As for London, my whole heart is still given to the lines of the
+Progressive policy on the County Council. I still think that this has
+given London a soul; and that it has been by far the most effective work
+that one has watched happening.... The hope of London lies with the
+County Council."</p>
+
+<p>Before I say goodbye to this portion of my "Autobiography," let me
+record the fact that the London County Council produced a poet of its
+own. The first Council came to an end in March, 1892, and the second,
+elected on the 5th of that month, gave the Progressives a greatly
+increased majority. One of the newly-elected Councillors uttered his
+triumphant joy in song.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"Here then you have your answer, you that thought</div>
+<div class="i2">To find our London unawakened still,</div>
+<div class="i2">A sleeping plunder for you, thought to fill</div>
+<div>The gorge of private greed, and count for naught</div>
+<div>The common good. Time unto her has brought</div>
+<div class="i2">Her glorious hour, her strength of public will</div>
+<div class="i2">Grown conscious, and a civic soul to thrill</div>
+<div>The once dull mass that for your spoil you sought.</div>
+<div>Lo, where the alert majestic city stands,</div>
+<div class="i2">Dreaming her dream of golden days to be,</div>
+<div>With shaded eyes beneath her arching hands</div>
+<div class="i2">Scanning the forward pathway, like a seer</div>
+<div class="i2">To whom the riven future has made clear</div>
+<div>The marvel of some mighty destiny."<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a></div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span></p><p>Moved by the desire to gratify a young ambition, I introduced the poet
+to Mr. Gladstone, and that great man, who never damned with faint
+praise, pronounced that this was the finest thing written about London
+since Wordsworth's Sonnet "Composed upon Westminster Bridge."</p>
+
+<p>In August, 1892, Gladstone became Prime Minister for the fourth time. He
+gave me a place in his Government; and for the next three years my
+activities were limited to North Bedfordshire, which I then represented,
+the House of Commons, and Whitehall. I was restored to liberty by the
+dissolution of July, 1895. In my chapter about Oxford, I spoke of the
+Rev. E. S. Talbot, then Warden of Keble, and now Bishop of Winchester,
+as one of those whose friendship I had acquired in undergraduate days.
+After serving for a while as Vicar of Leeds, he was appointed in 1895 to
+the See of Rochester, which then included South London. Soon after he
+had entered on his new work, he said to me, "Men of leisure are very
+scarce in South London. Will you come across the Thames, and lend us a
+hand?"</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> Dr. Butler's Harrow Sermons. Series II.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> "Christianity without the Cross a Corruption of the Gospel
+of Christ."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> Rev. H. Scott Holland, D.D.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> Honourable mention ought here to be made of "The Guild of
+St. Matthew," founded by the Rev. Stewart Headlam in 1877. Its object
+was "To justify God to the People," and it prepared the way for later
+organizations.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> The Rev. H. S. Holland, D.D.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> F. W. H. Myers.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> F. Henderson, <i>By the Sea, and other poems</i>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>XV</h2>
+
+<h3>ECCLESIASTICA</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p>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="center"><span class="smcap">J. H. Shorthouse</span>, <i>John Inglesant</i>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Mr. Shorthouse, like most people who have come over to the Church from
+Dissent, set an inordinate value on the principle of Establishment. He
+seemed (and in that particular he resembled Archbishop Tait) incapable
+of conceiving the idea of a Church as separate from, and independent of,
+the State. The words "as established by the law of England" in the
+passage which stands at the head of this chapter appear to suggest a
+doubt whether the English Church, if she ceased to be "established,"
+could still discharge her function as the divinely-appointed dispenser
+of sacramental grace to the English people. Those who, like Mr.
+Gladstone, believe that no change in her worldly circumstances<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> could
+"compromise or impair her character as the Catholic and Apostolic Church
+of this country," would omit Mr. Shorthouse's qualifying words, and
+would say, simply, that the English Church, whether established or not,
+offers the Supernatural to all who choose to come, and that she is, has
+been, and always will be, "historically the same institution through
+which the Gospel was originally preached to the English Nation." But
+this is not the place for theorization; so, for the moment, I am content
+to take Mr. Shorthouse's statement as it stands, and to say that a
+loving pride in the English Church has been the permanent passion of my
+life. I hold with Dean Church, a man not given to hyperbole, that "in
+spite of inconsistencies and menacing troubles, she is still the most
+glorious Church in Christendom."</p>
+
+<p>I was baptized in the Parish Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Woburn,
+formerly a chapel dependent on the Cistercian Abbey hard by, which the
+first Earl of Bedford received as a gift from Henry VIII.<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> This truly
+interesting church was destroyed, to please an innovating incumbent, in
+1864; but my earliest impressions of public worship are connected with
+it, and in my mind's eye I can see it as clearly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> as if it were still
+standing. It had never been "restored "; but had been decorated by my
+grandfather, who inherited the ecclesiastical rights of the Abbots of
+Woburn, and whose "Curate" the incumbent was.<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> My grandfather was a
+liberal giver, and did his best, according to his lights, to make the
+Church beautiful. He filled the East Window with stained glass, the
+central subject being his own coat of arms, with patriarchs and saints
+grouped round it in due subordination. Beneath the window was a fine
+picture, by Carlo Maratti, of the Holy Family. The Holy Table was a
+table indeed, with legs and drawers after the manner of a writing-table,
+and a cover of red velvet. The chancel was long; and the south side of
+it was engrossed by "the Duke's Pew," which was enclosed within high
+walls and thick curtains, and contained a fireplace. The north side of
+the chancel was equally engrossed by a pew for the Duke's servants. The
+choir, male and female after their kind, surrounded the organ in a
+gallery at the West End. The whole Church was pewed throughout, and
+white-washed, the chancel being enriched with plaster mouldings. On the
+capital<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> of each pillar was a scutcheon, bearing the arms of some family
+allied to our own. The largest and most vivid presentment of the Royal
+Arms which I have ever seen crowned the chancel-arch.</p>
+
+<p>Our clerical staff consisted of the incumbent (who became a "Vicar" by
+Act of Parliament in 1868) and a curate. Our list of services was as
+follows: Sunday&mdash;11 a.m., Morning Prayer, Litany, Table-prayers, and
+Sermon; 6 p.m., Evening Prayer and Sermon. There was Evening Prayer with
+a sermon on Thursdays, and a prayer-meeting in the schoolroom on Tuesday
+evenings. There were no extra services in Lent or Advent, nor on any
+Holy Days except Good Friday and Ascension Day. The Holy Communion was
+administered after Morning Service on the first Sunday of the month, and
+on Christmas and Easter Days; and after Evening Service on the third
+Sunday. The black gown was, of course, worn in the pulpit, and I
+remember a mild sensation caused by the disuse of bands. The prayers
+were preached; the Psalms were read; and the hymn-book in use was "The
+Church and Home Metrical Psalter and Hymnal"&mdash;a quaint compilation which
+I have never seen elsewhere. It would not be easy to describe the
+dreariness of the services; and the preaching<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span> corresponded to them.
+This is curious, for Evangelical preaching generally was rousing and
+effective. I remember that we heard preaching of that type from
+strangers who occasionally "took duty" or "pleaded for Societies"; but
+our own pastors always expatiated on Justification by Faith only. I
+cannot recall any other subject; and, even in enforcing this,
+"Pulpit-eloquence," topical allusions, and illustrations whether from
+nature or from books, were rigidly eschewed. "As dull as a sermon" is a
+proverbial saying which for me in early boyhood had an awful truth.</p>
+
+<p>It has been stated in an earlier chapter that I discovered the
+Sacramental System of the Church by the simple method of studying the
+Prayer Book. Certainly I got no help in that direction from my spiritual
+pastors. The incumbent was, I should think, the Lowest Churchman who
+ever lived. He was a Cambridge man; a thorough gentleman; well-read;
+wholly devoted to his sacred calling; and fearless in his assertion of
+what he believed to be right. (He once refused to let Jowett preach in
+our pulpit, though the noble patron made the request.) He was entirely
+insensible to poetry, beauty, romance, and enthusiasm; but his mind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span> was
+essentially logical, and he followed his creed to its extremest
+consequences. Baptismal grace, of course, he absolutely denied. He
+prepared me for Confirmation, and he began his preparation by assailing
+my faith in the Presence and the Succession. He defined Confirmation as
+"a coming of age in the things of the soul." I perfectly remember a
+sermon preached on "Sacrament Sunday," which ended with some such words
+as these, "I go to yonder table to-day; not expecting to meet the Lord,
+because I know He will not be there." I have seldom heard the doctrine
+of the Real Absence stated with equal frankness.</p>
+
+<p>All my religious associations were with the Evangelical school, of which
+my parents were devoted adherents. My uncle, the Rev. Lord Wriothesley
+Russell (1804-1886), had been a disciple of Charles Simeon at Cambridge,
+but had completely discarded such fragments of Churchmanship as lingered
+in his master's teaching. My mother (1810-1884) had been in early life
+closely allied with "the Clapham Sect"; and our friendship with the last
+survivor of that sect, Miss Marianne Thornton (1797-1887), linked us to
+the Wilberforces, the Venns, and the Macaulays. My acquaintance with
+Lord Shaftesbury (1801-1885) I have always esteemed one of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span> the chief
+honours of my life. He combined in a singular degree the gifts which
+make a Leader. He had an imperious will, a perfervid temper, unbounded
+enthusiasm, inexhaustible energy. Any movement with which he was
+connected he controlled. He brooked neither opposition nor criticism.
+His authority was reinforced by advantages of aspect and station; by a
+stately manner, by a noble and commanding eloquence. But all these gifts
+were as nothing when compared with the power of his lifelong
+consistency. When he was a boy at Harrow, a brutal scene at a pauper's
+funeral awoke his devotion to the cause of the poor and helpless.
+Seventy years later, when he lay on his deathbed, his only regret was
+that he must leave the world with so much misery in it. From first to
+last, he was an Evangelical of the highest and purest type, displaying
+all the religious and social virtues of that school in their perfection.
+Yet he left it on record that he had been more harshly treated by the
+Evangelical party than by any other. Perhaps the explanation is that
+those excellent people were only kicking against the pricks of a
+too-absolute control.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the religious associations of my early life; and I am deeply
+thankful for them. I have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> found, by much experiment, that there is no
+foundation on which the superstructure of Catholic religion can be more
+securely built than on the Evangelical confession of man's utter
+sinfulness, and of the free pardon purchased by the Blood of Christ. A
+man trained in that confession may, without sacrificing a jot of his
+earlier creed, learn to accept all that the Catholic Church teaches
+about Orders and Sacraments; but to the end he will retain some
+characteristic marks of his spiritual beginnings. For my own part, I
+hold with Mr. Gladstone that to label oneself with an ecclesiastical
+nickname would be to compromise "the first of earthly blessings&mdash;one's
+mental freedom<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a>"; but if anyone chose to call me a "Catholic
+Evangelical," I should not quarrel with the designation.</p>
+
+<p>I said in an earlier chapter that I had an inborn fondness for Catholic
+ceremonial, and this, I suppose, was part of my general love of material
+beauty. Amid such surroundings as I have described, it was a fondness
+not easily indulged. When I was twelve years old, I was staying at
+Leamington in August, and on a Holy Day I peeped into the Roman Church
+there, and saw for the first time the ceremonies of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> High Mass; and from
+that day on I longed to see them reproduced in the Church of England.
+During one of our periodical visits to London, I discovered the
+beautiful church in Gordon Square where the "Adherents of a Restored
+Apostolate" celebrate Divine Worship with bewildering splendour. The
+propinquity of our house to Westminster Abbey enabled me to enter into
+the more chastened, yet dignified, beauty of the English rite. At Harrow
+the brightness and colour of our School-Chapel struck my untutored eye
+as "exceeding magnifical"; and the early celebrations in the Parish
+Church had a solemnity which the Chapel lacked.</p>
+
+<p>But the happiest memory of all is connected with a little Church<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a>
+about two miles from my home. It is a tiny structure of one aisle, with
+the altar fenced off by a screen of carved oak. It served a group of
+half a dozen houses, and it stood amid green fields, remote from
+traffic, and scarcely visible except to those who searched for it. There
+an enthusiastic and devoted priest spent five and twenty years of an
+isolated ministry; and there, for the first time in our communion, I saw
+the Divine Mysteries celebrated with the appropriate accessories.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span></p><p>My walks to that secluded altar, in the fresh brightness of summer
+mornings, can never be forgotten until the whole tablet is blotted. On
+the sky-line, the great masses of distant woodland, half-veiled in mist,
+lay like a blue cloud. Within, there was "the fair white linen cloth
+upon the wooden table, with fresh flowers above, and the worn slabs
+beneath that record the dim names of the forgotten dead"; and there
+"amid the faint streaks of the early dawn, the faithful, kneeling round
+the oaken railing, took into their hands the worn silver of the Grail&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>"The chalice of the Grapes of God."<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a></div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Perhaps it was just as well for a boy that these glimpses of beautiful
+worship were few and far between. One was saved from the perils of a
+mere externalism, and was driven inward on the unseen realities which
+ceremonial may sometimes obscure. And then, when one got up to Oxford,
+one found all the splendours of the sanctuary in rich abundance, and
+enjoyed them with a whole-hearted self-abandonment. I need not repeat
+what I have already said about St. Barnabas and Cowley and the other
+strongholds of Catholic worship. I am<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span> eternally their debtor, and the
+friends with whom I shared them have helped to shape my life.</p>
+
+<p>But, in spite of all these enjoyments, religious life at Oxford between
+1872 and 1876 was not altogether happy. A strong flood of Romanism burst
+upon the University, and carried some of my best friends from my side;
+and, concurrently with this disturbance, an American teacher attacked
+our faith from the opposite quarter. He taught an absolute disregard of
+all forms and rites, and, not content with the ordinary doctrine of
+instantaneous conversion, preached the absolute sinlessness of the
+believer. The movement which, in 1874, he set on foot was marked by
+disasters, of which the nature can best be inferred from a
+characteristic saying, "The believer's conflict with Sin is all stuff."
+This teaching had its natural consequences, and the movement issued in
+spiritual tragedy.</p>
+
+<p>In the following year we were touched by the much more wholesome
+enterprise of Messrs. Moody and Sankey. Their teaching was wholly free
+from the perilous stuff which had defiled the previous mission; and
+though it shook the faith of some who had cultivated the husk rather
+than the kernel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span> of ritualism, still all could join in the generous
+tribute paid by Dr. Liddon on Whitsun Day, 1876:</p>
+
+<p>"Last year two American preachers visited this country, to whom God had
+given, together with earnest belief in some portions of the gospel, a
+corresponding spirit of fearless enterprise. Certainly they had no such
+credentials of an Apostolic Ministry as a well-instructed and believing
+Churchman would require.... And yet, acting according to the light which
+God had given them, they threw themselves on our great cities with the
+ardour of Apostles; spoke of a higher world to thousands who pass the
+greater part of life in dreaming only of this; and made many of us feel
+that we owe them at least the debt of an example, which He Who breatheth
+where He listeth must surely have inspired them to give us."<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a></p>
+
+<p>When I came up to London after leaving Oxford, "the world was all before
+me where to choose," and I made a pretty wide survey before deciding on
+my habitual place of worship. St. Paul's Cathedral had lately awoke from
+its long sleep, and, under the wise guidance of Church, Gregory, and
+Liddon,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span> was beginning to show the perfection of worship on the strict
+line of the English Prayer-Book.</p>
+
+<p>Being by temperament profoundly Gothic, I hold (with Sir William
+Richmond) that Westminster Abbey is the most beautiful church in the
+world. But it had nothing to offer in the way of seemly worship; and,
+while Liddon was preaching the Gospel at St. Paul's, Dean Stanley at
+Westminster was delivering the fine rhetoric and dubious history which
+were his substitutes for theology, and with reference to which a Jewish
+lady said to me, "I have heard the Dean preach for eighteen years, and I
+have never heard a word from him which I could not accept." At the
+Temple, Dr. Vaughan was at the height of his vogue, and Sunday after
+Sunday was teaching the lawyers the effective grace of a nervous and
+finished style.</p>
+
+<p>All Saints, Margaret Street, St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, and St.
+Barnabas, Pimlico, showed a type of worship refined, artistic, and
+rather prim. St. Alban's, Holborn, "the Mother and Mistress" of all
+ritualistic churches, combined Roman ceremonial with the passionately
+Evangelical teaching of the greatest extempore preacher I have ever
+heard, Arthur Stanton. St. Michael's, Shoreditch, and St.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span> Peter's,
+London Docks, were outposts of the ritualistic army. The Low Church
+congregated at Portman Chapel, and Belgrave Chapel, and Eaton Chapel
+(all since demolished), at St. Michael's, Chester Square, and St.
+John's, Paddington. Broad Churchmen, as a rule, were hidden in holes and
+corners; for the bizarre magnificence of Holy Trinity, Sloane Street,
+had not yet superseded the humble structure in which Henry Blunt had
+formerly preached into the Duchess of Beaufort's<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> ear-trumpet; and
+St. Margaret's, Westminster, had only just begun to reverberate the
+rolling eloquence of Dr. Farrar. At St. Peter's, Eaton Square, amid
+surroundings truly hideous, George Wilkinson, afterward Bishop of St.
+Andrews, dominated, sheerly by spiritual force, a congregation which,
+having regard to the numbers, wealth, and importance of the men who
+composed it, was the most remarkable that I have ever seen. Cabinet
+Ministers, great noblemen, landed proprietors, Members of Parliament,
+soldiers, lawyers, doctors, and "men about town," were the clay which
+this master-potter moulded at his will.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as now, Society loved to be scolded, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span> more Mr. Wilkinson
+thundered, the more it crowded to his feet. "Pay your bills." "Get up
+when you are called." "Don't stay at a ball till two, and then say you
+are too delicate for early services." "Eat one dinner a day instead of
+three, and try to earn that one." "Give up champagne for the season, and
+what you save on your wine-merchant's bill send to the Mission-Field."
+"You are sixty-five years old, and have never been confirmed. Never too
+late to mend. Join a Confirmation Class at once, and try to remedy, by
+good example now, the harm you have done your servants or your
+neighbours by fifty years' indifference." "Sell that diamond cross which
+you carry with you into the sin-polluted atmosphere of the Opera, give
+the proceeds to feed the poor, and wear the only real cross&mdash;the cross
+of self-discipline and self-denial." These are echoes, faint, indeed,
+but not, I think, unfaithful, of St. Peter's pulpit in its days of
+glory.</p>
+
+<p>When I look back upon the Church in London as it was when I first knew
+it, and when I compare my recollections with what I see now, I note, of
+course, a good many changes, and not all of them improvements. The
+Evangelicals, with their plain teaching about sin and forgiveness, are
+gone, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span> their place is taken by the professors of a flabby
+latitudinarianism, which ignores sin&mdash;the central fact of human
+life&mdash;and therefore can find no place for the Atonement. Heresy is
+preached more unblushingly than it was thirty years ago; and when it
+tries to disguise itself in the frippery of &aelig;sthetic Anglicanism, it
+leads captive not a few. In the churches commonly called Ritualistic, I
+note one great and significant improvement. English Churchmen have
+gradually discovered that they have an indigenous ritual of their
+own&mdash;dignified, expressive, artistic, free from fuss and fidgets&mdash;and
+that they have no need to import strange rites from France or Belgium.
+The evolution of the English Rite is one of the wholesome signs of the
+times. About preaching, I am not so clear. The almost complete disuse of
+the written sermon is in many ways a loss. The discipline of the paper
+protects the flock alike against shambling inanities, and against a too
+boisterous rhetoric. No doubt a really fine extempore sermon is a great
+work of art; but for nine preachers out of ten the manuscript is the
+safer way.</p>
+
+<p>As regards the quality of the clergy, the change is all to the good.
+When I was a boy at Harrow,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span> Dr. Vaughan, preaching to us on our
+Founder's Day, spoke with just contempt of "men who choose the Ministry
+because there is a Family Living waiting for them; or because they think
+they can make that profession&mdash;that, and none other&mdash;compatible with
+indolence and self-indulgence; or because they imagine that a scantier
+talent and a more idle use of it can in that one calling be made to
+suffice." "These notions," he added, "are out of date, one Act of
+Disestablishment would annihilate them." That Act of Disestablishment
+has not come yet, but the change has come without waiting for it. Even
+the "Family Living" no longer attracts. Young men seek Holy Orders
+because they want work. Clerical dreams of laziness or avarice,
+self-seeking or self-indulgence, have gone out for ever; and the English
+Church has in her commissioned service a band of men whose devotion and
+self-sacrifice would be a glory to any Church in Christendom.</p>
+
+<p>An active politician, as I was thirty years ago, has not much leisure;
+but all through my parliamentary work I sought to bear in mind that Life
+is Service. I helped to found the White Cross League, and worked hard
+for the cause which it represents. I bore a hand in Missions and
+Bible-classes. I was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span> a member of a Diocesan Conference. I had ten years
+of happy visiting in Hospitals, receiving infinitely more than I could
+ever give. And I should think that no man of my age has spoken on so
+many platforms, or at so many Drawing Room meetings. But all this was
+desultory business, and I always desired a more definite obligation.</p>
+
+<p>On St. Luke's Day, 1895, my loved and honoured friend, Edward Talbot,
+formerly Warden of Keble, was consecrated 100th Bishop of Rochester; and
+the diocese at that time included all South London. As soon as he
+established himself there, the new Bishop, so I have already stated,
+asked me to come across the Thames, and do some definite work in South
+London. At first, that work consisted of service on a Public Morals
+Committee, and of lecturing on ecclesiastical topics; but gradually the
+field contracted in one direction and expanded in another.</p>
+
+<p>It was in 1891 that Dr. Temple, then Bishop of London, and afterwards
+Archbishop of Canterbury, being anxious to lighten the burden of
+preaching which lies so heavily on hardworked clergy, determined to
+license lay-readers to speak in consecrated buildings. It was a bold
+step, and of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span> doubtful legality; but the Bishop characteristically
+declared that he would chance the illegality, feeling sure that, when
+the Vicar and Churchwardens invited a lay-reader to speak, no one would
+be churlish enough to raise legal objections. The result proved that the
+Bishop was perfectly right, and the Diocese of London has now a band of
+licensed lay-preachers who render the clergy a great deal of valuable
+aid. I was from the first a good deal attracted by the prospect of
+joining this band, but Parliament and Office left me no available
+leisure. When Dr. Talbot became Bishop of Rochester, he at once took in
+hand the work of reorganizing the body of Lay-Readers in his Diocese;
+and before long had determined to follow the example set by Bishop
+Temple, and to license some of his readers to speak at extra services in
+consecrated buildings. He made it quite clear from the first&mdash;and the
+point has subsequently been established by Convocation&mdash;that there was
+no idea of reviving the Minor Orders. The lay-reader was to be, in every
+sense, a layman; and, while he might speak, under proper restrictions,
+in a consecrated building, he still would speak not "as one having
+authority," but simply as brother-man to brother-men.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span></p><p>I was admitted to the office of a Diocesan Lay-Reader, in the Private
+Chapel of the Bishop's House at Kennington, on the 15th of January,
+1898, and have been permitted to spend fifteen years of happy service in
+this informal ministry.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> Cf. Froude's "Short Studies in Great Subjects."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> It may perhaps be worth noting that my parents were
+married, in 1834, by a Special License issued by my grandfather as Abbot
+of Woburn.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> <i>Letters on the Church and Religion.</i> Vol. I., p. 385.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> Pottesgrove.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> J. H. Shorthouse&mdash;Introduction to George Herbert's
+<i>Temple</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> <i>Influences of the Holy Spirit.</i> University Sermons,
+Series II.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> Charlotte Sophia, Duchess of Beaufort, a leader of the
+Evangelical party, died 1854&mdash;aged eighty-four.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center">THE END</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center">PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography, by
+George William Erskine 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: Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography
+
+Author: George William Erskine Russell
+
+Release Date: May 27, 2007 [EBook #21624]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIFTEEN CHAPTERS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Martin Pettit and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+FIFTEEN CHAPTERS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+                     _UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME._
+
+
+THE GREAT BOER WAR.                              _Arthur Conan Doyle._
+
+COLLECTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS.                     _G. W. E. Russell._
+
+FROM THE CAPE TO CAIRO.                                _E. S. Grogan._
+
+SPURGEON'S SERMONS.                   _Sir W. Robertson Nicoll, LL.D._
+
+SIR FRANK LOCKWOOD.                    _Augustine Birrell, K.C., M.P._
+
+THE MAKING OF A FRONTIER.                            _Colonel Durand._
+
+LIFE OF RICHARD COBDEN.                                 _Lord Morley._
+
+LIFE OF PARNELL.                                   _R. Barry O'Brien._
+
+MEMORIES GRAVE AND GAY.                               _Dr. John Kerr._
+
+A BOOK ABOUT ROSES.                                _S. Reynolds Hole._
+
+RANDOM REMINISCENCES.                            _Charles Brookfield._
+
+AT THE WORKS.                                             _Lady Bell._
+
+MEXICO AS I SAW IT.                               _Mrs. Alec Tweedie._
+
+PARIS TO NEW YORK BY LAND.                           _Harry de Windt._
+
+LIFE OF LEWIS CARROLL.                   _Stuart Dodgson Collingwood._
+
+THE MANTLE OF THE EAST.                              _Edmund Candler._
+
+LETTERS OF DR. JOHN BROWN.
+
+JUBILEE BOOK OF CRICKET.                        _Prince Ranjitsinhji._
+
+BY DESERT WAYS TO BAGHDAD.                              _Louisa Jebb._
+
+SOME OLD LOVE STORIES.                               _T. P. O'Connor._
+
+FIELDS, FACTORIES, & WORKSHOPS.                    _Prince Kropotkin._
+
+PROBLEMS OF POVERTY.                                   _Dr. Chalmers._
+
+THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS.                             _M. E. Durham._
+
+LIFE AND LETTERS OF LORD MACAULAY.--I. & II.            _Sir George O.
+                                                     Trevelyan, Bart._
+
+WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA.                           _Hon. Maurice Baring._
+
+WILD ENGLAND OF TO-DAY.                               _C. J. Cornish._
+
+THROUGH FINLAND IN CARTS.                         _Mrs. Alec Tweedie._
+
+THE VOYAGE OF THE "DISCOVERY."--I. & II.              _Captain Scott._
+
+FELICITY IN FRANCE.                               _Constance E. Maud._
+
+MY CLIMBS IN THE ALPS AND CAUCASUS.                   _A. F. Mummery._
+
+JOHN BRIGHT.                                       _R. Barry O'Brien._
+
+POVERTY.                                        _B. Seebohm Rowntree._
+
+SEA WOLVES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN.  _Commander E. Hamilton Currey, R.N._
+
+FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES.                        _A. Hilliard Atteridge._
+
+THE CRUISE OF THE "FALCON."                            _E. F. Knight._
+
+A.K.H.B. (A Volume of Selections).
+
+THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS.                                _Jack London._
+
+GRAIN OR CHAFF?                                 _A. Chichele Plowden._
+
+LIFE AT THE ZOO.                                      _C. J. Cornish._
+
+THE FOUR MEN.                                        _Hilaire Belloc._
+
+CRUISE OF THE "ALERTE."                                _E. F. Knight._
+
+FOUR FRENCH ADVENTURERS.                             _Stoddard Dewey._
+
+A REAPING.                                             _E. F. Benson._
+
+                             _Etc., etc._
+
+                          _Others to follow._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography
+
+BY THE RIGHT HON. GEORGE W. E. RUSSELL
+
+[Illustration: Publisher's logo]
+
+THOMAS NELSON AND SONS
+LONDON, EDINBURGH, DUBLIN
+AND NEW YORK
+
+
+_NOTE._
+
+_This book was originally published under the title of "One Look Back."_
+
+
+TO
+
+HENRY SCOTT HOLLAND
+
+IN HONOUR OF THE BEST GIFT WHICH OXFORD GAVE ME
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+   I. BEGINNINGS            9
+
+  II. HARROW               35
+
+ III. HARROVIANA           56
+
+  IV. OXFORD               82
+
+   V. OXONIANA            102
+
+  VI. HOME                125
+
+ VII. LONDON              143
+
+VIII. HOSPITALITY         171
+
+  IX. ELECTIONEERING      195
+
+   X. PARLIAMENT          222
+
+  XI. POLITICS            246
+
+ XII. ORATORY             283
+
+XIII. LITERATURE          309
+
+ XIV. SERVICE             338
+
+  XV. ECCLESIASTICA       365
+
+
+
+
+FIFTEEN CHAPTERS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+BEGINNINGS
+
+
+     One look back--as we hurry o'er the plain,
+         Man's years speeding us along--
+     One look back! From the hollow past again,
+         Youth, come flooding into song!
+     Tell how once, in the breath of summer air,
+         Winds blew fresher than they blow;
+     Times long hid, with their triumph and their care,
+         Yesterday--many years ago!
+                                       E. E. BOWEN.
+
+
+The wayfarer who crosses Lincoln's Inn Fields perceives in the midst of
+them a kind of wooden temple, and passes by it unmoved. But, if his
+curiosity tempts him to enter it, he sees, through an aperture in the
+boarded floor, a slab of stone bearing this inscription:
+
+
+        "On this spot was beheaded
+           William Lord Russell,
+     A lover of constitutional liberty,
+         21st July, A.D. 1683."[1]
+
+
+Of the martyr thus temperately eulogized I am the
+great-great-great-great-grandson, and I agree with The Antiquary, that
+"it's a shame to the English language that we have not a less clumsy way
+of expressing a relationship of which we have occasion to think and
+speak so frequently."
+
+Before we part company with my ill-fated ancestor, let me tell a story
+bearing on his historical position. When my father was a cornet in the
+Blues, he invited a brother-officer to spend some of his leave at Woburn
+Abbey. One day, when the weather was too bad for any kind of sport, the
+visitor was induced to have a look at the pictures. The Rembrandts, and
+Cuyps, and Van Dykes and Sir Joshuas bored him to extremity, but
+accidentally his eye lit on Hayter's famous picture of Lord Russell's
+trial, and, with a sudden gleam of intelligence, he exclaimed, "Hullo!
+What's this? It looks like a trial." My father answered, with modest
+pride--"It is a trial--the trial of my ancestor, William, Lord Russell."
+"Good heavens! my dear fellow--an ancestor of yours tried? What a
+shocking thing! _I hope he got off._"
+
+So much for our Family Martyr.
+
+In analysing one's nationality, it is natural to regard one's four
+grand-parents as one's component parts. Tried by this test, I am half an
+Englishman, one quarter a Highlander, and one quarter a Welshman, for my
+father's father was wholly English; my father's mother wholly Scotch; my
+mother's father wholly Welsh; and my mother's mother wholly English. My
+grandfather, the sixth Duke of Bedford, was born in 1766 and died in
+1839. He married, as his second wife, Lady Georgiana Gordon, sister of
+the last Duke of Gordon, and herself "the last of the Gordons" of the
+senior line. She died just after I was born, and from her and the "gay
+Gordons" who preceded her, I derive my name of George. It has always
+been a comfort to me, when rebuked for ritualistic tendencies, to recall
+that I am great-great-nephew of that undeniable Protestant, Lord George
+Gordon, whose icon I daily revere. My grandmother had a numerous family,
+of whom my father was the third. He was born in Dublin Castle, his
+father being then Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in the Ministry of "All the
+Talents." My grandfather had been a political and personal friend of
+Charles James Fox, and Fox had promised to be godfather to his next
+child. But Fox died on the 13th of September, 1806, and my father did
+not appear till the 10th of February, 1807. Fox's nephew, Henry Lord
+Holland, took over the sponsorship, and bestowed the names of "Charles
+James Fox" on the infant Whig, who, as became his father's viceregal
+state, was christened by the Archbishop of Dublin, with water from a
+golden bowl.
+
+The life so impressively auspicated lasted till the 29th of June, 1894.
+So my father, who remembered an old Highlander who had been out with
+Prince Charlie in '45, lived to see the close of Mr. Gladstone's fourth
+Premiership. He was educated at Rottingdean, at Westminster, where my
+family had fagged and fought for many generations, and at the University
+of Edinburgh, where he boarded with that "paltry Pillans," who,
+according to Byron, "traduced his friend." From Edinburgh he passed
+into the Blues, then commanded by Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, and thence
+into the 52nd Regiment. In 1832 he was returned to the first Reformed
+Parliament as Whig Member for Bedfordshire. He finally retired in 1847,
+and from that date till 1875 was Sergeant-at-Arms attending the House of
+Commons. He married in 1834, and had six children, of whom I was the
+youngest by eight years, being born on the 3rd of February, 1853.[2]
+
+My birthplace (not yet marked with a blue and white medallion) was 16,
+Mansfield Street; but very soon afterwards the official residences at
+the Palace of Westminster were finished, and my father took possession
+of the excellent but rather gloomy house in the Speaker's Court, now
+(1913) occupied by Sir David Erskine.
+
+Here my clear memories begin. I have indeed some vague impressions of a
+visit to the widow of my mother's grandfather--Lady Robert Seymour--who
+died in her ninety-first year when I was two years old; though, as those
+impressions are chiefly connected with a jam-cupboard, I fancy that they
+must pertain less to Lady Robert than to her housekeeper. But two
+memories of my fourth year are perfectly defined. The first is the fire
+which destroyed Covent Garden Theatre on the 5th of March, 1856. "During
+the operatic recess, Mr. Gye, the lessee of the Theatre, had sub-let it
+to one Anderson, a performer of sleight-of-hand feats, and so-called
+'Professor.' He brought his short season to a close by an entertainment
+described as a 'Grand Carnival Complimentary Benefit and Dramatic Gala,
+to commence on Monday morning, and terminate with a _bal masque_ on
+Tuesday night.' At 3 on the Wednesday morning, the Professor thought it
+time to close the orgies. At this moment the gasfitter discovered the
+fire issuing from the cracks of the ceiling, and, amid the wildest
+shrieking and confusion, the drunken, panic-stricken masquers rushed to
+the street. The flames burst through the roof, sending high up into the
+air columns of fire, which threw into bright reflection every tower and
+spire within the circuit of the metropolis, brilliantly illuminating the
+whole fabric of St. Paul's, and throwing a flood of light across
+Waterloo Bridge, which set out in bold relief the dark outline of the
+Surrey hills." That "flood of light" was beheld by me, held up in my
+nurse's arms at a window under "Big Ben," which looks on Westminster
+Bridge. When in later years I have occasionally stated in a mixed
+company that I could remember the burning of Covent Garden Theatre, I
+have noticed a general expression of surprised interest, and have been
+told, in a tone meant to be kind and complimentary, that my hearers
+would hardly have thought that my memory went back so far. The
+explanation has been that these good people had some vague notions of
+_Rejected Addresses_ floating through their minds, and confounded the
+burning of Covent Garden Theatre in 1856 with that of Drury Lane Theatre
+in 1809. Most people have no chronological sense.
+
+Our home was at Woburn, in a house belonging to the Duke of Bedford,
+but given by my grandfather to my parents for their joint and several
+lives. My father's duties at the House of Commons kept him in London
+during the Parliamentary Session, but my mother, who detested London and
+worshipped her garden, used to return with her family to Woburn, in time
+to superintend the "bedding-out." My first memory is connected with my
+home in London; my second with my home in the country, and the
+rejoicings for the termination of the Crimean War.
+
+Under the date of May 29, 1856, we read in _Annals of Our Time_,
+"Throughout the Kingdom, the day was marked by a cessation from work,
+and, during the night, illuminations and fireworks were all but
+universal." The banners and bands of the triumphal procession which
+paraded the streets of our little town--scarcely more than a village in
+dimensions--made as strong an impression on my mind as the conflagration
+which had startled all London in the previous March.
+
+People who have only known me as a double-dyed Londoner always seem to
+find a difficulty in believing that I once was a countryman; yet, for
+the first twenty-five years of my life, I lived almost entirely in the
+country. "We could never have loved the earth so well, if we had had no
+childhood in it--if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up
+again every spring, that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as we
+sat lisping to ourselves on the grass--the same hips and haws on the
+autumn hedgerows.... One's delight in an elderberry bush overhanging the
+confused leafage of a hedgerow bank, as a more gladdening sight than the
+finest cistus or fuchsia spreading itself on the softest undulating
+turf, is an entirely unjustifiable preference to a Nursery-Gardener. And
+there is no better reason for preferring this elderberry bush than that
+it stirs an early memory--that it is no novelty in my life, speaking to
+me merely through my present sensibilities to form and colour, but the
+long companion of my existence, that wove itself into my joys when joys
+were vivid."
+
+I had the unspeakable advantage of being reared in close contact with
+Nature, in an aspect beautiful and wild. My father's house was
+remarkable for its pretty garden, laid out with the old-fashioned
+intricacy of pattern, and blazing, even into autumn, with varied colour.
+In the midst of it, a large and absolutely symmetrical cedar "spread its
+dark green layers of shade," and supplied us in summer with a kind of
+_al fresco_ sitting-room. The background of the garden was formed by the
+towering trees of Woburn Park; and close by there were great tracts of
+woodland, which stretch far into Buckinghamshire, and have the character
+and effect of virgin forest.
+
+Having no boy-companions (for my only brother was ten years older than
+myself), of course I played no games, except croquet. I was brought up
+in a sporting home, my father being an enthusiastic fox-hunter and a
+good all-round sportsman. I abhorred shooting, and was badly bored by
+coursing and fishing. Indeed, I believe I can say with literal truth
+that I have never killed anything larger than a wasp, and that only in
+self-defence. But Woburn is an ideal country for riding, and I spent a
+good deal of my time on an excellent pony, or more strictly, galloway.
+An hour or two with the hounds was the reward of virtue in the
+schoolroom; and cub-hunting in a woodland country at 7 o'clock on a
+September morning still remains my most cherished memory of physical
+enjoyment.
+
+"That things are not as ill with you and me as they might have been is
+half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and now
+rest in unvisited tombs." Most true: and among that faithful number I
+must remember our governess,--Catherine Emily Runciman--who devoted
+forty years of her life, in one capacity or another, to us and to our
+parents. She was what boys call "jolly out of school," but rather
+despotic in it; and, after a few trials of strength, I was emancipated
+from her control when I was eight. When we were in London for the
+Session of Parliament, I attended a Day School, kept by two sisters of
+John Leech, in a curious little cottage, since destroyed, at the bottom
+of Lower Belgrave Street. Just at the age when, in the ordinary course,
+I should have gone to a boarding-school, it was discovered that I was
+physically unfit for the experiment; and then I had a series of tutors
+at home. To one of these tutors my father wrote--"I must warn you of
+your pupil's powers of conversation, and tact in leading his teachers
+into it."
+
+But I was to a great extent self-taught. We had an excellent, though
+old-fashioned, library, and I spent a great deal of my time in
+miscellaneous reading. The Waverley Novels gave me my first taste of
+literary enjoyment, and _Pickwick_ (in the original green covers) came
+soon after. Shakespeare and _Don Quixote_ were imposed by paternal
+authority. Jeremy Taylor, Fielding, Smollett, Swift, Dryden, Pope,
+Byron, Moore, Macaulay, Miss Edgeworth, Bulwer-Lytton, were among my
+earliest friends, and I had an insatiable thirst for dictionaries and
+encyclopaedias. Tennyson was the first poet whom I really loved, but I
+also was fond of Scott's poetry, the _Lays of Ancient Rome_, the _Lays
+of the Scottish Cavaliers_, and _The Golden Treasury_. Milton, Shelley,
+Wordsworth, and Matthew Arnold came later, but while I was still a boy.
+George Eliot, Thackeray, Ruskin, and Trollope came when I was at Oxford;
+and I am not sure that Browning ever came. On the whole, I owe my chief
+enjoyment to Scott, Dickens, Wordsworth, and Tennyson, and to _Pickwick_
+more than to any single book. But I think the keenest thrill of
+intellectual pleasure which I ever felt passed through me when, as a boy
+at Harrow, I first read Wordsworth's "Daffodils."
+
+Our home, in its outward aspects, was extremely bright and cheerful. We
+had, as a family, a keen sense of fun, much contempt for convention, and
+great fluency of speech; and our material surroundings were such as to
+make life enjoyable. Even as a child, I used to say to myself, when
+cantering among Scotch firs and rhododendrons, "The lines are fallen
+unto me in pleasant places." A graver element was supplied by a good
+deal of ill-health, by bereavements, and, in some sense, by our way of
+religion. My home was intensely Evangelical, and I lived from my
+earliest days in an atmosphere where the salvation of the individual
+soul was the supreme and constant concern of life. No form of
+worldliness entered into it, but it was full of good works, of social
+service, and of practical labour for the poor. All life was lived, down
+to its minutest detail, "as ever in the great task-Master's eye." From
+our very earliest years we were taught the Bible, at first orally; and
+later on were encouraged to read it, by gifts of handsomely bound
+copies. I remember that our aids to study were Adam Clarke's Commentary,
+Nicholl's _Help to Reading the Bible_, and a book called _Light in the
+Dwelling_. Hymns played a great part in our training. As soon as we
+could speak, we learned "When rising from the bed of death," and
+"Beautiful Zion, built above." "Rock of Ages" and "Jesu, Lover of my
+soul" were soon added. The Church Catechism we were never taught. I was
+confirmed without learning it. It was said to be too difficult; it
+really was too sacramental. By way of an easier exercise, I was
+constrained to learn "The Shorter Catechism of the General Assembly of
+Divines at Westminster." We had Family Prayers twice every day. My
+father read a chapter, very much as the fancy took him, or where the
+Bible opened of itself; and he read without note or comment. I recall a
+very distinct impression on my infant mind that the passages of the Old
+Testament which were read at prayers had no meaning, and that the public
+reading of the words, without reference to sense, was an act of piety.
+After the chapter, my father read one of Henry Thornton's Family
+Prayers, replaced in later years by those of Ashton Oxenden.
+
+While we were still very young children, we were carefully incited to
+acts of practical charity. We began by carrying dinners to the sick and
+aged poor; then we went on to reading hymns and bits of Bible to the
+blind and unlettered. As soon as we were old enough, we became teachers
+in Sunday schools, and conducted classes and cottage-meetings. From the
+very beginning we were taught to save up our money for good causes. Each
+of us had a "missionary box," and I remember another box, in the
+counterfeit presentment of a Gothic church, which received contributions
+for the Church Pastoral Aid Society. When, on an occasion of rare
+dissipation, I won some shillings at "The Race-Game," they were
+impounded for the service of the C.M.S., and an aunt of mine, making her
+sole excursion into melody, wrote for the benefit of her young friends:
+
+
+     "Would you like to be told the best use for a penny?
+     I can tell you a use which is better than any--
+     Not on toys or on fruit or on sweetmeats to spend it,
+     But over the seas to the heathen to send it."
+
+
+I learned my religion from my mother, the sweetest, brightest, and most
+persuasive of teachers, and what she taught I received as gospel.
+
+
+     "Oh that those lips had language! Life has past
+     With me but roughly since I heard thee last."
+
+
+_Sit anima mea cum Sanctis._ May my lot be with those Evangelical saints
+from whom I first learned that, in the supreme work of salvation, no
+human being and no created thing can interpose between the soul and the
+Creator. Happy is the man whose religious life has been built on the
+impregnable rock of that belief.
+
+So much for the foundation. The superstructure was rather accidental
+than designed.
+
+From my very earliest days I had a natural love of pomp and pageantry;
+and, though I never saw them, I used to read of them with delight in
+books of continental travel, and try to depict them in my sketch-books,
+and even enact them with my toys. Then came Sir Walter Scott, who
+inspired me, as he inspired so many greater men, with the love of
+ecclesiastical splendour, and so turned my vague love of ceremony into a
+definite channel. Another contribution to the same end was made, all
+unwittingly, by my dear and deeply Protestant father. He was an
+enthusiast for Gothic architecture, and it was natural to enquire the
+uses of such things as piscinas and sedilia in fabrics which he taught
+me to admire. And then came the opportune discovery (in an idle moment
+under a dull sermon) of the Occasional Offices of the Prayer Book. If
+language meant anything, those Offices meant the sacramental system of
+the Catholic Church; and the impression derived from the Prayer Book was
+confirmed by Jeremy Taylor and _The Christian Year_. I was always
+impatient of the attempt, even when made by the most respectable people,
+to pervert plain English, and I felt perfect confidence in building the
+Catholic superstructure on my Evangelical foundation.
+
+As soon as I had turned fourteen, I was confirmed by the Bishop of Ely
+(Harold Browne), and made my first Communion in Woburn Church on Easter
+Day, April 21, 1867.
+
+After the Easter Recess, I went with my parents to London, then seething
+with excitement over the Tory Reform Bill, which created Household
+Suffrage in towns. My father, being Sergeant-at-Arms, could give me a
+seat under the Gallery whenever he chose, and I heard some of the most
+memorable debates in that great controversy. In the previous year my
+uncle, Lord Russell, with Mr. Gladstone as Leader of the House of
+Commons, had been beaten in an attempt to lower the franchise; but the
+contest had left me cold. The debates of 1867 awoke quite a fresh
+interest in me. I began to understand the Democratic, as against the
+Whig, ideal; and I was tremendously impressed by Disraeli, who seemed to
+tower by a head and shoulders above everyone in the House. Gladstone
+played a secondary and ambiguous part; and, if I heard him speak, which
+I doubt, the speech left no dint in my memory.
+
+At this point of the narrative it is necessary to make a passing
+allusion to Doctors, who, far more than Premiers or Priests or any other
+class of men, have determined the course and condition of my life. I
+believe that I know, by personal experience, more about Doctors and
+Doctoring than any other man of my age in England. I am, in my own
+person, a monument of medical practice, and have not only seen, but
+felt, the rise and fall of several systems of physic and surgery. To
+have experienced the art is also to have known the artist; and the
+portraits of all the practitioners with whom at one time or another I
+have been brought into intimate relations would fill the largest album,
+and go some way towards furnishing a modest Picture-Gallery. Broadly
+speaking, the Doctors of the 'fifties and 'sixties were as Dickens drew
+them. The famous consultant, Dr. Parker Peps; the fashionable physician,
+Sir Tumley Snuffim; the General Practitioner, Mr. Pilkins; and the
+Medical Officer of the Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life
+Insurance Company, Dr. Jobling; are in the highest degree representative
+and typical; but perhaps the Doctor--his name, unfortunately, has
+perished--who was called to the bedside of little Nell, and came with "a
+great bunch of seals dangling below a waistcoat of ribbed black satin,"
+is the most carefully finished portrait. Such, exactly, were the Family
+Physicians of my youth. They always dressed in shiny black,--trousers,
+neckcloth, and all; they were invariably bald, and had shaved upper lips
+and chins, and carefully-trimmed whiskers. They said "Hah!" and "Hum!"
+in tones of omniscience which would have converted a Christian
+Scientist; and, when feeling one's pulse, they produced the largest and
+most audibly-ticking gold watches producible by the horologist's art.
+They had what were called "the courtly manners of the old school"; were
+diffuse in style, and abounded in periphrasis. Thus they spoke of "the
+gastric organ" where their successors talk of the stomach, and referred
+to brandy as "the domestic stimulant." When attending families where
+religion was held in honour, they were apt to say to the lady of the
+house, "We are fearfully and wonderfully made"; and, where classical
+culture prevailed, they not infrequently remarked--
+
+
+     Crescit indulgens sibi dirus hydrops.
+
+
+By the way, my reference to "the domestic stimulant" reminds me that on
+stimulants, domestic and other, this school of Physicians relied with an
+unalterable confidence. For a delicate child, a glass of port wine at
+11 was the inevitable prescription, and a tea-spoonful of bark was often
+added to this generous tonic. In all forms of languor and debility and
+enfeebled circulation, brandy-and-water was "exhibited," as the phrase
+went; and, if the dose was not immediately successful, the brandy was
+increased. I myself, when a sickly boy of twelve, was ordered by a
+well-known practitioner, called F. C. Skey, to drink mulled claret at
+bedtime; and my recollection is that, as a nightcap, it beat bromide and
+sulphonal hollow. In the light of more recent science, I suppose that
+all this alcoholic treatment was what Milton calls "the sweet poyson of
+misused wine," and wrought havoc with one's nerves, digestion, and
+circulation. It certainly had this single advantage, that when one grew
+to man's estate, and passed from "that poor creature, small beer," to
+the loaded port and fiery sherry of a "Wine" at the University, it was
+impossible to make one drunk. And thereby hangs a tale. I was once
+writing the same sentiment in the same words for a medical journal, and
+the compositor substituted "disadvantage" for "advantage," apparently
+thinking that my early regimen had deprived me of a real happiness in
+after-life.
+
+Such were the Doctors of my youth. By no sudden wrench, no violent
+transition, but gently, gradually, imperceptibly, the type has
+transformed itself into that which we behold to-day. No doubt an inward
+continuity has been maintained, but the visible phenomena are so
+radically altered as to suggest to the superficial observer the idea of
+a new creation; and even we, who, as Matthew Arnold said, "stand by the
+Sea of Time, and listen to the solemn and rhythmical beat of its waves,"
+even we can scarcely point with confidence to the date of each
+successive change. First, as to personal appearance. When did doctors
+abandon black cloth, and betake themselves (like Newman, when he seceded
+to the Church of Rome) to grey trousers? Not, I feel pretty sure, till
+the 'seventies were well advanced. Quite certainly the first time that I
+ever fell into the hands of a moustached Doctor was in 1877. Everyone
+condemned the hirsute appendage as highly unprofessional, and when, soon
+after, the poor man found his way into a Lunatic Asylum, the
+neighbouring Doctors of the older school said that they were not
+surprised; that "there was a bad family history"; and that he himself
+had shown marked signs of eccentricity. That meant the moustache, and
+nothing else. Then, again, when was it first recognized as possible to
+take a pulse without the assistance of a gold chronometer? History is
+silent; but I am inclined to assign that discovery to the same date as
+the clinical thermometer, a toy unknown to the Doctors of my youth, who,
+indeed, were disposed to regard even the stethoscope as new-fangled.
+Then "the courtly manners of the old school"--when did they go out? I do
+not mean to cast the slightest aspersion on the manners of my present
+doctor, who is as polite and gentlemanlike a young fellow as one could
+wish to meet. But his manners are not "courtly," nor the least "of the
+old school." He does not bow when he enters my room, but shakes hands
+and says it's an A1 day and I had better get out in the motor. Whatever
+the symptoms presented to his observation, he never says "Hah!" or
+"Hum!" and he has never once quoted the Bible or Horace, though I have
+reason to believe that he has read both. Then, again, as a mere matter
+of style, when did Doctors abandon the majestic "We," which formerly
+they shared with Kings and Editors? "We shall be all the better when we
+have had our luncheon and a glass of sherry," said Sir Tumley Snuffim.
+"We will continue the bark and linseed," murmured Dr. Parker Peps, as
+he bowed himself out. My Doctor says, "Do you feel as if you could
+manage a chop? It would do you pounds of good"; and "I know the peroxide
+dressing is rather beastly, but I'd stick it another day or two, if I
+were you." Medical conversation, too, is an art which has greatly
+changed. In old days it was thought an excellent method of lubricating
+the first interview for the Doctor to ask where one's home was, and to
+state, quite irrespective of the fact, that he was born in the same
+neighbourhood; having ascertained that one was, say, a Yorkshireman, to
+remark that he would have known it from one's accent; to enlarge on his
+own connexions, especially if of the territorial caste; to describe his
+early travels in the South of Europe or the United States; and to
+discourse on water-colour drawing or the flute. "We doctors, too, have
+our hobbies; though, alas! the demands of a profession in which _Ne
+otium quidem otiosum est_ leave us little time to enjoy them."
+
+Quite different is the conversation of the modern doctor. He does not
+lubricate the interview, but goes straight to business--enquires,
+examines, pronounces, prescribes--and then, if any time is left for
+light discourse, discusses the rival merits of "Rugger" and "Soccer,"
+speculates on the result of the Hospital Cup Tie, or observes that the
+British Thoroughbred is not deteriorating when he can win with so much
+on his back; pronounces that the Opera last night was ripping, or that
+some much-praised play is undiluted rot. Not thus did Dr. Parker Peps
+regale Mrs. Dombey, or Sir Tumley Snuffim soothe the shattered nerves of
+Mrs. Wititterly. The reaction against alcoholic treatment can, I
+believe, be definitely dated from the 10th of January, 1872, when the
+heads of the medical profession published their opinion that "alcohol,
+in whatever form, should be prescribed with as much care as any powerful
+drug, and the directions for its use should be so framed as not to be
+interpreted as a sanction for excess." This was a heavy blow and deep
+discouragement to the school of Snuffim and Pilkins, and the system of
+port at 11, and "the domestic stimulant" between whiles, died hard.
+
+But this is a long digression. I return to the Family Physician who
+prescribed for my youth. He was Dr. T. Somerset Snuffim, son of the
+celebrated Sir Tumley, and successor to his lucrative practice. His
+patients believed in him with an unquestioning and even passionate
+faith, and his lightest word was law. It was he who in 1862 pronounced
+me physically unfit for a Private School, but held out hopes that, if I
+could be kept alive till I was fourteen, I might then be fit for a
+Public School. Four years passed, and nothing particular happened. Then
+the time arrived when the decision had to be made between Public School
+and Private Tutor. After a vast amount of stethoscoping and
+pulse-feeling, Snuffim decided peremptorily against a Public School. My
+parents had a strong and just detestation of "private study" and its
+products, and they revolved a great many schemes for avoiding it.
+Suddenly my mother, who was not only the kindest but also the wisest of
+mothers, bethought herself of making me a Home-boarder at Harrow. She
+was one of those persons who, when once they are persuaded that a
+certain course is right, do not let the grass grow under their feet, but
+act at once. We did not desert our old home in Bedfordshire, and my
+father had still his official residence in Speaker's Court; but my
+parents took a house at Harrow, at the top of Sudbury Hill, and there we
+established ourselves in September, 1867.
+
+On the 4th of November in that year, Matthew Arnold, who was
+contemplating a similar move, wrote to Lady de Rothschild:--"What you
+tell me is very important and interesting. I think Lady Charles Russell
+has a boy who, like my eldest boy, is an invalid, and I dare say you
+will some time or other be kind enough to ascertain from her whether the
+school life is at all trying for him, or whether she has any difficulty
+in getting him excused fagging or violent exercises."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] The L.C.C., which placed this slab, made a topographical error.
+James Wright, in his _Compendious View of the late Tumults and Troubles
+in this Kingdom_ (1683), says: "The Lord Russel ... was on the day
+following, viz. Saturday the 21st of July, Beheaded in Lincoln's Inn
+Fields. For which purpose a Scaffold was erected that Morning on that
+side of the Fields next to the Arch going into Duke Street, in the
+middle between the said Arch and the corner turning into Queen Street."
+
+[2]
+
+    To the Editor of _The Times_.
+
+    SIR--As Links with the Past seem just now to be in fashion, permit
+    me to supply two which concern my near relations.
+
+    1. My uncle, Lord Russell (1792-1878) visited Napoleon at Elba in
+    December, 1814, and had a long conversation with him, which is
+    reported in Spencer Walpole's "Life of Lord John Russell." There
+    must be plenty of people now alive who conversed with my uncle, so
+    this Link cannot be a very rare one.
+
+    2. My second Link is more remarkable. My father (1807-1894)
+    remembered an old Highlander who had been "out" with Prince Charles
+    Edward in 1745. Of course, this "linking" took place at the extremes
+    of age, my father being a little boy and the Highlander a very old
+    man. My grandfather, the sixth Duke of Bedford, was one of the first
+    Englishmen who took a shooting in the Highlands (on the Spey), and
+    the first time that my father accompanied him to the north, Prince
+    Charlie's follower was still living near the place which my
+    grandfather rented.
+                                   Your obedient servant,
+    _Sept. 6, 1910._                       GEORGE W. E. RUSSELL.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+HARROW
+
+
+     Not to River nor Royal Keep,
+       Low Meads nor level Close,
+     Up to the sturdy wind-worn steep,
+       _Levavi oculos_;
+     To four red walls on a skyward climb,
+     Towering over the fields and Time.
+                                E. MILNER-WHITE.
+
+
+When Dr. Vaughan re-created Harrow School, after its long decadence
+under Longley and Wordsworth, he wished that the number should never
+exceed five hundred. Of late years the school has been greatly enlarged,
+but in my time we were always just about the number which, in Vaughan's
+judgment, was the largest that a Head-master could properly supervise.
+That number is embalmed in Edward Howson's touching song:--
+
+
+     "Five hundred faces, and all so strange!
+       Life in front of me, Home behind--
+       I felt like a waif before the wind,
+     Tossed on an ocean of shock and change."
+
+
+Some of those faces I shall presently describe; but, in reviewing my
+life at Harrow, my first tribute must be paid to my Head-master--for
+forty-five years the kindest, most generous, and most faithful of
+friends. Henry Montagu Butler, youngest son of Dr. George Butler, Dean
+of Peterborough and sometime Head-master of Harrow, was born in 1833,
+and educated at Harrow. He was Head of the School, made the cock-score
+in the Eton match at Lords, was Scholar and Fellow of Trinity, and
+Senior Classic in 1855. He was elected to the Head-mastership of Harrow,
+in succession to Dr. Vaughan, when he was only a few months over 26, and
+entered on his reign in January, 1860. It is not easy to describe what a
+graceful and brilliant creature he seemed to my boyish eyes, when I
+first saw him in 1867, nor how unlike what one had imagined a
+Head-master to be. He was then just thirty-four and looked much younger
+than he was. Gracefulness is the idea which I specially connect with
+him. He was graceful in shape, gesture, and carriage; graceful in
+manners and ways, graceful in scholarship, graceful in writing,
+pre-eminently graceful in speech. It was his custom from time to time,
+if any peculiar enormity displayed itself in the school, to call us all
+together in the Speech-Room, and give us what we called a "Pi-jaw." One
+of these discourses I remember as well as if I had heard it yesterday.
+It was directed against Lying, as not only un-Christian but
+ungentlemanlike. As he stood on the dais, one hand grasping his gown
+behind his back and the other marking his points, I felt that, perhaps
+for the first time, I was listening to pure and unstudied eloquence,
+suffused with just as much scorn against base wrongdoing as makes speech
+pungent without making it abusive. It should be recorded to Butler's
+credit that he was thoroughly feared. A Head-master who is not feared
+should be at once dismissed from his post. And, besides being feared, he
+was profoundly detested by bad boys. The worse the boy's moral
+character, the more he hated Butler. But boys who were, in any sense or
+degree, on the right side; who were striving, however imperfectly, after
+what is pure and lovely and of good report, felt instinctively that
+Butler was their friend. His preaching in the School Chapel (though
+perhaps a little impeded by certain mannerisms) was direct, interesting,
+and uplifting in no common degree. Many of his sermons made a lifelong
+impression on me. His written English was always beautifully pellucid,
+and often adorned by some memorable anecdote or quotation, or by some
+telling phrase. But once, when, owing to a broken arm, he could not
+write his sermons, but preached to us extempore three Sundays in
+succession, he fairly fascinated us. As we rose in the School and came
+into close contact with him, we found ever more and more to admire. It
+would be impertinent for me to praise the attainments of a Senior
+Classic, but no one could fail to see that Butler's scholarship was
+unusually graceful and literary. Indeed, he was literary through and
+through. All fine literature appealed to him with compelling force, and
+he was peculiarly fond of English oratory. Chatham, Burke, Canning,
+Sheil, and Bright are some of the great orators to whom he introduced
+us, and he was never so happy as when he could quote them to illustrate
+some fine passage in Cicero or Demosthenes. One other introduction which
+I owe to him I must by no means forget--Lord Beaconsfield's novels. I
+had read _Lothair_ when it came out, but I was then too inexperienced to
+discern the deep truths which underlie its glittering satire. Butler
+introduced me to _Sybil_, and thereby opened up to me a new world of
+interest and amusement. When Butler entertained boys at breakfast or
+dinner, he was a most delightful host, and threw off all magisterial
+awfulness as easily as his gown. His conversation was full of fun and
+sprightliness, and he could talk "Cricket-shop," ancient and modern,
+like Lillywhite or R. H. Lyttelton. In time of illness or failure or
+conscience-stricken remorse, he showed an Arthur-like simplicity of
+religion which no one could ignore or gainsay.
+
+Next to Dr. Butler, in my list of Harrow masters, must be placed Farrar,
+afterwards Dean of Canterbury, to whom I owed more in the way of
+intellectual stimulus and encouragement than to any other teacher. I
+had, I believe, by nature, some sense of beauty; and Farrar stimulated
+and encouraged this sense to the top of its bent. Himself inspired by
+Ruskin, he taught us to admire rich colours and graceful
+forms--illuminated missals, and Fra Angelico's blue angels on gold
+grounds--and to see the exquisite beauty of common things, such as
+sunsets, and spring grass, and autumn leaves; the waters of a shoaling
+sea, and the transparent amber of a mountain stream. In literature his
+range was extremely wide. Nothing worth reading seemed to have escaped
+him, and he loved poetry as much as Butler loved oratory. When he
+preached in Chapel his gorgeous rhetoric, as yet not overwrought or
+over-coloured, held us spellbound; and though, or perhaps because, he
+was inclined to spoil the boys who responded to his appeals, and to rate
+them higher than they deserved, we loved and admired him as, I should
+think, few schoolmasters have been loved and admired.
+
+When I speak of masters who were also friends, I should be ungrateful
+indeed if I omitted Arthur George Watson, in whose House I was placed as
+soon as the doctors were satisfied that the experiment could be tried
+without undue risks. Mr. Watson was a Fellow of All Souls, and was in
+all respects what we should have expected a member of that Society
+(elected the same day as the late Lord Salisbury) to be. It was said of
+C. P. Golightly at Oxford that, when he was asked his opinion of Dr.
+Hawkins, Provost of Oriel, he replied: "Well, if I were forced to choose
+the epithet which should be least descriptive of the dear Provost, I
+should choose _gushing_." Exactly the same might be said of Mr. Watson;
+but he was the most high-minded and conscientious of men, a thorough
+gentleman, inflexibly just, and a perfect House-Master. The days which
+I spent under his roof must always be reckoned among the happiest of my
+life.
+
+Among masters who were also friends I must assign a high place to the
+Rev. William Done Bushell, who vainly endeavoured to teach me
+mathematics, but found me more at home in the sphere (which he also
+loved) of Ecclesiology. And not even the most thoughtless or
+ill-conditioned boy who was at Harrow between 1854 and 1882 could ever
+forget the Rev. John Smith, who, through a life-time overshadowed by
+impending calamity, was an Apostle to boys, if ever there was one, and
+the Guardian Angel of youthful innocence. Dr. Vaughan, no lover of
+exaggerated phrases, called him, in a memorial sermon, "the Christ of
+Harrow;" and there must be many a man now living who, as he looks back,
+feels that he owed the salvation of his soul to that Christ-like
+character.
+
+During my first two years at Harrow, Dr. Westcott, afterwards Bishop of
+Durham, was one of the masters, and it has always been a matter of deep
+regret to me that I had no opportunity of getting to know him. He was
+hardly visible in the common life of the School. He lived remote, aloof,
+apart, alone. It must be presumed that the boys who boarded in his
+House knew something of him, but with the School in general he never
+came in contact. His special work was to supervise the composition,
+English and classical, of the Sixth Form, and on this task he lavished
+all his minute and scrupulous scholarship, all his genuine enthusiasm
+for literary beauty. But, until we were in the Sixth, we saw Westcott
+only on public occasions, and one of these occasions was the calling
+over of names on half-holidays, styled at Eton "Absence," and at Harrow
+"Bill." To see Westcott performing this function made one, even in those
+puerile days, feel that the beautifully delicate instrument was
+eminently unfitted for the rough work of mere routine on which it was
+employed. We had sense enough to know that Westcott was a man of
+learning and distinction altogether outside the beaten track of
+schoolmasters' accomplishments; and that he had performed achievements
+in scholarship and divinity which great men recognized as great.
+"Calling Bill" was an occupation well enough suited for his
+colleagues--for Huggins or Buggins or Brown or Green--but it was
+actually pathetic to see this frail embodiment of culture and piety
+contending with the clamour and tumult of five hundred obstreperous
+boys.
+
+It was not only as a great scholar that we revered Westcott. We knew,
+by that mysterious process by which school-boys get to know something of
+the real, as distinct from the official, characters of their masters,
+that he was a saint. There were strange stories in the School about his
+ascetic way of living. We were told that he wrote his sermons on his
+knees. We heard that he never went into local society, and that he read
+no newspaper except _The Guardian_. Thus when Liddon, at the height of
+his fame as the author of the great Bampton Lectures, came to Harrow to
+preach on Founder's Day, it was reported that Westcott would not dine
+with the Head-master to meet him. He could not spare three hours from
+prayer and study; but he came in for an hour's conversation after
+dinner.
+
+All that we saw and heard in Chapel confirmed what we were told. We saw
+the bowed form, the clasped hands, the rapt gaze, as of a man who in
+worship was really _solus cum Solo_, and not, as the manner of some of
+his colleagues was, sleeping the sleep of the just, or watching for the
+devotional delinquencies of the Human Boy. His sermons were rare events;
+but some of us looked forward to them as to something quite out of the
+common groove. There were none of the accessories which generally
+attract boyish admiration--no rhetoric, no purple patches, no
+declamation, no pretence of spontaneity. His anxious forehead crowned a
+puny body, and his voice was so faint as to be almost inaudible. The
+language was totally unadorned; the sentences were closely packed with
+meaning; and the meaning was not always easy. But the charm lay in
+distinction, aloofness from common ways of thinking and speaking, a wide
+outlook on events and movements in the Church, and a fiery enthusiasm
+all the more telling because sedulously restrained. I remember as if I
+heard it yesterday a reference in December, 1869, to "that august
+assemblage which gathers to-morrow under the dome of St. Peter's," and I
+remember feeling pretty sure at the moment that there was no other
+schoolmaster in England who would preach to his boys about the Vatican
+Council. But by far the most momentous of Westcott's sermons at Harrow
+was that which he preached on the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity, 1868.
+The text was Ephesians v. 15: "See then that ye walk circumspectly." The
+sermon was an earnest plea for the revival of the ascetic life, and the
+preacher endeavoured to show "what new blessings God has in store for
+absolute self-sacrifice" by telling his hearers about the great
+victories of asceticism in history. He took first the instance of St.
+Anthony, as the type of personal asceticism; then that of St. Benedict,
+as the author of the Common Life of equality and brotherhood; and then
+that of St. Francis, who, "in the midst of a Church endowed with all
+that art and learning and wealth and power could give, reasserted the
+love of God to the poorest, the meanest, the most repulsive of His
+children, and placed again the simple Cross above all the treasures of
+the world." Even "the unparalleled achievements, the matchless energy,
+of the Jesuits" were duly recognized as triumphs of faith and
+discipline; and the sermon ended with a passionate appeal to the Harrow
+boys to follow the example of young Antony or the still younger
+Benedict, and prepare themselves to take their part in reviving the
+ascetic life of the English Church.
+
+"It is to a congregation like this that the call comes with the most
+stirring and the most cheering voice. The young alone have the fresh
+enthusiasm which in former times God has been pleased to consecrate to
+like services.... And if, as I do believe most deeply, a work at
+present awaits England, and our English Church, greater than the world
+has yet seen, I cannot but pray everyone who hears me to listen humbly
+for the promptings of God's Spirit, if so be that He is even now calling
+him to take a foremost part in it. It is for us, perhaps, first to hear
+the call, but it is for you to interpret it and fulfil it. Our work is
+already sealed by the past: yours is still rich in boundless
+possibilities."
+
+It may readily be believed that this discourse did not please either the
+British Parent or the Common Schoolmaster. A rumour went abroad that Mr.
+Westcott was going to turn all the boys into monks, and loud was the
+clamour of ignorance and superstition. Westcott made the only dignified
+reply. He printed (without publishing) the peccant sermon, under the
+title "Disciplined Life," and gave a copy to every boy in the School,
+expressing the hope that "God, in His great love, will even thus, by
+words most unworthily spoken, lead some one among us to think on one
+peculiar work of the English Church, and in due time to offer himself
+for the fulfilment of it as His Spirit shall teach." Those who remember
+that Charles Gore was one of the boys who heard the sermon may think
+that the preacher's prayer was answered.
+
+With the masters generally I was on the best of terms. Indeed, I can
+only remember two whom I actively disliked, and of these two one was the
+absolute reproduction of Mr. Creakle, only armed with "thirty Greek
+lines" instead of the cane. Some of the staff were not particularly
+friends, but notable as curiosities; and at the head of these must be
+placed the Rev. Thomas Henry Steel. This truly remarkable man was born
+in 1806. He was Second Classic and Twentieth Wrangler, and Fellow of
+Trinity College, Cambridge. He became a master at Harrow under Dr.
+Wordsworth in 1836; left the School in 1843, to take a country living;
+returned to Harrow, under Dr. Vaughan, in 1849, and in 1855 became (for
+the second time) master of The Grove, one of the largest boarding-houses
+in Harrow, where he remained till 1881. He was a keen, alert, and active
+old gentleman, with a rosy face and long white beard, like Father
+Christmas: and he carried, in season and out of season, a bright blue
+umbrella. His degree sufficiently proves that he was a ripe scholar,
+but, as George Eliot says, "to all ripeness under the sun there comes a
+further stage of development which is less esteemed in the market";
+and, when I was in his Form, it was chiefly characterized by an
+agreeable laxity of discipline. As regards his boarding-house of forty
+boys, it was currently reported that he had never been seen in the boys'
+side of it. Perhaps he went round it when they were asleep. But it was
+on his preaching that his fame chiefly rested. His sermons were written
+in a most exuberant style of old-fashioned rhetoric, and abounded in
+phrases, allusions, and illustrations, so quaint that, once heard, they
+could never be forgotten. I believe that he kept a small stock of these
+sermons, and seldom added to it; but knowing, I suppose, that if
+preached twice they must inevitably be recognized, he never preached a
+sermon a second time as long as there was even one boy in the School who
+had heard it on its first delivery. This was a very sensible precaution;
+but he little knew that some of his most elaborate passages had, by
+their sheer oddity, imprinted themselves indelibly on the memories of
+the hearers, and were handed down by oral tradition. One such
+especially, about a lady who used to visit the hospitals in the American
+War, and left a bun or a rose on the pillow of the wounded according as
+she thought that they would recover or die, had an established place in
+our annals; and it is not easy to describe the rapture of hearing a
+passage which, as repeated by one's schoolfellows, had seemed too absurd
+for credence, delivered from the School-pulpit, in a kind of solemn
+stage-whisper. However, "Tommy Steel" was a kind-hearted old gentleman,
+who believed in letting boys alone, and by a hundred eccentricities of
+speech and manner, added daily to the gaiety of our life. For one great
+boon I am eternally his debtor. He set me on reading Wordsworth, and
+chose his favourite bits with skill and judgment. I had been reared in
+the school that derided--
+
+
+     "A drowsy, frowsy poem called _The Excursion_,
+     Writ in a manner which is my aversion,"
+
+
+and "Tommy Steel" opened my eyes to a new world of beauty. By the way,
+he had known Wordsworth, and had entertained him at Harrow; and he told
+us that the Poet always said "housen," where we say houses.
+
+Another of our curiosities was Mr. Jacob Francis Marillier, a genial old
+gentleman without a degree, who had been supposed to teach writing and
+Mathematics, but long before my time had dropped the writing--I suppose
+as hopeless--and only played a mathematical barrel-organ. He had joined
+the staff at Harrow in 1819, and, as from my earliest days I had a love
+of Links with the Past, I learned from Mr. Marillier a vast amount about
+the ancient traditions of the School, which, even in 1869 (when he
+resigned), were becoming faint and forgotten.
+
+Yet a third oddity must be commemorated; but in this case it is
+desirable to use a pseudonym. I think I remember in one of
+Bulwer-Lytton's novels a family called Sticktoright,[3] and that name
+will do as well as another. The Rev. Samuel Sticktoright was essentially
+what is called a "Master of the old school." He was born in 1808, came
+to Harrow in 1845, and had a large House for thirty years. I have just
+been contemplating his photograph in my Harrow album, and he certainly
+looks "the old school" all over, with his carefully-trimmed whiskers,
+double-breasted waistcoat, and large white "choker," neatly tied. By the
+boys generally he was regarded as an implacable tyrant, and I have heard
+(though this was before my time) that a special victim of his
+passionless severity was a pink-faced youth with blue eyes called
+Randall Thomas Davidson. Personally, I rather liked him; partly, no
+doubt, on the principle on which Homer called the AEthiopians
+blameless--namely, that he had nothing to do with them. But there was a
+sly twinkle in the corner of Mr. Sticktoright's eye which bespoke a
+lurking sense of humour, and in the very few words which he ever
+bestowed on me there generally was a suggestion of dry--very dry--fun.
+He was, of course, the most uncompromising of Tories, and every form of
+change, in Church or State or School, was equally abhorrent to him. In
+local society he played a considerable part, both giving and receiving
+hospitality; and it was the traditional pleasantry to chaff him as an
+inveterate bachelor, at whom all the young ladies of the place were
+setting their virginal caps. These jests he received very much as Tim
+Linkinwater received the allusions of Mr. Cheeryble to the "uncommonly
+handsome spinster," rather encouraging them as tributes to the fact
+that, though now advanced in years, he was well preserved, and, as most
+people surmised, well off.
+
+These facetious passages were, of course, confined to the society in
+which the masters moved, and we boys knew them only by hearsay. But what
+we saw with our own eyes was that the only human being who ever dared to
+"cheek" Mr. Sticktoright, or to interfere with his arrangements, or to
+disregard his orders, was his butler, whom we will call Boniface.
+Everyone who knows school-boys knows that they have a trick of saying
+things about those in authority over them, which really they do not the
+least believe but which they make a bold pretence of believing. So in
+the case of "Sticky" and Boniface. They were of much the same age, and
+rather similar in appearance; wherefore we said that they were brothers;
+that they had risen from a lowly station in the world, and had tossed up
+which should be master and which butler; that "Sticky" had won the toss,
+and that the disappointed Boniface held his brother in subjection by a
+veiled threat that, if he were offended, he would reveal the whole story
+to the world. This tradition seemed to present some elements of
+unlikelihood, and yet it survived from generation to generation; for not
+otherwise could we account for the palpable fact that the iron severity
+which held all boy-flesh in awe melted into impotence when Boniface was
+the offender.
+
+The solution of the mystery was romantic. Dr. Butler, contrary to his
+usual practice, was spending the Christmas holidays of 1876-7 at Harrow.
+One day a stranger was announced, and opened the conversation by
+saying--"I regret to tell you that your colleague, Mr. Sticktoright, is
+dead. He died suddenly at Brighton, where he was spending the holidays.
+I am his brother-in-law and executor, and, in compliance with his
+instructions, I have to ask you to accompany me to his house." Those who
+know the present Master of Trinity can picture the genuine grief with
+which he received this notification. Mr. Sticktoright had been a master
+when he was a boy at school, and a highly-respected colleague ever since
+he became Head-master. That the bearer of the sad news should be
+Sticktoright's brother-in-law seemed quite natural, for he must have
+married a Miss Sticktoright; and the Head-master and the executor went
+together to the dead man's house. There, after some unlocking of drawers
+and opening of cabinets, they came upon a document to this effect: "In
+case of my dying away from Harrow, this is to certify that on a certain
+day, in a certain place, I married Mary Smith, sometime a housemaid in
+my service, by whom I leave a family."
+
+So there had really been much more foundation for our tradition than we
+had ever dreamed, and Boniface had probably known the romantic history
+of his master's life. The extraordinary part of the matter was that old
+Sticktoright had always spent the Easter, Summer, and Christmas holidays
+in the bosom of his family at Brighton, and that no one connected with
+Harrow had ever chanced to see him basking in their smiles. [N.B.--the
+names, personal and local, are fictitious.] In the north aisle of Harrow
+School Chapel, where departed masters are commemorated, you may search
+in vain for any memorial to the Rev. Samuel Sticktoright.
+
+Yet one more curiosity must be named, this time not a Harrow master.
+"Polly Arnold" kept a stationer's shop, and, as a child, helping her
+grand-mother in the same shop, had sold pens--some added cribs--to Byron
+when a boy in the school. Here was a Link of the Past which exactly
+suited me, and, if only Polly could have understood the allusion, I
+should have said to her--"Ah, did you once see Byron plain?" I happened
+to have a sister who, though exceptionally clever and lively, had
+absolutely no chronological sense. I took her to see Polly Arnold one
+day, when this conversation ensued--"Well, Miss Arnold, I am very glad
+to make your acquaintance. I have often heard of you from my brother. He
+tells me you remember John Lyon. How very interesting!" [N.B.--John Lyon
+founded Harrow School in 1571.] To this tribute Polly replied with much
+asperity--"I know I'm getting on in life, Miss, but I'm not quite three
+hundred years old yet"--while my sister murmured in my ear--"Who _is_ it
+she remembers? I know it's someone who lived a long time ago."
+
+But the name of Arnold, when connected with Harrow, suggests quite
+another train of thought. At Easter, 1868, Matthew Arnold came to live
+at Harrow, with a view of placing his three boys in the School. The
+eldest of the three was the invalid to whom his father referred in a
+letter quoted in my first chapter: I was able to show him some little
+kindnesses, and thus arose an intimacy with the parents, brothers, and
+sisters which I have always regarded as--
+
+
+     "Part of my life's unalterable good."
+
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[3] "The wood belonged to the Hazeldeans, the furze-land to the
+Sticktorights--an old Saxon family if ever there was one." _My Novel_.
+Book I.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+HARROVIANA
+
+
+     "I may have failed, my School may fail;
+       I tremble, but thus much I dare;
+     I love her. Let the critics rail,
+       My brethren and my home are there."
+                                      W. CORY.
+
+
+Everyone who travels by the North Western, or the Great Central, or the
+Midland Railway, must be conversant with the appearance of that
+"Pinnacle perched on a Precipice," which was Charles II.'s idea of the
+Visible Church on Earth--the Parish Church of Harrow on the Hill. Anselm
+consecrated it, Becket said Mass in it, and John Lyon, the Founder of
+Harrow School, lies buried in it. When I was a Harrow boy, the
+Celebrations of the Holy Communion in the School Chapel were rare, and
+generally late; so some of us were accustomed to communicate every
+Sunday at the 8 o'clock service in the Parish Church. But even in holy
+places, and amid sacred associations, the ludicrous is apt to assert
+itself; and I could never sufficiently admire a tablet in the North
+aisle, commemorating a gentleman who died of the first Reform Bill.
+
+
+                         "JOHN HENRY NORTH,
+
+                 Judge of the Admiralty in Ireland.
+         Without an equal at the University, a rival at the Bar,
+      Or a superior in chaste and classic eloquence in Parliament.
+            Honoured, Revered, Admired, Beloved, Deplored,
+             By the Irish Bar, the Senate and his country,
+           He sunk beneath the efforts of a mind too great for
+                          His earthly frame,
+      In opposing the Revolutionary Invasion of the Religion and
+                        Constitution of England,
+     On the 29th of September, 1831, in the 44th year of his age."
+
+
+Alas! poor Mr. North. What would he have felt if he had lived to see the
+Reform Bills of 1867 and 1885? Clearly he was taken away from the evil
+to come.
+
+Until the Metropolitan Railway joined Harrow to Baker Street, the Hill
+stood in the midst of genuine and unspoilt country, separated by five
+miles of grass from the nearest point of London, and encompassed by
+isolated dwellings, ranging in rank and scale from villas to country
+houses. Most of these have fallen victims to the Speculative Builder,
+and have been cut up into alleys of brick and stucco, though one or two
+still remain among their hay-fields and rhododendrons. When I first
+ascended Harrow Hill, I drove there from London with my mother; and,
+from Harlesden onwards, our road lay between grass meadows, and was
+shaded by hedgerow timber. Harrow was then a much prettier place than it
+is now. The far-seen elms under which Byron dreamed[4] were still in
+their unlopped glory, and the whole effect of the Hill was wooded. So an
+Eton man and Harrow master[5] wrote:--
+
+
+     "Collis incola frondei
+     Nympha, sive lubentius
+     Nostra Pieris audies,
+     Lux adest; ades O tuis
+           Herga[6] mater, alumnis!"
+
+     "Goddess of the leafy Hill,
+     Nymph, or Muse, or what you will,
+     With the light begins the lay,--
+     Herga, be our guest to-day."
+
+
+The site now covered by the externally hideous Speech-room--a cross
+between a swimming-bath and a tennis-court--was then a garden. In truth,
+it only grew strawberries and cabbages, but to the imaginative eye, it
+was as beautiful as the hanging pleasaunces of Semiramis.
+
+Dr. Butler, with a hundred gifts and accomplishments, had no aesthetic or
+artistic sense; and, under his rule, the whole place was over-run by
+terrible combinations of red and black brick; and the beautiful view
+from the School-Yard, stretching away across the Uxbridge plain, was
+obstructed by some kind of play-shed, with a little spout atop--the very
+impertinence of ugliness.
+
+Of the various buildings at Harrow, by far the most interesting is what
+is now called "The Fourth Form Room," in the West wing of the Old
+School. It is the original room which John Lyon designed--"A large and
+convenient school-house with a chimney in it,"--and in its appearance
+and arrangements it exactly bespeaks the village Day School that Harrow
+originally was. Its stout brick walls have faced the western breezes of
+three hundred years, and in their mellow richness of tint remind one of
+Hatfield House and Hampton Court. This single room has been the nucleus
+round which all subsequent buildings--Chapel and Library and
+School-Rooms and Boarding-Houses--have gathered; and, as long as it
+exists, Harrow will be visibly and tangibly connected with its Founder's
+prescient care.
+
+John Lyon knew nothing of Conscience Clauses. He ordained that all his
+school-boys should attend the Parish Church; and so they did, stowed
+away in galleries where hearing was difficult and kneeling impossible.
+In 1836 Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, was
+elected Head-master of Harrow, in succession to the genial but too
+gentle Longley. Seeing that Worship was practically impossible for the
+boys under existing conditions, he set to work to build a Chapel. It
+occupied the same site as the present Chapel, but only one fragment of
+it remains, embedded in the West wall of Sir Gilbert Scott's more
+graceful structure. The Chapel was consecrated by the Visitor,
+Archbishop Howley, in 1839. Dr. Wordsworth, justly proud of his
+handiwork, invited his brother-master, Dr. Hawtrey of Eton, to view it.
+Much to Wordsworth's surprise, Hawtrey did not take off his hat on
+entering the Chapel; but, when he neared the altar, started back in
+confusion, and exclaimed, in hasty apology, "I assure you, my dear
+friend, I had no notion that we were already inside the Sacred Edifice."
+
+So much for the aesthetics of Harrow Chapel as originally constructed,
+but time and piety have completely changed it. In 1855, Dr. Vaughan
+added a Chancel with an apsidal end, designed by Sir Gilbert Scott.
+Next, the central passage of the Chapel became a Nave, with pillars and
+a North Aisle. Then the South Aisle was added, and decorated with glass
+before which one shudders, as a Memorial to Harrow men who fell in the
+Crimea. So the Chapel remained till 1903, when two curious additions,
+something between transepts and side-chapels, were added in memory of
+Harrow men who fell in South Africa. The total result of these
+successive changes is a building of remarkably irregular shape, but
+richly decorated, and sanctified by innumerable memories of friends long
+since loved and lost. A tablet, near which as a new boy I used to sit,
+bears this inscription--
+
+
+                         In mournful and
+                    affectionate remembrance of
+                        JOHN HYDE D'ARCY,
+                Scholar of Balliol College, Oxford,
+                 and formerly Head of this School.
+                 He passed through the Strait Gate
+                  of Humility, Toil, and Patience,
+           into the clear light and true knowledge of Him
+                         Who is our Peace.
+
+     "If any man will do His Will, he shall know of the doctrine."
+
+
+Few sermons have ever impressed me so powerfully as this significant
+memorial of a life which lasted only nineteen years.
+
+The morning and evening services in the Chapel were what is called
+"bright and cheerful"--in other words, extremely noisy and not very
+harmonious or reverent. We had two sermons every Sunday. The Head-master
+preached in the evening; the Assistant-masters in the morning.
+Occasionally, we had a stranger of repute. Dr. Butler's preaching I have
+already described, and also that of Farrar and Westcott. Mr. Steel's
+traditional discourses were in a class by themselves. But other
+preachers we had, not less remarkable. I distinctly remember a sermon by
+Mr. Sticktoright, who told us that we did not know in what way the world
+would be destroyed--it might be by fire, or it might be by water
+(though this latter alternative seems precluded by Genesis ix. 11). The
+Rev. James Robertson, afterwards Head-master of Haileybury, compared the
+difference between a dull boy and a clever boy to that between an ox and
+a dog. "To the ox, the universe comprises only the impassive blue above,
+and the edible green beneath; while the dog finds a world of excitement
+in hunting, and a demi-god in man." Dean Stanley, preaching on Trinity
+Sunday, 1868, thus explained away the doctrine of the Trinity--"God the
+Father is God in Nature. God the Son is God in History. God the Holy
+Ghost is God in the Conscience." And Thring of Uppingham bellowed an
+exposition of Psalm lxxviii. 70 with such surprising vigour that he
+acquired among us the affectionate nickname of "Old Sheepfolds." It is a
+pleasure to place in contrast with these absurdities the truly pastoral
+and moving sermons of Mr. John Smith, whose apostolic work at Harrow I
+have already commemorated. His paraphrase of 1. St. Peter iv. 7-8 still
+lingers in my ear--"Be watchful, be prayerful, be very kind." He is thus
+described on a Memorial Tablet in the Chapel:
+
+
+                To the Young a Father,
+          To friends in joy or grief a Brother,
+      To the poor, the suffering, and the tempted,
+           A minister of Hope and Strength.
+          Tried by more than common sorrows,
+        And upborne by more than common faith,
+          His holy life interpreted to many
+         The Mind which was in Christ Jesus,
+            The Promise of the Comforter,
+     And the Vision granted to the Pure in Heart.
+
+
+It may seem odd that one should remember so much about sermons preached
+so long ago, but Bishop Welldon's testimony illustrates the point. "When
+I came to Harrow, I was greatly struck by the feeling of the boys for
+the weekly Sermon; they looked for it as an element in their lives, they
+attended to it, and passed judgment upon it." (I may remark in passing
+that Dr. Welldon promptly and wisely reduced the Sunday Sermons from two
+to one.)
+
+But the day of days in Harrow Chapel was Founder's Day, October 10th,
+1868, when the preacher at the Commemoration Service was Liddon, who had
+lately become famous by the Bampton Lectures of 1866. The scene and the
+sermon can never be forgotten. Prayers and hymns and thanksgivings for
+Founder and Benefactors had been duly performed, and we had listened
+with becoming solemnity to that droll chapter about "Such as found out
+musical tunes, and recited verses in writing." When the preacher entered
+the pulpit, his appearance instantly attracted attention. We had heard
+vaguely of him as "the great Oxford swell," but now that we saw him we
+felt a livelier interest. "He looks like a monk," one boy whispers to
+his neighbour; and indeed it is a better description than the speaker
+knows. The Oxford M.A. gown, worn over a cassock, is the Benedictine
+habit modified by time and place; the spare, thin figure suggests
+asceticism; the beautifully chiselled, sharply-pointed features, the
+close-shaved face, the tawny skin, the jet-black hair, remind us vaguely
+of something by Velasquez or Murillo, or of Ary Scheffer's picture of
+St. Augustine. And the interest aroused by sight is intensified by
+sound. The vibrant voice strikes like an electric shock. The exquisite,
+almost over-refined, articulation seems the very note of culture. The
+restrained passion which thrills through the disciplined utterance warns
+even the most heedless that something quite unlike the ordinary stuff of
+school-sermons is coming. "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy
+youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou
+shalt say, I have no pleasure in them." The speaker speaks of the
+blessedness and glory of boyhood; the splendid inheritance of a Public
+School built on Christian lines; the unequalled opportunities of
+learning while the faculties are still fresh and the mind is still
+receptive; the worthlessness of all merely secular attainment, however
+desirable, however necessary, when weighed in the balance against "the
+one thing needful." The congregation still are boys, but soon they will
+be men. Dark days will come, as Ecclesiastes warned--dark in various
+ways and senses, darkest when, at the University or elsewhere, we first
+are bidden to cast faith aside and to believe nothing but what can be
+demonstrated by "an appeal, in the last resort, to the organs of sense."
+Now is the time, and this is the place, so to "remember our Creator"
+that, come what may, we shall never be able to forget Him, or doubt His
+love, or question His revelation. The preacher leans far out from the
+pulpit, spreading himself, as it were, over the congregation, in an act
+of benediction. "From this place may Christ ever be preached, in the
+fulness of His creative, redemptive, and sacramental work. Here may you
+learn to remember Him in the days of your youth, and, in the last and
+most awful day of all, may He remember you."
+
+Five minutes afterwards we are in the open air. Boys stare and gasp;
+masters hurry past, excited and loquacious. Notes are compared, and
+watches consulted. Liddon has preached for an hour, and the school must
+go without its dinner.
+
+Enough has now been said about the Chapel and its memories. I must now
+turn to lighter themes. I remember once hearing Mrs. Procter, who was
+born in 1799 and died in 1888, say casually at a London dinner-party,
+when someone mentioned Harrow Speech-Day--"Ah! that used to be a
+pleasant day. The last time I was there I drove down with Lord Byron and
+Doctor Parr, who had been breakfasting with my step-father, Basil
+Montagu." This reminiscence seemed to carry one back some way, but I
+entirely agreed with Mrs. Procter. Speech-Day at Harrow has been for
+more than forty years one of my favourite holidays. In my time the
+present Speech-Room did not exist. The old Speech-Room, added to John
+Lyon's original building in 1819, was a well-proportioned hall, with
+panelled walls and large windows. Tiers of seats rose on three sides of
+the room; on the fourth was the platform, and just opposite the
+platform sat the Head-master, flanked right and left by distinguished
+visitors. There was a triumphal arch of evergreens over the gate, and
+the presence of the Beadle of the Parish Church, sumptuous in purple and
+gold, pointed to the historic but obsolescent connexion between the
+Parish and the School. The material of the "Speeches," so-called, was
+much the same as that provided at other schools--Shakespeare, Sheridan,
+Chatham, Aristophanes, Plautus, Moliere, Schiller. An age-long desire to
+play the Trial in _Pickwick_ was only attained, under the liberal rule
+of Dr. Wood, in 1909. At the Speeches, one caught one's first glimpse of
+celebrities whom one was destined to see at closer quarters in the years
+to come; and I never can forget the radiant beauty of "Spencer's Faery
+Queen,"[7] as I saw her at the Speeches of 1869.
+
+While I am speaking of Celebrities, I must make a short digression from
+Speech-Day to Holidays. Dr. Vaughan, some time Head-master of Harrow and
+afterwards Dean of Llandaff, was in 1868 Vicar of Doncaster. My only
+brother was one of his curates; the Vaughans asked my mother to stay
+with them at the Vicarage, in order that she might see her son, then
+newly ordained, at his work; and, the visit falling in the Harrow
+holidays, they good-naturedly said that she might bring me with her. Dr.
+Vaughan was always exceedingly kind to boys, and one morning, on our way
+back from the daily service, he said to me--"Sir Grosvenor Le
+Draughte[8] has proposed to break his journey here, on his return from
+Scotland. Do you know him? No? Well--observe Sir Grosvenor. He is well
+worthy of observation. He is exactly what the hymn-book calls 'a
+worldling.'" The day advanced, and no Sir Grosvenor appeared. The Doctor
+came into the drawing-room repeatedly, asking if "that tiresome old
+gentleman had arrived," and Mrs. Vaughan plied him with topics of
+consolation--"Perhaps he has missed his train. Perhaps there has been an
+accident. Perhaps he has been taken ill on the journey"--but the Doctor
+shook his head and refused to be comforted. After dinner, we sat in an
+awe-struck silence, while the Vaughans, knowing the hour at which the
+last train from Scotland came in, and the length of time which it took
+to drive from the station, listened with ears erect. Presently the
+wheels of a fly came rumbling up, and Dr. Vaughan, exclaiming, "Our
+worst anticipations are realized!" hurried to the front door. Then,
+welcoming the aged traveller with open arms, he said in his blandest
+tones--"Now, my dear Sir Grosvenor, I know you must be dreadfully tired.
+You shall go to bed at once." Sir Grosvenor, who longed to sit up till
+midnight, telling anecdotes and drinking brandy-and-water, feebly
+remonstrated; but the remorseless Doctor led his unwilling captive
+upstairs. It was a triumph of the _Suaviter in modo_, and gave me an
+impressive lesson on the welcome which awaits self-invited guests, even
+when they are celebrities. But all this is a parenthesis.
+
+I should be shamefully ungrateful to a place of peculiar enjoyment if I
+forbore to mention the Library at Harrow. It was opened in 1863, as a
+Memorial of Dr. Vaughan's Head-mastership, and its delicious bow-window,
+looking towards Hampstead, was my favourite resort. On whole-holidays,
+when others were playing cricket, I used to read there for hours at a
+stretch; and gratified my insatiable thirst for Biographies, Memoirs,
+and Encyclopaedias. The Library was also the home of the Debating
+Society, and there I moved, forty-two years ago, that a Hereditary
+Legislative Body is incompatible with free institutions; and supported
+the present Bishop of Oxford in declaring that a Republic is the best
+form of Government. The mention of the Debating Society leads me to the
+subject of Politics. I have said in a former chapter that the
+Conservative Reform Bill of 1867 was the first political event which
+interested me. It was a stirring time all over the world, in France, in
+Italy, and in Mexico. There were rebellions and rumours of rebellion.
+Monarchical institutions were threatened. Secret Societies were in full
+activity. The whole social order seemed to be passing through a crisis,
+and I, like the Abbe Sieyes, fell to framing constitutions; my favourite
+scheme being a Republic, with a President elected for life, and a
+Legislature chosen by universal suffrage. But all these dreams were
+dispelled by the realities of my new life at Harrow, and, for a while, I
+perforce thought more of Imperial than of Papal Rome, of Greek than of
+English Republics. But in the summer of 1868, Mr. Gladstone's first
+attack on the Irish Church caused such an excitement as I had never
+before known. It was a pitched battle between the two great Parties of
+the State, and I was an enthusiastic follower of the Gladstonian
+standard. In November 1868 came the General Election which was to decide
+the issue. Of course Harrow, like all other schools, was Tory as the sea
+is salt. Out of five hundred boys, I can only recall five who showed the
+Liberal colour. These were the present Lord Grey; Walter Leaf, the
+Homeric Scholar; W. A. Meek, now Recorder of York; M. G. Dauglish, who
+edited the "Harrow Register," and myself. On the polling day I received
+my "Baptism of Fire," or rather of mud, being rolled over and over in
+the attempt to tear my colours from me. The Tory colour was red; the
+Liberal was blue; and my mother, chancing to drive through Harrow with
+the light blue carriage-wheels which my family have always used, was
+playfully but loudly hissed by wearers of the red rosette. Among the
+masters, political opinion was divided. Mr. Young, whom I quoted just
+now, was a Liberal, and a Tory boy called Freddy Bennet (brother of the
+present Lord Tankerville) covered himself with glory by pinning a red
+streamer to the back of Young's gown while he was calling "Bill."
+
+In the following year our Politics found a fresh vent through the
+establishment of _The Harrovian_. I had dabbled in composition ever
+since I was ten, and had printed both prose and verse before I entered
+Harrow School. So here was a heaven-sent contributor, and one morning,
+in the autumn of 1869, as I was coming out of First School, one[9] of
+the Editors overtook me and said--
+
+"We want you to contribute to _The Harrovian_. We are only going to
+employ fellows who can write English--not such stuff as 'The following
+boys _were given prizes_.'" Purism indeed!
+
+Here began my journalistic career. For three years I wrote a
+considerable part of the paper, and I was an Editor during my last year,
+in conjunction with my friends Dumbar Barton and Walter Sichel.
+
+Harrow is sometimes said to be the most musical of Public Schools; and
+certainly our School Songs have attained a wide popularity. I believe
+that "Forty Years on" is sung all over the world. But, when I went to
+Harrow, we were confined to the traditional English songs and ballads,
+and to some Latin ditties by Bradby and Westcott, which we bellowed
+lustily but could not always construe. E. E. Bowen's stirring, though
+often bizarre, compositions (admirably set to music by John Farmer)
+began soon after I entered the school, and E. W. Howson's really
+touching and melodious verses succeeded Bowens' some ten years after I
+had left. Other song-writers, of greater or less merit, we have had; but
+from first to last, the thrilling spell of a Harrow concert has been an
+experience quite apart from all other musical enjoyments. "The singing
+is the thing. When you hear the great body of fresh voices leap up like
+a lark from the ground, and rise and swell and swell and rise till the
+rafters seem to crack and shiver, then you seem to have discovered all
+the sources of feeling." This was the tribute of a stranger, and an
+Harrovian has recorded the same emotion:--"John was singing like a lark,
+with a lark's spontaneous delight in singing; with an ease and
+self-abandonment which charmed eye almost as much as ear. Higher and
+higher rose the clear, sexless notes, till two of them met and mingled
+in a triumphant trill. To Desmond, that trill was the answer to the
+quavering, troubled cadences of the first verse; the vindication of the
+spirit soaring upwards unfettered by the flesh--the pure spirit, not
+released from the human clay without a fierce struggle. At that moment
+Desmond loved the singer--the singer who called to him out of heaven,
+who summoned his friend to join him, to see what he saw--'the vision
+splendid.'"[10]
+
+I am conscious that, so far, I have treated the Moloch of Athletics with
+such scant respect that his worshippers may doubt if I ever was really a
+boy. Certainly my physical inability to play games was rendered less
+bitter by the fact that I did not care about them. I well remember the
+astonishment of my tutor, when he kindly asked me to luncheon on his
+carriage at my first Eton and Harrow match, and I replied that I should
+not be there.
+
+"Not be at Lord's, my boy? How very strange! Why?"
+
+"Because there are three things which I particularly dislike--heat, and
+crowds, and cricket." It certainly was a rather priggish answer, but let
+me say in self-defence that before I left the school I had become as
+keen on "Lord's," as the best of my compeers.
+
+That, in spite of his reprehensible attitude towards our national game,
+I was still, as Mr. Chadband said, "a human boy," is proved by the
+intense interest with which I beheld the one and only "Mill" which ever
+took place while I was at Harrow.[11] It was fought on the 25th of
+February, 1868, with much form and ceremony. The "Milling-ground," now
+perverted to all sorts of base uses, is immediately below the
+School-Yard. The ground slopes rapidly, so that the wall of the Yard
+forms the gallery of the Milling-Ground. The moment that "Bill" was
+over, I rushed to the wall and secured an excellent place, leaning my
+elbows on the wall, while a friend, who was a moment later, sat on my
+shoulders and looked over my bowed head. It would be indiscreet to
+mention the names of the combatants, though I remember them perfectly.
+One was a red-headed giant; the other short, dark, and bow-legged.
+Neither had at all a pleasant countenance, and I must admit that I
+enjoyed seeing them pound each other into pulp. I felt that two beasts
+were getting their deserts. To-day such a sight would kill me; but this
+is the degeneracy of old age.
+
+Now that I am talking about school-fellows, several names call for
+special mention. As I disliked athletics, it follows that I did not
+adore athletes. I can safely say that I never admired a boy because of
+his athletic skill, though I have admired many in spite of it. Probably
+Sidney Pelham, Archdeacon of Norfolk, who was in the Harrow Eleven in
+1867 and 1868, and the Oxford Eleven in 1871, will never see this book;
+so I may safely say that I have seldom envied anyone as keenly as I
+envied him, when Dr. Butler, bidding him farewell before the whole
+school, thanked him for "having set an example which all might be proud
+to follow--unfailing sweetness of temper, and perfect purity of life."
+In one respect, the most conspicuous of my school-fellows was H.R.H.
+Prince Thomas of Savoy, Duke of Genoa, nephew of Victor Emmanuel, and
+now an Admiral in the Italian Navy. He came to Harrow in 1869, and lived
+with Mr. and Mrs. Matthew Arnold. He was elected King of Spain by a vote
+of the Cortes on the 3rd of October 1869. He was quite a popular boy,
+and no one had the slightest grudge against him; but, for all that,
+everyone made a point of kicking him, in the hope of being able to say
+in after-life that they had kicked the King of Spain. Unfortunately
+Victor Emmanuel, fearing dynastic complications, forbade him to accept
+the Crown; so he got all the Harrow kicks and none of the Spanish
+half-pence. When I entered Harrow, the winner of all the classical
+prizes was Andrew Graham Murray, now Lord Dunedin and Lord President of
+the Court of Session; a most graceful scholar, and also a considerable
+mathematician. Just below him was Walter Leaf, to whom no form of
+learning came amiss; who was as likely to be Senior Wrangler as Senior
+Classic, and whose performances in Physical Science won the warm praise
+of Huxley. Of the same standing as these were Arthur Evans, the
+Numismatist, Frank Balfour, the Physiologist, and Gerald Rendall,
+Head-master of Charterhouse. Among my contemporaries the most
+distinguished was Charles Gore, whose subsequent career has only
+fulfilled what all foresaw; and just after him came (to call them by
+their present names) Lord Crewe, Lord Ribblesdale, Lord Spencer, Mr.
+Justice Barton of the Irish Bench, and Mr. Walter Long, in whom Harrow
+may find her next Prime Minister. Walter Sichel was at seventeen the
+cleverest school-boy whom I have ever known. Sir Henry McKinnon obtained
+his Commission in the Guards while he was still in the Fifth Form.
+Pakenham Beatty was the Swinburnian of the school, then, as now, a true
+Poet of Liberty. Ion Keith-Falconer, Orientalist and missionary, was a
+saint in boyhood as in manhood. Edward Eyre seemed foreordained to be
+what in London and in Northumberland he has been--the model
+Parish-Priest; and my closest friend of all was Charles Baldwyn
+Childe-Pemberton, who, as Major Childe, fell at the battle of Spion Kop,
+on a spot now called, in honour of his memory, "Childe's Hill." _De
+minimis non curat Respublica_; which, being interpreted, signifies--_The
+Commonwealth_ will not care to know the names of the urchins who fagged
+for me.[12] But I cherish an ebony match-box carved and given to me by
+one of these ministering spirits, as a proof that, though my laziness
+may have made me exacting, my exactions were not brutal.
+
+
+On the 15th of June, 1871, Harrow School celebrated the three-hundredth
+anniversary of its foundation. Harrovians came from every corner of the
+globe to take part in this Tercentenary Festival. The arrangements were
+elaborated with the most anxious care. The Duke of Abercorn,
+affectionately and appropriately nicknamed "Old Splendid," presided
+over a banquet in the School-Yard; and the programme of the day's
+proceedings had announced, rather to the terror of intending visitors,
+that after luncheon there would be "speeches, interspersed with songs,
+from three hundred and fifty of the boys." The abolition of the second
+comma dispelled the dreadful vision of three-hundred-and-fifty
+school-boy-speeches, and all went merry as a marriage-bell--all, except
+the weather. It seemed as if the accumulated rain of three centuries
+were discharged on the devoted Hill. It was raining when we went to the
+early celebration in the Chapel; it was raining harder when we came out.
+At the culminating moment of the day's proceedings, when Dr. Vaughan was
+proposing "Prosperity to Harrow," the downpour and the thunder drowned
+the speaker's voice; and, when evening fell on the sodden
+cricket-ground, the rain extinguished the fireworks.
+
+On that same cricket-ground nine days later, in the golden afternoon of
+Midsummer Day, George Clement Cottrell, a boy beautiful alike in face
+and in character, was killed in an instant by a blow from a ball, which
+struck him behind the ear when he was umpiring in the Sixth Form game.
+On the 29th of June his five hundred school-fellows followed him to his
+resting-place in the Churchyard on the Hill, and I believe we
+unanimously felt that he whom we had lost was the one, of all our
+number, of whom we could say, with the surest confidence, that he was
+fit to pass, without a moment's warning, into the invisible World.
+_Beati mundo corde_.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[4] Writing to John Murray in 1832, Byron said--"There is a spot in the
+Churchyard, near the footpath, on the brow of the Hill looking towards
+Windsor, and a tomb under a large tree (bearing the name of Peachie, or
+Peachey), where I used to sit for hours and hours as a boy: this was my
+favourite spot."
+
+[5] The Rev. E. M. Young.
+
+[6] Herga is the Anglo-Saxon name of Harrow.
+
+[7] Charlotte Seymour, Countess Spencer, died 1903.
+
+[8] The name is borrowed from "Sybil." The bearer of it was an ancient
+physician, who had doctored all the famous people of his time, beginning
+with "Pamela."
+
+[9] Mr. R. de C. Welch.
+
+[10] _The Hill._ Chapter vi.
+
+[11] Some authorities say that it was the last on record.
+
+[12] This paper appeared in _The Commonwealth_.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+OXFORD
+
+
+     "For place, for grace, and for sweet companee,
+     Oxford is Heaven, if Heaven on Earth there be."
+                                     SIR JOHN DAVIES.
+
+
+The faithful student of "Verdant Green" will not have forgotten that
+Charlie Larkyns, when introducing his Freshman-friend to the sights of
+Oxford, called his attention to a mystic inscription on a wall in Oriel
+Lane. "You see that? Well, that's one of the plates they put up to
+record the Vice's height. F.P.--7 feet, you see: the initials of his
+name--Frederick Plumptre!" "He scarcely seemed so tall as that," replied
+Verdant, "though certainly a tall man. But the gown makes a difference,
+I suppose."
+
+Dr. Plumptre was Vice-Chancellor of Oxford from 1848 to 1851, and Master
+of University College for thirty-four years. He died in 1870, and the
+College thereupon elected the Rev. G. G. Bradley, then Head-master of
+Marlborough, and afterwards Dean of Westminster, to the vacant post. It
+was an unfortunate choice. Mr. Bradley was a man of many gifts and
+virtues, and a successful schoolmaster; but the methods which had
+succeeded at Marlborough were not adapted to Oxford, and he soon
+contrived to get at loggerheads both with Dons and with Undergraduates.
+
+However, there existed at that time--and I daresay it exists still--a
+nefarious kind of trades-unionism among the Headmasters of Public
+Schools; and, as Bradley had been a Head-master, all the Head-masters
+advised their best pupils to try the scholarships at University College.
+
+So far as I had any academical connexions, they were exclusively with
+Trinity, Cambridge; and my father was as ignorant of Oxford as myself.
+All I knew about it was that it was the source and home of the Oxford
+movement, which some of my friends at Harrow had taught me to admire.
+Two or three of those friends were already there, and I wished to rejoin
+them; but, as between the different Colleges, I was fancy-free; so when,
+early in 1872, Dr. Butler suggested that I should try for a scholarship
+at University, I assented, reserving myself, in the too probable event
+of failure, for Christ Church. However, I was elected at University on
+the 24th of February, 1872, and went into residence there on the 11th of
+the following October. The Vice-Chancellor who matriculated me was the
+majestic Liddell, who, with his six feet of stately height draped in
+scarlet, his "argent aureole" of white hair, and his three silver maces
+borne before him, always helped me to understand what Sydney Smith meant
+when he said, of some nonsensical proposition, that no power on earth,
+save and except the Dean of Christ Church, should induce him to believe
+it. As I write, I see the announcement of Mrs. Liddell's death; and my
+mind travels back to the drawing-room and lawns of the Deanery at Christ
+Church, and the garland of beautiful faces
+
+
+     "Decking the matron temples of a place
+     So famous through the world."
+
+
+The 13th of October was my first Sunday in Oxford, and my friend Charles
+Gore took me to the Choral Eucharist at Cowley St. John, and afterwards
+to luncheon with the Fathers. So began my acquaintance with a Society
+of which I have always been a grateful admirer. But more exciting
+experiences were at hand: on the 20th of October it was Liddon's turn,
+as Select Preacher, to occupy the pulpit at St. Mary's. The impressions
+of that, my first University sermon, have never faded from my mind. A
+bright autumn morning, the yellow sunlight streaming in upon the densely
+crowded church, the long array of scarlet-robed doctors, the preacher's
+beautiful face looking down from the high pulpit, with anxious brow and
+wistful gaze. And then the rolling Latin hymn, and then the Bidding
+Prayer, and then the pregnant text--_He that believeth on the Son hath
+everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life;
+but the wrath of God abideth on him_. Are we listening to St. John the
+Baptist or St. John the Evangelist? The preacher holds that we are
+listening to the Evangelist, and says that the purpose of St. John's
+Gospel is condensed into his text. "If to believe in Him is life, to
+have known and yet to reject him is death. There is no middle term or
+state between the two.... In fact, this stern, yet truthful and
+merciful, claim makes all the difference between a Faith and a theory."
+And now there is a moment's pause. Preacher and hearers alike take
+breath. Some instinct assures us that we are just coming to the crucial
+point. The preacher resumes: "A statement of this truth in other terms
+is at present occasioning a painful controversy, which it would be
+better in this place to pass over in silence if too much was not at
+stake to warrant a course from which I shall only depart with sincere
+reluctance. Need I say that I allude to the vexed question of the
+Athanasian Creed?" The great discourse which was thus introduced, with
+its strong argument for the retention of the Creed as it stands, has
+long been the property of the Church, and there is no need to
+recapitulate it. But the concluding words, extolling "the high and rare
+grace of an intrepid loyalty to known truth," spoke with a force of
+personal appeal which demands commemoration: "To be forced back upon the
+central realities of the faith which we profess; to learn, better than
+ever before, what are the convictions which we dare not surrender at any
+cost; to renew the freshness of an early faith, which affirms within us,
+clearly and irresistibly, that the one thing worth thinking of, worth
+living for, if need were, worth dying for, is the unmutilated faith of
+Jesus Christ our Lord,--these may be the results of inevitable
+differences, and, if they are, they are blessings indeed."[13]
+
+The same Sunday was marked by another unforgettable experience--my first
+visit to St. Barnabas'. The church was then just three years old. Bishop
+Wilberforce had consecrated it on the 19th of October, 1869, and made
+this characteristic note in his diary:--"Disagreeable service. Acolyte
+running about. Paste squares for bread, etc., but the church a great
+gift." Three years later, a boy fresh from Harrow, and less sensitively
+Protestant than the good Bishop, not only thought "the church a great
+gift," but enjoyed the "acolyte running about," and found the whole
+service the most inspiring and uplifting worship in which he had ever
+joined. My impressions of it are as clear as yesterday's--the unadorned
+simplicity of the fabric, emphasizing by contrast the blaze of light and
+colour round the altar; the floating cloud of incense; the expressive
+and unfussy ceremonial; the straightforward preaching; and, most
+impressive of all, the large congregation of men, old and young, rich
+and poor, undergraduates and artisans, all singing Evangelical hymns
+with one heart and one voice. It was, if ever there was on earth,
+congregational worship; and I, for one, have never seen its like. The
+people's pride in the church was very characteristic: they habitually
+spoke of it as "our Barnabas." The clergy and the worshippers were a
+family, and the church was a home.
+
+At the Dedication Festival of 1872, there was a strong list of
+preachers, including W. J. E. Bennett, of Frome, and Edward King, then
+Principal of Cuddesdon. But the sermon which made an indelible
+impression on me was preached by R. W. Randall, then vicar of All
+Saints, Clifton, and afterwards Dean of Chichester. It was indeed a
+memorable performance. "Performance" is the right word, for, young as
+one was, one realized instinctively the wonderful art and mastery and
+technical perfection of the whole. There was the exquisitely modulated
+voice, sinking lower, yet becoming more distinct, whenever any specially
+moving topic was touched; the restrained, yet emphatic action--I can see
+that uplifted forefinger still--and the touch of personal reminiscence
+at the close, so managed as to give the sense that we were listening to
+an elder brother who, thirty years before, had passed through the same
+experiences, so awfully intermingled of hope and tragedy, which now lay
+before us on the threshold of our Oxford life. It was, in brief, a
+sermon never to be forgotten; it was "a night to be much remembered unto
+the Lord."
+
+Some thirty years later, I was introduced to Dean Randall at a London
+dinner-party. After dinner, I drew my chair towards him, and said, "Mr.
+Dean, I have always wished to have an opportunity of thanking you for a
+sermon which you preached at St. Barnabas', Oxford, at the Dedication
+Festival, 1872." The Dean smiled, with the graceful pleasure of an old
+man honoured by a younger one, and said, "Yes? What was the text?" "The
+text I have long forgotten, but I remember the subject." "And what was
+that?" "It was the insecurity of even the best-founded hopes." "Rather a
+well-worn theme," said the Dean, with a half-smile. "But not, sir," I
+said, "as you handled it. You told us, at the end of the sermon, that
+you remembered a summer afternoon when you were an undergraduate at
+Christ Church, and were sitting over your Thucydides close to your
+window, grappling with a long and complicated passage which was to be
+the subject of next morning's lecture; and that, glancing for a moment
+from your book, you saw the two most brilliant young Christ Church men
+of the day going down to bathe in the Isis. You described the gifts and
+graces of the pair, who, between them, seemed to combine all that was
+best and most beautiful in body and mind and soul. And then you told us
+how, as your friends disappeared towards Christ Church Meadows, you
+returned to your work; and only were roused from it two hours later,
+when a confused noise of grief and terror in the quadrangle below
+attracted your attention, and you saw the dead bodies of Gaisford and
+Phillimore borne past your window from their 'watery bier' at Sandford
+Lasher."
+
+On Advent Sunday, December 1, I saw and heard Dr. Pusey for the first
+time. He was then in broken health; but he gathered all his physical and
+mental energies for a great sermon on "The Responsibility of Intellect
+in Matters of Faith." The theme of this sermon was that Intellect is a
+great trust confided to us by God; that we are responsible to Him for
+the use of it; and that we must exercise it in submission to His
+revealed Will. What He has declared, that it is our duty to believe. Our
+Lord Himself had uttered the most solemn warning against wilful
+unbelief; the Athanasian Creed only re-echoed His awful words; and the
+storm which assailed the Creed was really directed against the revealed
+Truth of God. "This tornado will, I trust, by God's mercy, soon pass; it
+is a matter of life and death. To remove those words of warning, or the
+Creed because it contains them, would be emphatically to teach our
+people that it is _not_ necessary to salvation to believe faithfully the
+Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, or in One God as He has made
+Himself known to us."
+
+Immediately after delivering himself of this great apology for the
+Faith, Pusey went abroad for the benefit of his health, and did not
+return to Oxford till the Summer Term. I well remember the crowd of
+ancient disciples, who had missed their accustomed interview at
+Christmas, thronging his door in Christ Church, like the impotent folk
+at the Pool of Bethesda.
+
+Another reminiscence, and of a very different kind, belongs to my first
+Term. Dean Stanley had been nominated as Select Preacher, and the
+old-fashioned High Churchmen made common cause with the Low Churchmen to
+oppose his appointment. There was a prodigious clamour, but Dr. Pusey
+held aloof from the agitation, believing--and in this he was
+conspicuously right--that "opposition would only aggravate the evil by
+enlisting the enthusiasm of the young." The vote was taken, in an
+unusually crowded Convocation, on the 11th of December. It was a
+noteworthy and rather an amusing scene, and was well described by an
+eyewitness.[14] "Oxford was fairly startled from the serenity which
+usually marks the fag-end of the Michaelmas Term by a sudden irruption
+of the outer world. Recognitions took place at every street-corner. The
+hotels were put upon their mettle. The porters' lodges of the Colleges
+were besieged, and Boffin's Refreshment Rooms ran over with hungry
+parsons from the country. As an evidence of the interest which the
+question of Dean Stanley's appointment excited beyond the walls of the
+University, I may mention that even the guards and porters at the
+railway hallooed to each other to know "the state of the betting"; but
+even they did not seem quite to have calculated on the matter being so
+warmly taken up in London and by the country at large." At half-past one
+o'clock the bell of St. Mary's gave notice to the combatants to prepare
+for the fray, and immediately the floor of the Theatre was sprinkled
+with representative men of all the schools. The non-residents appeared
+in gowns of various degrees of rustiness, some with chimney-pot hats and
+some with wide-awakes. The early comers conversed in small groups,
+hugging instinctively those sides of the building on which were written
+respectively _Placet_ or _Non-Placet_, giving thereby an inkling of how
+they meant to vote. The gathering increased every moment, and soon the
+Doctors in their scarlet began to dot the seats around the
+Vice-Chancellor's chair. Prince Leopold, by right of his royalty,
+entered the sacred enclosure with Dr. Acland, and afterwards took his
+seat among the Doctors. Before two o'clock every inch of the floor was
+full, the occupants standing in anticipation of the coming encounter.
+"Still they gravitated towards their respective voting-doors, and on the
+_Placet_ side one descried the scholarly face of Professor Jowett, the
+sharply-cut features of the Rev. Mark Pattison, and the well-known
+physiognomy of Professor Max Mueller. On the opposite side Mr. Burgon was
+marshalling his forces, and Dean Goulburn, from the Doctors' benches,
+looked out over the seething mass of M.A.'s below him." At two o'clock
+the Vice-Chancellor arrived, and forthwith commenced proceedings in
+Latin, which must have been extremely edifying to the ladies who, in
+large numbers, occupied the Strangers' Gallery, backed by a narrow
+fringe of Undergraduates. The object of the Convocation was stated as
+being the appointment of Select Preachers, and the names were then
+submitted to the Doctors and Masters for approval. "_Placetne igitur
+vobis huic nomini assentire?_" being the form in which the question was
+proposed.
+
+The name first on the list was that of the Rev. Harvey Goodwin; and a
+faint buzz in the assembly was interpreted by the Vice-Chancellor,
+skilled in such sounds, as an expression of approval. Thereupon he
+passed on to name number two, which, with some agitation, but with
+clear, resonant voice, he read out as "Arthurus Penrhyn Stanley."
+Immediately there ensued a scene of the wildest confusion. On the
+_Placet_ side, cheers and waving of trencher-caps; on the _Non-Placet_
+side feeble hisses; and from all sides, undergraduate as well as
+graduate, mingled shouts of _Placet_ and _Non_, with an accompaniment of
+cheers and hisses; until the ringing voice of Dean Liddell pronounced
+the magic words _Fiat scrutinium_. Thereupon the two Proctors proceeded
+first of all to take the votes of the Doctors on their benches; and,
+when this was done, they took their station at the doors labelled
+_Placet_ and _Non-placet_. During the process of polling we had an
+opportunity of criticizing the constituents of that truly exceptional
+gathering. It was certainly not true to say, as some said, that only the
+younger Masters voted for Dean Stanley. There was quite a fair
+proportion of white and bald heads on the _Placet_ side. "The country
+contingent was not so numerous as one had expected, and I do not believe
+that all of these went out at the _Non-placet_ door. Evidently, parties
+were pretty evenly balanced; and, when the _Non-placets_ had all
+recorded their votes there were about twenty-five left on Dean Stanley's
+side, which probably would have nearly represented the actual majority,
+but, at the last moment, some stragglers, who had only arrived in Oxford
+by 2.25 train hurried in, and so swelled the numbers. One late-comer
+arrived without his academicals, and some zealous supporter of the Dean
+had to denude himself, and pass his cap and gown outside to enable this
+gentleman to vote." Soon it was over. The Proctors presented their lists
+to the Vice-Chancellor, who, amid breathless silence, pronounced the
+fateful words--"_Majori parti placet._" Then there was indeed a cheer,
+which rang through the building from basement to upper gallery, and was
+taken up outside in a way that reminded one of the trial of the Seven
+Bishops. The hisses, if there were any, were fairly drowned. Oxford had
+given its approval to Dean Stanley, the numbers being--_Placet_, 349;
+_Non-placet_, 287.
+
+When the fuss was over, Liddon wrote thus to a friend:--"It was a
+discreditable nomination; but, having been made, ought, in the interests
+of the Faith, to have been allowed to pass _sub silentio_; for, if
+opposed, it must either be defeated or affirmed by Convocation--a
+choice, _me judice_, of nearly balanced evils. To have defeated it would
+have been to invest Stanley with the cheap honours of a petty martyrdom.
+To have affirmed it is, I fear, to have given a new impetus to the
+barren, unspiritual negations which he represents."
+
+I went up to Oxford well supplied with introductions. Dr. Cradock, the
+well-beloved Principal of Brasenose, scholar, gentleman, man of the
+world, devout Wordsworthian, enthusiastic lover of cricket and boating,
+had married a connexion of my own, who had been a Maid of Honour in
+Queen Victoria's first household. Theirs was the most hospitable house
+in Oxford, and a portrait of Mrs. Cradock, not quite kind, but very
+lifelike, enlivens the serious pages of _Robert Elsmere_. Dr.,
+afterwards Sir Henry, Acland, with his majestic presence, blandly
+paternal address, and ample rhetoric, was not only the Regius Professor
+of Medicine, but also the true and patient friend of many undergraduate
+generations. Mrs. Acland is commemorated in what I have always thought
+one of the grandest sermons in the English language--Liddon's "Worth of
+Faith in a Life to Come."[15] The Warden of Keble and Mrs. Talbot (then
+the young wife of the young Head of a very young College) were, as they
+have been for 40 years, the kindest and most constant of friends. Dr.
+Bright, Canon of Christ Church and Professor of Ecclesiastical History,
+was a lavish entertainer, "with an intense dramatic skill in telling a
+story, an almost biblical knowledge of all the pages of Dickens (and of
+Scott), with shouts of glee, and outpourings of play and fancy and
+allusion." But I need not elaborate the portrait, for everyone ought to
+know Dr. Holland's "Personal Studies" by heart. Edwin Palmer, Professor
+of Latin, was reputed to be the best scholar in Oxford, and Mrs. Palmer
+was a most genial hostess. Henry Smith, Professor of Geometry, was, I
+suppose, the most accomplished man of his time;[16] yet he lives, not by
+his performances in the unthinkable sphere of metaphysical mathematics,
+but by his intervention at Gladstone's last contest for the University.
+Those were the days of open voting, and Smith was watching the votes in
+Gladstone's interest. Professor ----, who never could manage his h's,
+wished to vote for the Tory candidates, Sir William Heathcote and Mr.
+Gathorne Hardy, but lost his head, and said:--"I vote for Glad----."
+Then, suddenly correcting himself, exclaimed, "I mean for 'Eathcote and
+'Ardy." Thereupon Smith said, "I claim that vote for Gladstone." "But,"
+said the Vice-Chancellor, "the voter did not finish your candidate's
+name." "That is true," said Smith, "but then he did not even begin the
+other two." Henry Smith kept house with an admirable and accomplished
+sister--the first woman, I believe, to be elected to a School Board,
+and certainly the only one to whom J. W. Burgon (afterwards Dean of
+Chichester) devoted a whole sermon. "Miss Smith's Sermon," with its
+whimsical protest against feminine activities, was a standing joke in
+those distant days. The Rev. H. R. Bramley, Fellow of Magdalen, used to
+entertain us sumptuously in his most beautiful College. He was a
+connecting link between Dr. Routh (1755-1854) and modern Oxford, and in
+his rooms I was introduced to the ablest man of my generation--a
+newly-elected Scholar of Balliol called Alfred Milner.
+
+It is anticipating, but only by a Term or two (for Dr. King came to
+Christ Church in 1873), to speak of Sunday luncheons at the house of the
+Regius Professor of Pastoral Theology, and of Dr. Liddon's
+characteristic allusion to a remarkably bloated-looking Bishop of Oxford
+in balloon sleeves and a wig, whose portrait adorned the Professor's
+house. "How singular, dear friend, to reflect that _that person_ should
+have been chosen, in the providential order, to connect Mr. Keble with
+the Apostles!"
+
+But though the lines seem to have fallen unto me in ritualistic places,
+I was not without Evangelical advantages. Canon Linton, Rector of St.
+Peter-le-Bailey, was a dear old gentleman, who used to entertain
+undergraduates at breakfasts and luncheons, and after the meal, when
+more secularly-minded hosts might have suggested pipes, would lead us to
+a side-table, where a selection of theological works was displayed, and
+bid us take our choice. "Kay on the Psalms" was a possession thus
+acquired, and has been used by me from that time to this. Nor must this
+retrospective page omit some further reference to J. W. Burgon, Fellow
+of Oriel and Vicar of St. Mary-the-Virgin. Dean Church called him "the
+dear old learned Professor of Billingsgate," and certainly his method of
+conducting controversy savoured (as Sydney Smith said about Bishop Monk)
+of the apostolic occupation of trafficking in fish. But to those whom he
+liked, and who looked up to him (for this was an essential condition),
+he was kind, hospitable, courteous, and even playful. His humour, which
+was of a crabbed kind quite peculiar to himself, found its best vent in
+his sermons. I often wondered whether he realized that the extreme
+grotesqueness of his preaching was the spell which drew undergraduates
+to the Sunday evening service at St. Mary's.
+
+For my next reminiscence of hospitality to Freshmen I must rely on the
+assistance of a pseudonym. At the time of which I am writing, Oxford
+numbered among her Professors one who had graduated, at a rather
+advanced age, from Magdalen Hall. Borrowing a name from Dickens, we will
+call him "Professor Dingo, of European reputation." To the kindness of
+Professor and Mrs. Dingo I was commended by a friend who lived near my
+home in Bedfordshire, and soon after my arrival in Oxford they asked me
+to Sunday luncheon at their villa in The Parks. The conversation turned
+on a new book of Limericks (or "Nonsense Rhymes," as we called them
+then) about the various Colleges. The Professor had not seen it, and
+wanted to know if it was amusing. In my virginal innocence I replied
+that one rhyme had amused me. "Let's have it," quoth the Professor, so
+off I went at score--
+
+
+     "There once was at Magdalen Hall
+     A Man who knew nothing at all;
+         When he took his degree
+         He was past fifty-three--
+     Which is youngish for Magdalen Hall."
+
+
+The Professor snarled like an angry dog, and said, witheringly, that, if
+_that_ was a specimen, the book must be sorry stuff indeed. After
+luncheon I walked away with another undergraduate, rather senior to
+myself, who said rejoicingly, "You've made a good start. That rhyme is
+meant to describe old Dingo."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[13] "The Life of Faith and the Athanasian Creed." University Sermons.
+Series II.
+
+[14] The Rev. C. M. Davies, D.D.
+
+[15] University Sermons. Series II.
+
+[16] "He had gained University honours, such as have been gained by no
+one now living, and will probably never be won again.... He was one of
+the greatest mathematical geniuses of the century. His chief and highest
+intellectual interests lay in an unknown world into which not more than
+two or three persons could follow. In that world he travelled
+alone."--_From a Memorial Sermon by B. Jowett._
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+OXONIANA
+
+
+     "Mind'st thou the bells? What a place it was for bells, lad!
+     Spires as sharp as thrushes' bills to pierce the sky with song.
+     How it shook the heart of one, the swaying and the swinging,
+     How it set the blood a-tramp and all the brains a-singing,
+     Aye, and what a world of thought the calmer chimes came bringing,
+               Telling praises every hour
+               To His majesty and power,
+     Telling prayers with punctual service, summers, centuries, how long?
+     The beads upon our rosary of immemorial song."
+                                       _The Minstrelsy of Isis_.
+
+
+Oxford is a subject from which one cannot easily tear oneself: so I make
+no apology for returning to it. In that delightful book, "The Minstrelsy
+of Isis," I have found an anonymous poem beginning
+
+
+     "Royal heart, loyal heart, comrade that I loved,"
+
+
+and, in the spirit of that line, I dedicate this chapter to the friend
+whom I always regarded as the Ideal Undergraduate.[17] Other names and
+other faces of contemporaries and companions come crowding upon the
+memory, but it is better, on all accounts, to leave them unspecified. I
+lived quite as much in other colleges as in my own, and in a fellowship
+which was gathered from all sorts and sections of undergraduate life.
+Let the reader imagine all the best and brightest men in the University
+between 1872 and 1876, and he will not go far wrong in assuming that my
+friends were among them.
+
+My Oxford life was cut sharply into two halves by a very definite
+dividing-line; the first half was cheerful and irresponsible enough. A
+large part of the cheerfulness was connected with the Church, and my
+earliest friendships (after those which I brought with me from Harrow)
+were formed in the circle which frequented St. Barnabas. I am thankful
+to remember that my eyes were even then open to see the moral beauty and
+goodness all around me, and I had a splendid dream of blending it all
+into one. In my second term I founded an "Oxford University Church
+Society," designed to unite religious undergraduates of all shades of
+Churchmanship for common worship and interchange of views. We formed
+ourselves on what we heard of a similar Society at Cambridge; and, early
+in the Summer Term of 1873, a youth of ruddy countenance and graceful
+address--now Canon Mason and Master of Pembroke--came over from
+Cambridge, and told us how to set to work. The effort was indeed
+well-meant. It was blessed by Churchmen as dissimilar as Bishop
+Mackarness, Edwin Palmer, Burgon, Scott Holland, Illingworth, Ottley,
+Lacey, Gore, and Jayne, now Bishop of Chester; but it was not
+long-lived. Very soon the "Victorian Persecution," as we used to call
+it, engineered by Archbishop Tait through the P.W.R. Act, made it
+difficult for ritualists to feel that they had part or lot with those
+who were imprisoning conscientious clergymen; so the O.U.C.S. fell to
+pieces and disappeared, to be revived after long years and under more
+peaceable conditions, by the present Archbishop of York, when Vicar of
+St. Mary's.
+
+The accession of Dr. King to the Pastoral Professorship brought a new
+element of social delight into the ecclesiastical world of Oxford, and
+that was just what was wanted. We revered our leaders, but saw little of
+them. Dr. Pusey was buried in Christ Church; and though there were some
+who fraudulently professed to be students of Hebrew, in order that they
+might see him (and sketch him) at his lectures, most of us only heard
+him in the pulpit of St. Mary's. It was rather fun to take ritualistic
+ladies, who had fashioned mental pictures of the great Tractarian, to
+Evensong in Christ Church, and to watch their dismay as that very
+unascetic figure, with tumbled surplice and hood awry, toddled to his
+stall. "Dear me! Is that Dr. Pusey? Somehow I had fancied quite a
+different-looking man." Liddon was now a Canon of St. Paul's, and his
+home was at Amen Court; so, when residing at Oxford, he lived a sort of
+hermit-life in his rooms in Christ Church, and did not hold much
+communication with undergraduates. I have lively recollections of eating
+a kind of plum duff on Fridays at the Mission-House of Cowley, while one
+of the Fathers read passages from Tertullian on the remarriage of
+widows; but this, though edifying, was scarcely social.
+
+But the arrival of "Canon King," with the admirable mother who kept
+house for him, was like a sunrise. All those notions of austerity and
+stiffness and gloom which had somehow clung about Tractarianism were
+dispelled at once by his fun and sympathy and social tact. Under his
+roof, undergraduates always felt happy and at home; and in his "Bethel,"
+as he called it, a kind of disused greenhouse in his garden, he
+gathered week by week a band of undergraduate hearers, to whom religion
+spoke, through his lips, with her most searching yet most persuasive
+accent.
+
+Lovers of _Friendship's Garland_ will remember that, during their three
+years at Oxford, Lord Lumpington and Esau Hittall were "so much occupied
+with Bullingdon and hunting that there was no great opportunity for
+those mental gymnastics which train and brace the mind for future
+acquisition." My ways of wasting time were less strenuous than theirs;
+and my desultory reading, and desultory Church-work, were supplemented
+by a good deal of desultory riding. I have some delicious memories of
+autumnal canters over Shotover and Boar's Hill, and racing gallops
+across Port Meadow, and long ambles on summer afternoons, through the
+meadows by the river-side, towards Radley and Nuneham. Having been
+brought up in the country, and having ridden ever since I was promoted
+from panniers, I looked upon riding as a commonplace accomplishment,
+much on a par with swimming and skating. Great, therefore, was my
+surprise to find that many undergraduates, I suppose town-bred, regarded
+horsemanship not merely as a rare and difficult art, but also as
+implying a kind of moral distinction. When riding men met me riding, I
+saw that they "looked at each other with a wild surmise;" and soon,
+perhaps as a consequence, I was elected to "Vincent's." When, after a
+term or two, my father suggested that I had better have my own horse
+sent from home, I was distinctly conscious of a social elevation.
+Henceforward I might, if I would, associate with "Bloods"; but those
+whom they would have contemned as "Ritualistic Smugs" were more
+interesting companions.
+
+The mention of "Vincent's" reminds me of the Union, to which also I
+belonged, though I was a sparing and infrequent participator in its
+debates. I disliked debating for debating's sake; and, though I have
+always loved speaking on Religion or Politics or any other subject in
+which the spoken word might influence practice, it has always seemed to
+me a waste of effort to argue for abstract propositions. If by speaking
+I can lead a man to give a vote on the right side, or a boy to be more
+dutiful to his mother, or a sin-burdened youth to "open his grief," I am
+ready to speak all night; but the debates of the Oxford Union on the
+Falck Laws and the Imperial Titles Bill always left me cold.
+
+The General Election of 1874 occurred during my second year at Oxford.
+The City of Oxford was contested by Harcourt, Cardwell, and the local
+brewer. Harcourt and Cardwell were returned; but immediately afterwards
+Cardwell was raised to the peerage, and a bye-election ensued. I can
+vividly recall the gratification which I felt when the Liberal
+candidate--J. D. Lewis--warmly pressed my hand, and, looking at my
+rosette, hoped that he might count on my vote and interest. Not for the
+world would I have revealed the damning fact that I was a voteless
+undergraduate.
+
+In connexion with the Election of 1874, my tutor--C. A. Fyffe--told me a
+curious story. He was canvassing the Borough of Woodstock on behalf of
+George Brodrick, then an academic Liberal of the deepest dye. Woodstock
+was what was called an "Agricultural Borough"--practically a division of
+the County--and in an outlying district, in a solitary cottage, the
+canvassers found an old man whom his neighbours reported to be a
+Radical. He did not disclaim the title, but no inducements could induce
+him to go to the poll. Gradually, under persistent cross-examination, he
+revealed his mind. He was old enough to remember the days before the
+Reform Bill of 1832. His father had been an ardent reformer. Everyone
+believed that, if only the Bill were passed, hunger and poverty and
+misery would be abolished, and the poor would come by their own. He
+said--and this was the curious point--that firearms were stored in his
+father's cottage, to be used in a popular rising if the Bill were
+rejected by the Lords. Well, the Lords had submitted, and the Bill had
+been passed; and we had got our reform--and no one was any better off.
+The poor were still poor, and there was misery and oppression, and the
+great people had it all their own way. He had got his roof over his
+head, and "a bit of meat in his pot," and it was no good hoping for
+anything more, and he was never going to take any part in politics
+again. It was a notable echo from the voices which, in 1832, had
+proclaimed the arrival of the Millennium.
+
+Oxford in those days was full of Celebrities. Whenever one's friends
+came "up" to pay one a visit, one was pretty certain to be able, in a
+casual stroll up the High or round Magdalen Walks or Christ Church
+Meadows, to point out someone of whom they had heard before. I have
+already spoken of Liddell and Pusey and Liddon and Acland and Burgon
+and Henry Smith. Chief perhaps among our celebrities was Ruskin, who had
+lately been made Slade Professor of Fine Art, and whose Inaugural
+Lecture was incessantly on the lips of such undergraduates as cared for
+glorious declamation.
+
+"There is a destiny now possible to us--the highest ever set before a
+nation to be accepted or refused. We are still undegenerate in race; a
+race mingled of the best northern blood. We are not yet dissolute in
+temper, but still have the firmness to govern, and the grace to obey. We
+have been taught a religion of pure mercy, which we must either now
+finally betray, or learn to defend by fulfilling. And we are rich in an
+inheritance of honour, bequeathed to us through a thousand years of
+noble history, which it should be our daily thirst to increase with
+splendid avarice, so that Englishmen, if it be a sin to covet honour,
+should be the most offending souls alive.... Will you, youths of
+England, make your country again a royal throne of kings; a sceptred
+isle, for all the world a source of light, a centre of peace; mistress
+of Learning and of the Arts; faithful guardian of time-tried principles,
+under temptation from fond experiments and licentious desires; and,
+amidst the cruel and clamorous jealousies of the nations, worshipped in
+her strange valour, of goodwill towards men? _Vexilla regis prodeunt._
+Yes, but of which King? There are two oriflammes; which shall we plant
+on the farthest islands--the one that floats in heavenly fire, or that
+hangs heavy with foul tissue of terrestrial gold?"
+
+Ruskin's lectures, ostensibly devoted to the Fine Arts, ranged over
+every topic in earth and heaven, and were attended by the largest, most
+representative, and most responsive audiences which had ever been
+gathered in Oxford since Matthew Arnold delivered his Farewell Lecture
+on "Culture and its Enemies."
+
+Another of our Professors--J. E. Thorold Rogers--though perhaps scarcely
+a celebrity, was well known outside Oxford, partly because he was the
+first person to relinquish the clerical character under the Act of 1870,
+partly because of his really learned labours in history and economics,
+and partly because of his Rabelaisian humour. He was fond of writing
+sarcastic epigrams, and of reciting them to his friends, and this habit
+produced a characteristic retort from Jowett. Rogers had only an
+imperfect sympathy with the historians of the new school, and thus
+derided the mutual admiration of Green and Freeman--
+
+
+     "Where, ladling butter from a large tureen,
+     See blustering Freeman butter blundering Green."
+
+
+To which Jowett replied, in his quavering treble, "That's a false
+antithesis, Rogers. It's quite possible to bluster and blunder, too!"
+
+The mention of Oxford historians reminds me of my friend Professor
+Dingo, to whom reference has been made in an earlier chapter. He had a
+strong admiration for the virile and masterful character of Henry VIII.,
+and was wont to conceal the blots on his hero's career by this pathetic
+paraphrase--"The later years of this excellent monarch's reign were
+clouded by _much domestic unhappiness_."
+
+Jowett has been mentioned more than once, and there is no need for me to
+describe him. Lord Beaconsfield, in _Endymion_, gave a snapshot of "a
+certain Dr. Comeley, an Oxford Don of the new school, who were
+initiating Lord Montfort in all the mysteries of Neology. This
+celebrated divine, who, in a sweet silky voice, quoted Socrates instead
+of St. Paul, was opposed to all symbols and formulas as essentially
+unphilosophical." Mr. Mallock, in the _New Republic_, supplied us with
+a more finished portrait of "Dr. Jenkinson," and parodied his style of
+preaching with a perfection which irritated the Master of Balliol out of
+his habitual calm. My own intercourse with Jowett was not intimate, but
+I once dined with him on an occasion which made an equally deep
+impression on two of the guests--Lord Milner and myself. When the ladies
+had left the dining-room, an eminent diplomatist began an extremely
+full-flavoured conversation, which would have been unpleasant anywhere,
+and, in the presence of the diplomatist's son, a lad of sixteen, was
+disgusting. For a few minutes the Master endured it, though with visible
+annoyance; and then, suddenly addressing the offender at the other end
+of the table, said, in a birdlike chirp, "Sir ----." "Yes, Master."
+"Shall we continue this conversation in the drawing-room?" No rebuke was
+ever more neatly administered.
+
+Jowett's name reminds me, rather obliquely, of the Rev. H. O. Coxe, who
+in my time was Bodleian Librarian. He was clergyman, sportsman, scholar,
+all in one, with an infectious enthusiasm for the treasures in his
+charge, and the most unfailing kindness and patience in exhibiting them.
+"Those who have enjoyed the real privilege of hearing Mr. Coxe discuss
+points of historical detail, or have been introduced by him to some of
+the rarer treasures of the Bodleian, will bear witness to the living
+interest which such subjects acquired in his hands. How he would kindle
+while he recited Lord Clarendon's written resignation of the
+Chancellorship of the University! With what dramatic zest he read out
+the scraps of paper (carefully preserved by Clarendon) which used to
+pass between himself and his Royal Master across the Council-table!"
+
+I quote this life-like description from Burgon's _Twelve Good Men_, and
+Burgon it is who supplies the link with Jowett. "It was shortly after
+the publication of _Essays and Reviews_ that Jowett, meeting Coxe,
+enquired:--"Have you read my essay?" "No, my dear Jowett. We are good
+friends now; but I know that, if I were to read that essay, I should
+have to cut you. So I haven't read it, and I don't mean to.""--A
+commendable way of escape from theological controversy.
+
+It is scarcely fair to reckon Cardinal Manning among Oxford celebrities;
+but during my undergraduateship he made two incursions into the
+University, which were attended by some quaint consequences. In 1873 he
+was a guest at the banquet held in honour of the fiftieth anniversary of
+the foundation of the Union; and it was noted with amusement that,
+though he was not then a Cardinal, but merely a schismatic Archbishop,
+he contrived to take precedence of the Bishop of Oxford in his own
+cathedral city. Bishop Wilberforce had died three months before, and I
+remember that all the old stagers said:--"If Sam had still been Bishop
+of Oxford, this would not have happened." The Roman Catholics of Oxford
+were of course delighted; and when, soon afterwards, Manning returned as
+Cardinal to open the Roman Catholic Church in St. Giles's, great efforts
+were made to bring all undergraduates who showed any Rome-ward
+proclivities within the sphere of his influence. To one rather bumptious
+youth he said:--"And what are you going to do with your life?" "I'm
+thinking of taking Orders." "Take care you get them, my friend."
+Another, quite unmoved by the pectoral cross and crimson soutane, asked
+artlessly, "What was your college?" The Cardinal replied, with some
+dignity, "I was at Balliol, and subsequently at Merton." "Oh! that was
+like me. I was at Exeter, and I was sent down to a Hall for not getting
+through Smalls." "_I was a Fellow of Merton._" No powers of type can do
+justice to the intonation.
+
+At the time of which I speak Oxford was particularly rich in delightful
+and accomplished ladies. I have already paid my tribute to Mrs. Cradock,
+Mrs. Liddell, Mrs. Acland, Mrs. Talbot, and Miss Eleanor Smith. Miss
+Felicia Skene was at once a devoted servant of the poor and the outcast,
+and also one of the most powerful writers of her time, although she
+contrived almost entirely to escape observation. Let anyone who thinks
+that I rate her powers too highly read "The Divine Master," "La
+Roquette--1871," and "Hidden Depths."
+
+No account of the famous women at Oxford would be complete without a
+reference to Miss Marion Hughes--the first Sister of Mercy in the Church
+of England--professed on Trinity Sunday, 1841, and still the
+Foundress-Mother of the Convent of the Holy and Undivided Trinity at
+Oxford.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I said at the beginning of this chapter that my Oxford life was divided
+sharply into two halves. Neither the climate nor the way of living ever
+suited my health. In my first term I fell into the doctor's hands, and
+never escaped from them so long as I was an undergraduate. I well
+remember the decisive counsel of the first doctor whom I consulted (not
+Dr. Acland). "What wine do you drink?" "None--only beer." "Oh! that's
+all nonsense. You never will be able to live in this climate unless you
+drink port, and plenty of it."
+
+To this generous prescription I dutifully submitted, but even port was
+powerless to keep me well at Oxford. I always felt "seedy"; and the
+nervous worry inseparable from a time of spiritual storm and stress (for
+four of my most intimate friends seceded to Rome) told upon me more than
+I knew. An accidental chill brought things to a climax, and during the
+Christmas vacation of 1874 I was laid low by a sharp attack of
+_myelitis_, mistaken at the time for rheumatic fever. I heard the last
+stroke of midnight, December 31, in a paroxysm of pain which, for years
+after, I never could recall without feeling sick. I lost two terms
+through illness, and the doctors were against my returning to the damps
+of Oxford. However, I managed to hobble back on two sticks, maimed for
+life, and with all dreams of academical distinction at an end. But what
+was more important was that my whole scheme of life was dissipated.
+Henceforward it was with me, as with Robert Elsmere after his malaria
+at Cannes--"It was clear to himself and everybody else that he must do
+what he could, and not what he would, in the Christian vineyard." The
+words have always made me smile; but the reality was no smiling matter.
+The remainder of my life at Oxford was of necessity lived at half-speed;
+and in this place I must commemorate, with a gratitude which the lapse
+of years has never chilled, the extraordinary kindness and tenderness
+with which my undergraduate friends tended and nursed me in that time of
+crippledom.[18] Prince Leopold, then an undergraduate of Christ Church,
+and living at Wykeham House in The Parks, used to lend me his
+pony-carriage, which, as it strictly belonged to the Queen, and bore her
+crown and cypher, did not pay toll; and, with an undergraduate friend at
+my side, I used to snatch a fearful joy from driving at full tilt
+through turnpike gates, and mystifying the toll-keeper by saying that
+the Queen's carriages paid no toll. For the short remainder of my time
+at Oxford I was cut off from riding and all active exercise, and was not
+able even to go out in bad weather. It was with me as with Captain
+Harville in _Persuasion_--"His lameness prevented him from taking much
+exercise; but a mind of usefulness and ingenuity seemed to furnish him
+with constant employment within."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Here I must close my recollections of Oxford, and, as I look back upon
+those four years--1872-1876--I find my thoughts best expressed by Sir
+Arthur Quiller-Couch, who has done for Oxford in his _Alma Mater_ just
+what Matthew Arnold did in the preface to _Essays in Criticism_....
+
+
+     "Know you her secret none can utter?
+       Hers of the Book, the tripled Crown?
+     Still on the spire the pigeons flutter;
+       Still by the gateway flits the gown;
+     Still on the street, from corbel and gutter,
+       Faces of stone look down.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     Still on her spire the pigeons hover;
+       Still by her gateway haunts the gown;
+     Ah, but her secret? You, young lover,
+       Drumming her old ones forth from town,
+     Know you the secret none discover?
+       Tell it--when _you_ go down."
+
+
+_Know you the secret none discover_--none, that is, while they still are
+undergraduates?
+
+Well, I think I do; and, to begin with a negative, it is not the secret
+of Nirvana. There are misguided critics abroad in the land who seem to
+assume that life lived easily in a beautiful place, amid a society which
+includes all knowledge in its comprehensive survey, and far remote from
+the human tragedy of poverty and toil and pain, must necessarily be
+calm. And so, as regards the actual work and warfare of mankind, it may
+be. The bitter cry of starving Poplar does not very readily penetrate to
+the well-spread tables of Halls and Common-rooms. In a laburnum-clad
+villa in The Parks we can afford to reason very temperately about life
+in cities where five families camp in one room. But, when we leave
+actualities, and come to the region of thought and opinion, all the pent
+energy of Oxford seethes and stirs. The Hebrew word for "Prophet" comes,
+I believe, from a root which signifies to bubble like water on the
+flame; and it is just in this fervency of thought and feeling that
+Oxford is Prophetic. It is the tradition that in one year of the
+storm-tossed 'forties the subject for the Newdigate Prize Poem was
+Cromwell, whereas the subject for the corresponding poem at Cambridge
+was Plato. In that selection Oxford was true to herself. For a century
+at least (even if we leave out of sight her earlier convulsions) she
+has been the battle-field of contending sects. Her air has resounded
+with party-cries, and the dead bodies of the controversially slain lie
+thick in her streets. All the opposing forces of Church and State, of
+theology and politics, of philosophy and science, of literary and social
+and economic theory, have contended for mastery in the place which
+Matthew Arnold, with fine irony, described as "so unruffled by the
+fierce intellectual life of our century, so serene!" Every succeeding
+generation of Oxford men has borne its part in these ever recurring
+strifes. To hold aloof from them would have been poltroonery.
+Passionately convinced (at twenty) that we had sworn ourselves for life
+to each cause which we espoused, we have pleaded and planned and
+denounced and persuaded; have struck the shrewdest blows which our
+strength could compass, and devised the most dangerous pitfalls for our
+opponents' feet which wit could suggest. Nothing came of it all, and
+nothing could come, except the ruin of our appointed studies and the
+resulting dislocation of all subsequent life. But we were obeying the
+irresistible impulse of the time and the place in which our lot was
+cast, and we were ready to risk our all upon the venture.
+
+But now all that passion, genuine enough while it lasted, lies far back
+in the past, and we learn the secret which we never discovered while as
+yet Oxford held us in the thick of the fight. We thought then that we
+were the most desperate partisans; we asked no quarter, and gave none;
+pushed our argumentative victories to their uttermost consequences, and
+made short work of a fallen foe. But, when all the old battle-cries have
+died out of our ears, gentler voices begin to make themselves heard. All
+at once we realize that a great part of our old contentions was only
+sound and fury and self-deception, and that, though the causes for which
+we strove may have been absolutely right, our opponents were not
+necessarily villains. In a word, we have learnt the Secret of Oxford.
+All the time that we were fighting and fuming, the higher and subtler
+influences of the place were moulding us, unconscious though we were, to
+a more gracious ideal. We had really learnt to distinguish between
+intellectual error and moral obliquity. We could differ from another on
+every point of the political and theological compass, and yet in our
+hearts acknowledge him to be the best of all good fellows. Without
+surrendering a single conviction, we came to see the virtue of so
+stating our beliefs as to persuade and propitiate, instead of offending
+and alienating. We had attained to that temper which, in the sphere of
+thought and opinion, is analogous to the crowning virtue of Christian
+charity.
+
+
+     "Tell it--when _you_ go down."
+
+
+Not long ago I was addressing a company of Oxford undergraduates, all
+keenly alive to the interests and controversies of the present hour, all
+devotedly loyal to the tradition of Oxford as each understood it, and
+all with their eyes eagerly fixed on "the wistful limit of the world."
+With such an audience it was inevitable to insist on the graces and
+benedictions which Oxford can confer, and to dwell on Mr. Gladstone's
+dogma that to call a man a "typically Oxford man" is to bestow the
+highest possible praise.
+
+But this was not all. Something more remained to be said. It was for a
+speaker whose undergraduateship lay thirty years behind to state as
+plainly as he could his own deepest obligation to the place which had
+decided the course and complexion of his life. Wherever philosophical
+insight is combined with literary genius and personal charm, one says
+instinctively, "That man is, or ought to be, an Oxford man." Chiefest
+among the great names which Oxford ought to claim but cannot is the name
+of Edmund Burke; and the "Secret" on which we have been discoursing
+seems to be conveyed with luminous precision in his description of the
+ideal character:--"It is our business ... to bring the dispositions that
+are lovely in private life into the service and conduct of the
+commonwealth; so to be patriots as not to forget we are gentlemen; to
+cultivate friendships and to incur enmities; to have both strong, but
+both selected--in the one to be placable, in the other immovable."
+
+Whoso has attained to that ideal has learnt the "Secret" of Oxford.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[17] The Rev. J. M. Lester.
+
+[18] Here I must depart from my rule, and mention a name--FitzRoy
+Stewart.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+HOME
+
+
+     "Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam;
+     True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home."
+                            WORDSWORTH, "_To a Sky-lark_."
+
+
+I said good-bye to Oxford on the 17th of June, 1876. What was the next
+step to be? As so often in my life, the decision came through a doctor's
+lips. He spoke in a figure, and this is what he said. "When a man has
+had a severe illness, he has taken a large sum out of his capital.
+Unless he has the wisdom to replace it, he must be permanently poorer;
+and, when the original stock was not large, the necessity of economizing
+becomes more urgent. You are in that case. My advice, therefore, is--Do
+nothing for the next two or three years. Concentrate all your efforts on
+getting better. Live as healthy a life as you can, and give mind and
+body a complete rest. If you will obey this counsel, you will find that
+you have replaced the capital, or, at any rate, some of it; and you may,
+in spite of all disabilities, be able to take your part in the life and
+work of the world." The prescription of total abstinence from effort
+exactly suited my disposition of the moment. Oxford, one way and
+another, had taken more out of me than till then I had realized, and I
+was only too thankful to have an opportunity of making good the loss.
+
+It being, for the time, my prime object to recover some portion of
+health and strength, I was beyond measure fortunate in the possession of
+an absolutely ideal home. "'Home! Sweet Home!' Yes. That is the song
+that goes straight to the heart of every English man and woman. For
+forty years we never asked Madame Adelina Patti to sing anything else.
+The unhappy, decadent, Latin races have not even a word in their
+language by which to express it, poor things! Home is the secret of our
+honest, British, Protestant virtues. It is the only nursery of our
+Anglo-Saxon citizenship. Back to it our far-flung children turn, with
+all their memories aflame. They may lapse into rough ways, but they keep
+something sound at the core so long as they are faithful to the old
+home. There is still a tenderness in the voice, and tears are in their
+eyes, as they speak together of the days that can never die out of
+their lives, when they were at home in the old familiar places, with
+father and mother, in the healthy gladness of their childhood."[19] To
+me home was all this and even more; for not only had it been my earthly
+Paradise when I was a child, but now, in opening manhood, it was a
+sanctuary and a resting-place, in which I could prepare myself to face
+whatever lot the future might have in store for me.
+
+That London as well as country may be, under certain conditions, Home, I
+am well aware. For many natures London has an attractiveness which is
+all its own. And yet to indulge one's taste for it may be a grave
+dereliction of duty. The State is built upon the Home, and as a
+training-place for social virtue, there can surely be no comparison
+between a home in the country and a home in London. All those educating
+influences which count for so much in the true home are infinitely
+weaker in the town than in the country. In a London home there is
+nothing to fascinate the eye. The contemplation of the mews and the
+chimney-pots through the back-windows of the nursery will not elevate
+even the most impressible child. There is no mystery, no dreamland, no
+Enchanted Palace, no Bluebeard's Chamber, in a stucco mansion built by
+Cubitt, or a palace of terra-cotta on the Cadogan estate. There can be
+no traditions of the past, no inspiring memories of virtuous ancestry,
+in a house which your father bought five years ago and of which the
+previous owners are not known to you even by name. "The Square" or "The
+Gardens" are sorry substitutes for the Park and the Pleasure-grounds,
+the Common and the Downs. Crossing-sweepers are a deserving folk, but
+you cannot cultivate those intimate relations with them which bind you
+to the lodge-keeper at home, or to the old women in the almshouses, or
+to the septuagenarian waggoner who has driven your father's team ever
+since he was ten years old. Holy Trinity, Sloane Street, or All Saints,
+Margaret Street, may be beautifully ornate, and the congregation what
+Lord Beaconsfield called "sparkling and modish"; but they can never have
+the romantic charm of the Village Church where you were confirmed side
+by side with the keeper's son, or proposed to the Vicar's daughter when
+you were wreathing holly round the lectern. There is a magic in the
+memory of a country home with which no urban associations can compete.
+
+Nowadays the world is perpetually on the move, but in the old days
+people who possessed a country house passed nine months out of the
+twelve under its sacred roof--sacred because it was inseparably
+connected with memories of ancestry and parentage and early association;
+with marriage and children, and pure enjoyment and active benevolence
+and neighbourly goodwill. In a word, the country house was Home, and for
+those who dwelt in it the interests of life were very much bound up in
+the Park and the covers, the croquet-ground and the cricket-ground, the
+kennel, the stable, and the garden. I remember, when I was an
+undergraduate, lionizing some Yorkshire damsels on their first visit to
+Oxford, then in the "high midsummer pomps" of its beauty. But all they
+said was, in the pensive tone of unwilling exiles, "How beautifully the
+sun must be shining on the South Walk at home!"
+
+The Village Church was a great centre of domestic affection. All the
+family had been christened in it. The eldest sister had been married in
+it. Generations of ancestry mouldered under the chancel-floor. Christmas
+decorations were an occasion of much innocent merriment, and a little
+ditty high in favour in Tractarian homes warned the decorators to be--
+
+
+     "Unselfish--looking not to see
+     Proofs of their own dexterity;
+     But quite contented that 'I' should
+     Forgotten be in brotherhood."
+
+
+Of course, whether Tractarian or Evangelical, religious people regarded
+church-going as a spiritual privilege; and everyone, religious or not,
+recognized it as a civil duty. "When a gentleman is _sur ses terres_,"
+said Major Pendennis, "he must give an example to the country people;
+and, if I could turn a tune, I even think I should sing. The Duke of St.
+David's, whom I have the honour of knowing, always sings in the country,
+and let me tell you it has a doosed fine effect from the Family Pew."
+Before the passion for "restoration" had set in, and ere yet Sir Gilbert
+Scott had transmogrified the Parish Churches of England, the Family Pew
+was indeed the ark and sanctuary of the territorial system--and a very
+comfortable ark too. It had a private entrance, a round table, a good
+assortment of armchairs, a fire-place, and a wood-basket. And I well
+remember a wash-leather glove of unusual size which was kept in the
+wood-basket for the greater convenience of making up the fire during
+divine service. "You may restore the church as much as you like," said
+the lay-rector of our parish, to an innovating Incumbent, "but I must
+insist on my Family Pew not being touched. If I had to sit in an open
+seat, I should never get a wink of sleep again."
+
+A country home left its mark for all time on those who were brought up
+in it. The sons played cricket and went bat-fowling with the village
+boys, and not seldom joined with them in a poaching expedition to the
+paternal preserves. However popular or successful or happy a
+Public-school boy might be at Eton or Harrow, he counted the days till
+he could return to his pony and his gun, his ferrets and rat-trap and
+fishing-rod. In after years, amid all the toil and worry of active life,
+he looked back lovingly to the corner of the cover where he shot his
+first pheasant, or the precise spot in the middle of the Vale where he
+first saw a fox killed, and underwent the disgusting Baptism of Blood.
+
+Girls, living more continuously at home, entered even more intimately
+into the daily life of the place. Their morning rides led them across
+the Village Green; their afternoon drives were often steered by the
+claims of this or that cottage to a visit. They were taught as soon as
+they could toddle never to enter a door without knocking, never to sit
+down without being asked, and never to call at meal-time. They knew
+everyone in the village--old and young; played with the babies, taught
+the boys in Sunday School, carried savoury messes to the old and
+impotent, read by the sick-beds, and brought flowers for the coffin.
+Mamma knitted comforters and dispensed warm clothing, organized relief
+in hard winters and times of epidemic, and found places for the
+hobbledehoys of both sexes. The pony-boy and the scullery-maid were
+pretty sure to be products of the village. Very likely the
+young-ladies'-maid was a village girl whom the doctor had pronounced too
+delicate for factory or farm. I have seen an excited young groom staring
+his eyes out of his head at the Eton and Harrow match, and exclaiming
+with rapture at a good catch, "It was my young governor as 'scouted'
+that. 'E's nimble, ain't he?" And I well remember an ancient
+stable-helper at a country house in Buckinghamshire who was called "Old
+Bucks," because he had never slept out of his native county, and very
+rarely out of his native village, and had spent his whole life in the
+service of one family.
+
+Of course, when so much of the impressionable part of life was lived
+amid the "sweet, sincere surroundings of country life," there grew up,
+between the family at the Hall and the families in the village, a
+feeling which, in spite of our national unsentimentality, had a
+chivalrous and almost feudal tone. The interest of the poor in the life
+and doings of "The Family" was keen and genuine. The English peasant is
+too much a gentleman to be a flatterer, and compliments were often
+bestowed in very unexpected forms. "They do tell me as 'is
+understanding's no worse than it always were," was a ploughman's way of
+saying that an uncle of mine was in full possession of his faculties.
+"We call 'im 'Lord Charles' because he's so old and so cunning," was
+another's description of a pony which had belonged to my father. "Ah, I
+know you're but a poor creature at the best!" was the recognized way of
+complimenting a lady on what she considered her bewitching and romantic
+delicacy.
+
+But these eccentricities were merely verbal, and under them lay a deep
+vein of genuine and lasting regard. "I've lived under four dukes and
+four 'ousekeepers, and I'm not going to be put upon in my old age!" was
+the exclamation of an ancient poultry-woman, whose dignity had been
+offended by some irregularity touching her Christmas dinner. When the
+daughter of the house married and went into a far country, she was sure
+to find some emigrant from her old home who welcomed her with effusion,
+and was full of enquiries about his Lordship and her Ladyship, and Miss
+Pinkerton the governess, and whether Mr. Wheeler was still coachman, and
+who lived now at the Entrance Lodge. Whether the sons got commissions,
+or took ranches, or became curates in slums, or contested remote
+constituencies, some grinning face was sure to emerge from the crowd
+with "You know me, sir? Bill Juffs, as used to go birds-nesting with
+you"; or, "You remember my old dad, my lord? He used to shoe your black
+pony." When the eldest son came of age, his condescension in taking this
+step was hailed with genuine enthusiasm. When he came into his kingdom,
+there might be some grumbling if he went in for small economies, or
+altered old practices, or was a "hard man" on the Bench or at the Board
+of Guardians; but, if he went on in the good-natured old ways, the
+traditional loyalty was unabated. Lord Shaftesbury wrote thus about the
+birth of his eldest son's eldest son:--"My little village is all agog
+with the birth of a son and heir in the very midst of them, the first,
+it is believed, since 1600, when the first Lord Shaftesbury was born.
+The christening yesterday was an ovation. Every cottage had flags and
+flowers. We had three triumphal arches; and all the people were
+exulting. 'He is one of us.' 'He is a fellow-villager.' 'We have now got
+a lord of our own.' This is really gratifying. I did not think that
+there remained so much of the old respect and affection between peasant
+and proprietor, landlord and tenant."
+
+In the present day, if a season of financial pressure sets in, people
+shut up their country houses, let their shooting, cut themselves off
+with a sigh of relief from all the unexciting duties and simple
+pleasures of the Home, and take refuge from boredom in the delights of
+London. In London life has no duties. Little is expected of one, and
+nothing required.
+
+But in old days, when people wished to economize, it was London that
+they deserted. They sold the "Family Mansion" in Portland Place or Eaton
+Square; and, if they revisited the glimpses of the social moon, they
+took a furnished house for six weeks in the summer; the rest of the year
+they spent in the country. This plan was a manifold saving. There was no
+rent to pay, and only very small rates, for everyone knows that country
+houses are shamefully under-assessed. Carriages did not require
+re-painting every season, and no new clothes were wanted. As the ladies
+in _Cranford_ said--"What can it matter what we wear here, where
+everyone knows who we are?" The products of the Park, the Home Farm, the
+hothouses, and the kitchen-garden kept the family supplied with food. A
+brother-magnate staying at Beaudesert with the famous Lord Anglesey
+waxed enthusiastic over the mutton, and, venturing on the privilege of
+an old friendship, asked how much it cost him. "Cost me?" screamed the
+hero. "Good Gad, it costs me nothing! I don't buy it. It's my own," and
+he was beyond measure astonished when his statistical guest proved that
+"his own" cost him about a guinea per pound. In another great house,
+conducted on strictly economical lines, it was said that the very
+numerous family were reared exclusively on rabbits and garden-stuff, and
+that their enfeebled constitutions and dismal appearance in later life
+were due to this ascetic regimen.
+
+People were always hospitable in the country; but rural entertaining was
+not a very costly business. The "three square meals and a snack," which
+represent the minimum requirements of the present day, are a huge
+development of the system which prevailed in my youth. Breakfast had
+already grown from the tea and coffee, and rolls and eggs, which
+Macaulay tells us were deemed sufficient at Holland House, to an affair
+of covered dishes. Luncheon-parties were sometimes given--terrible
+ceremonies which lasted from two to four; but the ordinary luncheon of
+the family was a snack from the servants' joint or the children's rice
+pudding; and five o'clock tea had only lately been invented. To
+remember, as I just can, the Foundress[20] of that divine refreshment
+seems like having known Stephenson or Jenner.
+
+Dinner was substantial enough in all conscience, and the wine nearly as
+heavy as the food. Imagine quenching one's thirst with sherry in the
+dog-days! Yet so we did, till about half-way through dinner, and then,
+on great occasions, a dark-coloured rill of champagne began to trickle
+into the V-shaped glasses. At the epoch of cheese, port made its
+appearance in company with home-brewed beer; and, as soon as the ladies
+and the schoolboys departed, the men applied themselves, with much
+seriousness of purpose, to the consumption of claret which was really
+vinous.
+
+Grace was said before and after dinner. There was a famous squire in
+Hertfordshire whose love of his dinner was constantly at war with his
+pietistic traditions. He always had his glass of sherry poured out
+before he sat down to dinner, so that he might get at it without a
+moment's delay. One night, in his generous eagerness, he upset the glass
+just as he dropped into his seat at the end of grace, and the formula
+ran on to an unexpected conclusion, thus: "For what we are going to
+receive, the Lord make us truly thankful--D--n!" But if the
+incongruities which attended grace before dinner were disturbing, still
+more so were the solemnities of the close. Grace after dinner always
+happened at the moment of loudest and most general conversation. For an
+hour and a half people had been stuffing as if their lives depended on
+it--"one feeding like forty." Out of the abundance of the mouth the
+heart speaketh, and everyone was talking at once, and very loud. Perhaps
+the venue was laid in a fox-hunting country, and then the air was full
+of such voices as these: "Were you out with the Squire to-day?" "Any
+sport?" "Yes, we'd rather a nice gallop." "Plenty of the animal about, I
+hope?" "Well, I don't know. I believe that new keeper at Boreham Wood is
+a vulpicide. I don't half like his looks." "What an infernal villain! A
+man who would shoot a fox would poison his own grandmother." "Sh! Sh!"
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"_For what we have received_," &c.
+
+"Do you know you've been talking at the top of your voice all the time
+grace was going on?"
+
+"Not really? I'm awfully sorry. But our host mumbles so, I never can
+make out what he's saying."
+
+"I can't imagine why people don't have grace after dessert. I know I'm
+much more thankful for strawberry ice than for saddle of mutton."
+
+And so on and so forth. On the whole, I am not sure that the abolition
+of grace is a sign of moral degeneracy, but I note it as a social change
+which I have seen.
+
+In this kind of hospitality there was no great expense. People made very
+little difference between their way of living when they were alone, and
+their way of living when they had company. A visitor who wished to make
+himself agreeable sometimes brought down a basket of fish or a barrel of
+oysters from London; and, if one had no deer of one's own, the arrival
+of a haunch from a neighbour's or kinsman's park was the signal for a
+gathering of local gastronomers. And in matters other than meals life
+went on very much the same whether you had friends staying with you or
+whether you were alone. The guests drove and rode, and walked and shot,
+according to their tastes and the season of the year. They were carried
+off, more or less willingly, to see the sights of the
+neighbourhood--ruined castles, restored cathedrals, famous views. In
+summer there might be a picnic or a croquet-party; in winter a lawn-meet
+or a ball. But all these entertainments were of the most homely and
+inexpensive character. There was very little outlay, no fuss, and no
+display.
+
+But now an entirely different spirit prevails. People seem to have lost
+the power of living quietly and happily in their country homes. They all
+have imbibed the urban philosophy of George Warrington, who, when Pen
+gushed about the country with its "long, calm days, and long calm
+evenings," brutally replied, "Devilish long, and a great deal too calm.
+I've tried 'em." People of that type desert the country simply because
+they are bored by it. They feel with the gentleman who stood for Matthew
+Arnold in _The New Republic_, and who, after talking about "liberal
+air," "sedged brooks," and "meadow grass," admitted that it would be a
+dreadful bore to have no other society than the Clergyman of the parish,
+and no other topics of conversation than Justification by Faith and the
+measles. They do not care for the country in itself; they have no eye
+for its beauty, no sense of its atmosphere, no memory for its
+traditions. It is only made endurable to them by sport and gambling and
+boisterous house-parties; and when, from one cause or another, these
+resources fail, they are frankly bored, and long for London. They are no
+longer content, as our fathers were, to entertain their friends with
+hospitable simplicity. So profoundly has all society been vulgarized by
+the worship of the Golden Calf that, unless people can vie with alien
+millionaires in the sumptuousness with which they "do you"--delightful
+phrase,--they prefer not to entertain at all. An emulous ostentation has
+killed hospitality. All this is treason to a high ideal.
+
+Whatever tends to make the Home beautiful, attractive, romantic--to
+associate it with the ideas of pure pleasure and high duty--to connect
+it not only with all that was happiest, but also with all that was best,
+in early years--whatever fulfils these purposes purifies the fountain of
+national life. A home, to be perfectly a home, should "incorporate
+tradition, and prolong the reign of the dead." It should animate those
+who dwell in it to virtue and beneficence, by reminding them of what
+others did, who went before them in the same place, and lived amid the
+same surroundings. Thank God, such a home was mine.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[19] Henry Scott Holland.
+
+[20] Anna Maria, Duchess of Bedford, died in 1857.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+LONDON
+
+
+     "O'er royal London, in luxuriant May,
+     While lamps yet twinkled, dawning crept the day.
+     Home from the hell the pale-eyed gamester steals;
+     Home from the ball flash jaded Beauty's wheels;
+     From fields suburban rolls the early cart;
+     As rests the Revel, so awakes the Mart."
+                                        _The New Timon_.
+
+
+When I was penning, in the last chapter, my perfectly sincere praises of
+the country, an incongruous reminiscence suddenly froze the genial
+current of my soul. Something, I know not what, reminded me of the
+occasion when Mrs. Bardell and her friends made their memorable
+expedition to the "Spaniards Tea-Gardens" at Hampstead. "How sweet the
+country is, to be sure!" sighed Mrs. Rogers; "I almost wish I lived in
+it always." To this Mr. Raddle, full of sympathy, rejoined: "For lone
+people as have got nobody to care for them, or as have been hurt in
+their mind, or that sort of thing, the country is all very well. The
+country for a wounded spirit, they say." But the general verdict of the
+company was that Mrs. Rogers was "a great deal too lively and
+sought-after, to be content with the country"; and, on second thoughts,
+the lady herself acquiesced. I feel that my natural temperament had
+something in common with that of Mrs. Rogers. "My spirit" (and my body
+too) had been "wounded" by Oxford, and the country acted as both a
+poultice and a tonic. But my social instinct was always strong, and
+could not be permanently content with "a lodge in the vast wilderness"
+of Woburn Park, or dwell for ever in the "boundless contiguity of shade"
+which obliterates the line between Beds and Bucks.
+
+I was very careful to observe the doctor's prescription of total
+idleness, but I found it was quite as easily obeyed in London as in the
+country. For three or four months then, of every year, I forsook the
+Home which just now I praised so lavishly, and applied myself,
+circumspectly indeed but with keen enjoyment, to the pleasures of the
+town.
+
+"_One look back_"--What was London like in those distant days, which
+lie, say, between 1876 and 1886?
+
+Structurally and visibly, it was a much uglier place than now. The
+immeasurable wastes of Belgravian stucco; the "Baker Streets and Harley
+Streets and Wimpole Streets, resembling each other like a large family
+of plain children, with Portland Place and Portman Square for their
+respectable parents,"[21] were still unbroken by the red brick and
+terra-cotta, white stone and green tiles, of our more aesthetic age. The
+flower-beds in the Parks were less brilliant, for that "Grand old
+gardener," Mr. Harcourt, to whom we are so much indebted, was still at
+Eton. Piccadilly had not been widened. The Arches at Hyde Park Corner
+had not been re-arranged. Glorious Whitehall was half occupied by shabby
+shops; and labyrinths of slums covered the sites of Kingsway and
+Shaftesbury Avenue.
+
+But, though London is now a much prettier place than it was then, I
+doubt if it is as socially magnificent. The divinity which hedged Queen
+Victoria invested her occasional visits to her Capital with a glamour
+which it is difficult to explain to those who never felt it. Of beauty,
+stature, splendour, and other fancied attributes of Queenship, there was
+none; but there was a dignity which can neither be described nor
+imitated; and, when her subjects knelt to kiss her hand at Drawing
+Room, or Levee, or Investiture, they felt a kind of sacred awe which no
+other presence could inspire.
+
+It was, of course, one of the elements of Queen Victoria's mysterious
+power, that she was so seldom seen in London. In the early days of her
+widowhood she had resigned the command of Society into other hands; and
+social London, at the time of which I write, was dominated by the Prince
+of Wales. Just at this moment,[22] when those who knew him well are
+genuinely mourning the loss of King Edward VII., it would scarcely
+become me to describe his influence on Society when first I moved in it.
+So I borrow the words of an anonymous writer, who, at the time at which
+his book was published, was generally admitted to know the subjects of
+which he discoursed.
+
+"The Social Ruler of the English realm is the Prince of Wales. I call
+him the Social Ruler, because, in all matters pertaining to society and
+to ceremonial, he plays vicariously the part of the Sovereign. The
+English monarchy may be described at the present moment as being in a
+state of commission. Most of its official duties are performed by the
+Queen. It is the Prince of Wales who transacts its ceremonial business,
+and exhibits to the masses the embodiment of the monarchical principle.
+If there were no Marlborough House, there would be no Court in London.
+The house of the Prince of Wales may be an unsatisfactory substitute for
+a Court, but it is the only substitute which exists, and it is the best
+which, under the circumstances, is attainable.
+
+"In his attitude to English Society, the Prince of Wales is a benevolent
+despot. He wishes it to enjoy itself, to disport itself, to dance, sing,
+and play to its heart's content. But he desires that it should do so in
+the right manner, at the right times, and in the right places; and of
+these conditions he holds that he is the best, and, indeed, an
+infallible, judge.
+
+"The Prince of Wales is the Bismarck of London society: he is also its
+microcosm. All its idiosyncrasies are reflected in the person of His
+Royal Highness. Its hopes, its fears, its aspirations, its solicitudes,
+its susceptibilities, its philosophy, its way of looking at life and of
+appraising character--of each of these is the Heir-Apparent the mirror.
+If a definition of Society were sought for, I should be inclined to give
+it as the social area of which the Prince of Wales is personally
+cognizant, within the limits of which he visits, and every member of
+which is to some extent in touch with the ideas and wishes of His Royal
+Highness. But for this central authority, Society in London would be in
+imminent danger of falling into the same chaos and collapse as the
+universe itself, were one of the great laws of nature to be suspended
+for five minutes."
+
+Of the loved and gracious lady who is now Queen Mother, I may trust
+myself to speak. I first saw her at Harrow Speeches, when I was a boy of
+18, and from that day to this I have admired her more than any woman
+whom I have ever seen. To the flawless beauty of the face there was
+added that wonderful charm of innocence and unfading youth which no
+sumptuosities of dress and decoration could conceal. To see the Princess
+in Society was in those days one of my chief delights, and the sight
+always suggested to my mind the idea of a Puritan Maiden set in the
+midst of Vanity Fair.
+
+We have seen that the centre of Society at the period which I am
+describing was Marlborough House, and that centre was encircled by rings
+of various compass, the widest extending to South Kensington in the one
+direction, and Portman Square in the other. The innermost ring was
+composed of personal friends, and, as personal friendship belongs to
+private life, we must not here discuss it. The second ring was composed
+of the great houses--"The Palaces," as Pennialinus[23] calls them,--the
+houses, I mean, which are not distinguished by numbers, but are called
+"House," with a capital H. And first among these I must place Grosvenor
+House. As I look back over all the entertainments which I have ever seen
+in London, I can recall nothing to compare with a Ball at Grosvenor
+House, in the days of Hugh, Duke of Westminster, and his glorious wife.
+No lesser epithet than "glorious" expresses the combination of beauty,
+splendour, and hospitable enjoyment, which made Constance, Duchess of
+Westminster, so unique a hostess. Let me try to recall the scene.
+
+Dancing has begun in a tentative sort of way, when there is a sudden
+pause, and "God Save the Queen" is heard in the front hall. The Prince
+and Princess of Wales have arrived, and their entrance is a pageant
+worth seeing. With courtly grace and pretty pomp, the host and hostess
+usher their royal guests into the great gallery, walled with the
+canvasses of Rubens, which serves as a dancing-room. Then the fun
+begins, and the bright hours fly swiftly till one o'clock suggests the
+tender thought of supper, which is served on gold plate and Sevres china
+in a garden-tent of Gobelins tapestry. "'What a perfect family!'
+exclaimed Hugo Bohun, as he extracted a couple of fat little birds from
+their bed of aspic jelly. 'Everything they do in such perfect taste. How
+safe you were to have ortolans for supper!'"[24]
+
+Next in my recollection to Grosvenor House, but after a considerable
+interval, comes Stafford House. This is a more pretentious building than
+the other; built by the Duke of York and bought by the Duke of
+Sutherland, with a hall and staircase designed by Barry, perfect in
+proportion, and so harmonious in colouring that its purple and yellow
+_scagliola_ might deceive the very elect into the belief that it is
+marble. There, as at Grosvenor House, were wealth and splendour and the
+highest rank; a hospitable host and a handsome hostess; but the peculiar
+feeling of welcome, which distinguished Grosvenor House, was lacking,
+and the aspect of the whole place, on an evening of entertainment, was
+rather that of a mob than of a party.
+
+Northumberland House at Charing Cross, the abode of the historic
+Percys, had disappeared before I came to London, yielding place to
+Northumberland Avenue; but there were plenty of "Houses" left. Near
+where the Percys had flourished, the Duke of Buccleuch, a magnifico of
+the patriarchal type, kept court at Montagu House, and Londoners have
+not yet forgotten that, when the Thames Embankment was proposed, he
+suggested that the new thoroughfare should be deflected, so that it
+might not interfere with the ducal garden running down to the river. In
+the famous Picture-Gallery of Bridgewater House, Lord Beaconsfield
+harangued his disconsolate supporters after the disastrous election of
+1880, and predicted that Conservative revival which he did not live to
+see. Close by at Spencer House, a beautiful specimen of the decorative
+work of the Brothers Adam, the Liberal Party used to gather round the
+host, who looked like a Van Dyke. Another of their resorts was
+Devonshire House, which Horace Walpole pronounced "good and plain as the
+Duke of Devonshire who built it." There the 7th Duke, who was a
+mathematician and a scholar, but no lover of society, used to hide
+behind the door in sheer terror of his guests, while his son, Lord
+Hartington, afterwards 8th Duke, gazed with ill-concealed aversion on
+his political supporters. Lansdowne House was, as it still is, a Palace
+of Art, with all the dignity and amenity of a country house, planted in
+the very heart of London. During the last quarter of a century the
+creation of Liberal Unionism has made it the headquarters of a political
+party; but, at the time of which I write, it was only a place of select
+and beautiful entertaining.
+
+Apsley House, the abode of "The Son of Waterloo," could not, in my time,
+be reckoned a social centre, but was chiefly interesting as a museum of
+Wellington relics. Norfolk House was, as it is, the headquarters of
+Roman Catholic society, and there, in 1880, was seen the unique sight of
+Matthew Arnold doing obeisance to Cardinal Newman at an evening
+party.[25] Dorchester House, architecturally considered, is beyond doubt
+the grandest thing in London; in those days occupied by the accomplished
+Mr. Holford, who built it, and now let to the American Ambassador.
+Chesterfield House, with its arcaded staircase of marble and bronze from
+the dismantled palace of the Dukes of Chandos at Edgeware, was built by
+the fourth Lord Chesterfield, as he tells us, "among the fields;" and
+contains the library in which he wrote his famous letters to his son.
+Holland House, so long the acknowledged sanctuary of the Whig party,
+still stands amid its terraces and gardens, though its hayfields have, I
+fear, fallen into the builders' hands. Macaulay's Essay, if nothing
+else, will always preserve it from oblivion.
+
+I have written so far about these "Houses," because in virtue of their
+imposing characteristics they formed, as it were, an inner, if not the
+innermost, circle round Marlborough House. But of course Society did not
+dwell exclusively in "Houses," and any social chronicler of the period
+which I am describing will have to include in his survey the long
+stretch of Piccadilly, dividing the "W." from the "S.W." district. On
+the upper side of it, Portman Square, Grosvenor Square, Berkeley Square,
+the Grosvenor Streets and Brook Streets, Curzon Street, Charles Street,
+Hill Street; and below, St. James's Square and Carlton House Terrace,
+Grosvenor Place, Belgrave Square and Eaton Square, Lowndes Square and
+Chesham Place. Following Piccadilly westward into Kensington, we come
+to Lowther Lodge, Norman Shaw's most successful work, then beginning its
+social career on the coming of age of the present Speaker,[26] April
+1st, 1876. Below it, Prince's Gate and Queen's Gate and Prince's
+Gardens, and all the wilds of South Kensington, then half reclaimed; and
+that low-lying territory, not even half reclaimed, which, under Lord
+Cadogan's skilful management, has of late years developed into a
+"residential quarter" of high repute. Fill all these streets, and a
+dozen others like them, with rank and wealth and fashion, youth and
+beauty, pleasure-seeking and self-indulgence, and you have described the
+concentric circles of which Marlborough House was the heart. Sydney
+Smith, no mean authority on the social capacities of London, held that
+"the parallelogram between Oxford Street, Piccadilly, Regent Street, and
+Hyde Park, enclosed more intelligence and ability, to say nothing of
+wealth and beauty, than the world had ever collected in such a space
+before." This was very well for Sydney (who lived in Green Street); but
+he flourished when Belgravia had barely been discovered, when South
+Kensington was undreamed-of; and, above all, before the Heir Apparent
+had fixed his abode in Pall Mall. Had he lived till 1863, he would have
+had to enlarge his mental borders.
+
+Of the delightful women and beautiful girls who adorned Society when I
+first knew it, I will not speak. A sacred awe makes me mute. The
+"Professional Beauties" and "Frisky Matrons" who disgraced it, have, I
+hope, long since repented, and it would be unkind to revive their names.
+The "Smart Men," old and young, the "cheery boys," the "dancing
+dogs,"--the Hugo Bohuns and the Freddy Du Canes--can be imagined as
+easily as described. They were, in the main, very good fellows;
+friendly, sociable, and obliging; but their most ardent admirers would
+scarcely call them interesting; and the companionship of a club or a
+ballroom seemed rather vapid when compared with Oxford:--
+
+
+     "The madness and the melody, the singing youth that went there,
+     The shining, unforgettable, imperial days we spent there."
+
+
+But here and there, swimming rare in the vast whirlpool of Society, one
+used to encounter remarkable faces. Most remarkable was the face of Lord
+Beaconsfield,--past seventy, though nobody knows how much; with his
+black-dyed hair in painful contrast to the corpse-like pallor of his
+face; with his Blue Ribbon and diamond Star; and the piercing eyes which
+still bespoke his unconquerable vitality.
+
+Sometimes Mr. Gladstone was to be seen, with his white tie working round
+toward the back of his neck, and a rose in his button-hole, looking like
+a rather unwilling captive in the hands of Mrs. Gladstone, who moved
+through the social crush with that queenlike dignity of bearing which
+had distinguished her ever since the days when she and her sister, Lady
+Lyttelton, were "the beautiful Miss Glynnes." Robert Lowe, not yet Lord
+Sherbrooke, was a celebrity who might often be seen in Society,--a
+noteworthy figure with his ruddy face, snow-white hair, and purblind
+gaze. The first Lord Lytton--Bulwer-Lytton, the novelist--was dead
+before I came to London; but his brilliant son, "Owen Meredith," in the
+intervals of official employment abroad, was an interesting figure in
+Society; curled and oiled and decorated, with a countenance of Semitic
+type.
+
+Lord Houghton--to me the kindest and most welcoming of hereditary
+friends--had a personality and a position altogether his own. His
+appearance was typically English; his manner as free and forthcoming as
+a Frenchman's. Thirty years before he had been drawn by a master-hand as
+Mr. Vavasour in _Tancred_, but no lapse of time could stale his infinite
+variety. He was poet, essayist, politician, public orator, country
+gentleman, railway-director, host, guest, ball-giver, and ball-goer, and
+acted each part with equal zest and assiduity. When I first knew him he
+was living in a house at the top of Arlington Street, from which Hogarth
+had copied the decoration for his "Marriage a la mode." The site is now
+occupied by the Ritz Hotel, and his friendly ghost still seems to haunt
+the Piccadilly which he loved.
+
+
+     "There on warm, mid-season Sundays, Fryston's bard is wont to wend,
+     Whom the Ridings trust and honour, Freedom's staunch and genial
+         friend;
+     Known where shrewd hard-handed craftsmen cluster round the
+         northern kilns,
+     He whom men style Baron Houghton, but the gods call Dicky
+         Milnes."[27]
+
+
+When first I entered Society, I caught sight of a face which instantly
+arrested my attention. A very small man, both short and slim, with a
+rosy complexion, protruding chin, and trenchant nose, the remains of
+reddish hair, and an extremely alert and vivacious expression. The
+broad Red Ribbon of a G.C.B. marked him out as in some way a
+distinguished person; and I discovered that he was the Lord Chief
+Justice of England,--Sir Alexander Cockburn, one of the most conspicuous
+figures in the social annals of the 'thirties and 'forties, the
+"Hortensius" of _Endymion_, whose "sunny face and voice of music" had
+carried him out of the ruck of London dandies to the chief seat of the
+British judicature, and had made him the hero of the Tichborne Trial and
+the Alabama Arbitration. Yet another personage of intellectual fame who
+was to be met in Society was Robert Browning, the least poetical-looking
+of poets. Trim, spruce, alert, with a cheerful manner and a flow of
+conversation, he might have been a Cabinet Minister, a diplomatist, or a
+successful financier, almost anything except what he was. "Browning,"
+growled Tennyson, "I'll predict your end. You'll die of apoplexy, in a
+stiff choker, at a London dinner-party."
+
+The streams of society and of politics have always intermingled, and, at
+the period of which I am writing, Lord Hartington, afterwards, as 8th
+Duke of Devonshire, leader of the Liberal Unionists, might still be seen
+lounging and sprawling in doorways and corners. Mr. Arthur Balfour,
+weedy and willowy, was remarked with interest as a young man of great
+possessions, who had written an unintelligible book but might yet do
+something in Parliament; while Lord Rosebery, though looking absurdly
+youthful, was spoken of as cherishing lofty ambitions.
+
+Later on, I may perhaps say more about private entertainment and about
+those who figured in it; but now I must turn to the public sights and
+shows. Matthew Arnold once wrote to his mother: "I think you will be
+struck with the aspect of London in May; the wealth and brilliancy of it
+is more remarkable every year. The carriages, the riders, and the
+walkers in Hyde Park, on a fine evening in May or June, are alone worth
+coming to London to see." This description, though written some years
+before, was eminently true of Rotten Row and its adjacent drives when I
+first frequented them. Frederick Locker, a minor poet of Society, asked
+in some pensive stanzas on Rotten Row:
+
+
+     "But where is now the courtly troop
+       That once rode laughing by?
+     I miss the curls of Cantilupe,
+       The laugh of Lady Di."
+
+
+Lord Cantilupe, of whom I always heard that he was the handsomest man
+of his generation, died before I was born, and Lady Di Beauclerck had
+married Baron Huddleston and ceased to ride in Rotten Row before I came
+to London; so my survey of the scene was unmarred by Locker's reflective
+melancholy, and I could do full justice to its charm. "Is there," asked
+Lord Beaconsfield, "a more gay and graceful spectacle in this world than
+Hyde Park at the end of a long summer morning in the merry month of May?
+Where can we see such beautiful women, such gallant cavaliers, such fine
+horses, such brilliant equipages? The scene, too, is worthy of such
+agreeable accessories--the groves, the gleaming waters, and the
+triumphal arches. In the distance the misty heights of Surrey and the
+lovely glades of Kensington." This passage would need some re-touching
+if it were to describe the Park in 1911, but in 1880 it was still a
+photograph.
+
+With regard to Public Entertainments in the more technical sense, the
+period of which I am writing was highly favoured. We had Irving and Miss
+Terry at the height of their powers, with all the gorgeous yet accurate
+"staging" which Irving had originated. We had Lady Bancroft with that
+wonderful undertone of pathos in even her brightest comedy, and her
+accomplished husband, whose peculiar art blended so harmoniously with
+her own. We had John Hare, the "perfect gentleman" of Stage-land, and
+the Kendals with their quiet excellence in Drawing-room Drama; and the
+riotous glory of Mrs. John Wood, whose performances, with Arthur Cecil,
+at the Court Theatre, will always remain the most mirth-provoking
+memories of my life. Midway between the Theatre and the Opera, there was
+the long and lovely series of Gilbert and Sullivan, who surely must have
+afforded a larger amount of absolutely innocent delight to a larger
+number of people than any two artists who ever collaborated in the
+public service.
+
+As to the Opera itself, I must quote a curious passage from Lord
+Beaconsfield, who figures so often in these pages, because none ever
+understood London so perfectly as he.
+
+"What will strike you most at the Opera is that you will not see a
+single person you ever saw before in your life. It is strange; and it
+shows what a mass of wealth and taste and refinement there is in this
+wonderful metropolis of ours, quite irrespective of the circles in which
+we move, and which we once thought, entirely engrossed them."
+
+Those words describe, roughly, the seasons of 1867-1870; and they still
+hold good, to a considerable extent, of my earlier years in London. The
+Opera was then the resort of people who really loved music. It had
+ceased to be, what it had been in the 'thirties and 'forties, a merely
+fashionable resort; and its social resurrection had scarcely begun.
+
+Personally, I have always been fonder of real life than of its dramatic
+counterfeit; and a form of Public Entertainment which greatly attracted
+me was that provided by the Law Courts. To follow the intricacies of a
+really interesting trial; to observe the demeanour and aspect of the
+witnesses; to listen to the impassioned flummery of the leading counsel;
+to note its effect on the Twelve Men in the Box; and then to see the
+Chinese Puzzle of conflicting evidence arranged in its damning exactness
+by a skilful judge, is to me an intellectual enjoyment which can hardly
+be equalled. I have never stayed in court after the jury had retired in
+a capital case, for I hold it impious to stare at the mortal agony of a
+fellow-creature; but the trial of Johann Most for inciting to
+tyrannicide; of Gallagher and his gang of dynamiters for Treason-Felony;
+and of Dr. Lampson for poisoning his brother-in-law, can never be
+forgotten. Not so thrilling, but quite as interesting, were the "Jockey
+Trial," in 1888, the "Baccarat Case," in 1891, and the "Trial at Bar,"
+of the Raiders in 1896. But they belong to a later date than the period
+covered by this chapter.
+
+My fondness for the Law Courts might suggest that I was inclined to be a
+lawyer. Not so. Only two professions ever attracted me in the slightest
+degree,--Holy Orders and Parliament. But when the dividing-line of 1874
+cut my life in two, it occurred to my Father that, aided by name and
+connexions, I might pass a few years at the Parliamentary Bar,
+pleasantly and not unprofitably, until an opportunity of entering
+Parliament occurred. Partly with that end in view, and partly because it
+seemed disgraceful to have no definite occupation, I became, in 1875, a
+student of the Inner Temple. I duly ate my dinners; or, rather, as the
+Temple dined at the unappetizing hour of six, went through a form of
+eating them; and in so doing was constantly reminded of the experiences
+of my favourite "Pen." The ways of Law-students had altered wonderfully
+little in the lapse of forty years.
+
+"The ancient and liberal Inn of the Inner Temple provides in its Hall,
+and for a most moderate price, an excellent and wholesome dinner of
+soup, meat, tarts, and port wine or sherry, for the Barristers and
+Students who attend that place of refection. The parties are arranged in
+messes of four, each of which quartets has its piece of beef or leg of
+mutton, its sufficient apple-pie, and its bottle of wine. 'This is
+boiled beef day, I believe, Sir,' said Lowton to Pen. 'Upon my word,
+Sir, I'm not aware,' said Pen. 'I'm a stranger; this is my first term;
+on which Lowton began to point out to him the notabilities in the Hall.
+'Do you see those four fellows seated opposite to us? They are regular
+swells--tip-top fellows, I can tell you--Mr. Trail, the Bishop of
+Ealing's son, Honourable Fred Ringwood, Lord Cinqbars' brother, you
+know; and Bob Suckling, who's always with him. I say, I'd like to mess
+with those chaps.' 'And why?' asked Pen. 'Why! they don't come down here
+to dine, you know, they only make believe to dine. _They_ dine here,
+Lord bless you! They go to some of the swell clubs, or else to some
+grand dinner-party. You see their names in the _Morning Post_ at all the
+fine parties in London. They dine! They won't dine these two hours, I
+dare say.' 'But why should you like to mess with them, if they don't
+eat any dinner?' Pen asked, still puzzled. 'There's plenty, isn't
+there?' 'How green you are,' said Lowton. 'Excuse me, but you are green!
+They don't drink any wine, don't you see, and a fellow gets the bottle
+to himself, if he likes it, when he messes with those three chaps.
+That's why Corkoran got in with them.'"
+
+Such were dinners at the Temple in Thackeray's time, and such they were
+in mine. My legal studies were superintended by my friend Mr. J. S. Fox,
+now K.C., and Recorder of Sheffield. Should this book ever fall under
+his learned eye, I should be interested to know if he has ever completed
+the erudite work which in those distant days he contemplated
+undertaking,
+
+
+       "Tell a Lie and Stick to it:"
+     A Treatise on the Law of Estoppel.
+
+
+But this is a digression.
+
+Before I leave London as it was when first I dwelt in it, I ought to
+recall some of the eminent persons who adorned it. Lord Beaconsfield was
+at the zenith of his power and popularity. Mr. Gladstone, though the
+crowning triumph of 1880 was not far off, was so unpopular in Society
+that I was asked to meet him at a dinner as a favour to the hostess, who
+found it difficult to collect a party when he was dining. Lord Salisbury
+had just emerged from a seven years' retirement, and was beginning to
+play for the Premiership. Mr. Chamberlain was spoken of with a kind of
+awe, as a desperate demagogue longing to head a revolution; and Lord
+Randolph Churchill was hardly known outside the Turf Club.
+
+Law was presided over, as I have already said, by the brilliant
+Cockburn, and the mellifluous Coleridge was palpably preparing to
+succeed him. People whispered wonders about Charles Bowen; and Henry
+James and Charles Russell had established their positions. In the
+hierarchy of Medicine there were several leaders. Jenner ruled his
+patients by terror; Gull by tact, and Andrew Clark by religious
+mysticism. To me, complaining of dyspepsia, he prescribed a diet with
+the Pauline formula: "I seek to impose a yoke upon you, that you may be
+truly free." In the chief seat of the Church sat Archbishop Tait, the
+most dignified prelate whom I have ever met in our communion, and a
+really impressive spokesman of the Church in the House of Lords. The
+Northern Primate, Dr. Thomson, was styled "The Archbishop of Society";
+and the Deanery at Westminster sheltered the fine flower of grace and
+culture in the fragile person of Dean Stanley. G. H. Wilkinson,
+afterwards Bishop of Truro and of St. Andrews, had lately been appointed
+to St. Peter's, Eaton Square, and had burst like a gunboat into a Dead
+Sea of lethargy and formalism.
+
+Of course, the list does not pretend to be exhaustive. It only aims at
+commemorating a few of the figures, in different walks of life, which
+commanded my attention when I began to know--otherwise than as a
+schoolboy can know it--what London is, means, and contains. Five and
+thirty years have sped their course. My Home in the country has ceased
+to exist; and I find myself numbered among that goodly company who, in
+succeeding ages, have loved London and found it their natural
+dwelling-place. I fancy that Lord St. Aldwyn is too much of a sportsman
+to applaud the sentiment of his ancestor who flourished in the reign of
+Charles II., but it is exactly mine.
+
+"London is the only place of England to winter in, whereof many true men
+might be put for examples. If the air of the streets be fulsome, then
+fields be at hand. If you be weary of the City, you may go to the
+Court. If you surfeit of the Court, you may ride into the country; and
+so shoot, as it were, at rounds with a roving arrow. You can wish for no
+kind of meat, but here is a market; for no kind of pastime, but here is
+a companion. If you be solitary, here be friends to sit with you. If you
+be sick, and one doctor will not serve your turn, you may have twain.
+When you are weary of your lodging, you may walk into St. Paul's ... in
+the Middle Aisle you may hear what the Protestants say, and in the
+others what the Papists whisper; and, when you have heard both, believe
+but one, for but one of both says true you may be assured."
+
+We clear the chasm of a century, and hear Dr. Johnson singing the same
+tune as Squire Hicks.
+
+"The happiness of London is not to be conceived but by those who have
+been in it. I'll venture to say, there is more learning and science
+within the circumference of ten miles from where we now sit, than in all
+the rest of the kingdom."
+
+"London is nothing to some people; but to a man whose pleasure is
+intellectual, London is the place."
+
+"The town is my element; there are my friends, there are my books, to
+which I have not yet bid farewell, and there are my amusements."
+
+But even Johnson, who is always quoted as the typical lover of London,
+was not more enthusiastic in its praise than Gibbon. To him "London was
+never dull, there at least he could keep the monster _Ennui_ at a
+respectful distance." For him its heat was always tempered; even its
+solitude was "delicious." In "the soft retirement of my _bocage de_
+Bentinck Street" the dog-days pass unheeded. "Charming hot weather! I am
+just going to dine alone. Afterwards I shall walk till dark in _my_
+gardens at Kensington, and shall then return to a frugal supper and
+early bed in Bentinck Street. I lead the life of a philosopher, without
+any regard to the world or to fashion."
+
+So much for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; we now return to
+the nineteenth and are listening to Sydney Smith. "I look forward
+anxiously to the return of the bad weather, coal fires, and good society
+in a crowded city." "The country is bad enough in summer, but in winter
+it is a fit residence only for beings doomed to such misery for misdeeds
+in another state of existence." "You may depend upon it, all lives lived
+out of London are mistakes, more or less grievous--but mistakes." "I
+shall not be sorry to be in town. I am rather tired of simple pleasures,
+bad reasoning, and worse cookery."
+
+Let Lord Beaconsfield have the last word, as is his due; for truly did
+he know and love his London.
+
+"It was a mild winter evening, a little fog still hanging about, but
+vanquished by the cheerful lamps, and the voice of the muffin-bell was
+heard at intervals; a genial sound that calls up visions of trim and
+happy hearths. If we could only so contrive our lives as to go into the
+country for the first note of the nightingale, and return to town for
+the first note of the muffin-bell, existence, it is humbly presumed,
+might be more enjoyable."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[21] Lord Beaconsfield, _Tancred_.
+
+[22] Written in May, 1910.
+
+[23] A nickname invented by the famous Eton tutor, "Billy Johnson," for
+a florid journalist.
+
+[24] Lord Beaconsfield, _Lothair_.
+
+[25] See M. Arnold's Letters, May 15, 1880.
+
+[26] The Right Hon. J. W. Lowther.
+
+[27] Sir George Trevelyan, _The Ladies in Parliament_.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+HOSPITALITY
+
+
+     "I never eat and I never drink," said the Cardinal. "I am sorry to
+     say I cannot. I like dinner-society very much. You see the world,
+     and you hear things which you do not hear otherwise."
+                                          LORD BEACONSFIELD, _Lothair_.
+
+
+The Cardinal was much to be pitied. He had a real genius for society,
+and thoroughly enjoyed such forms of it as his health and profession
+permitted. Though he could not dine with Mr. Putney Giles, he went to
+Mrs. Putney Giles's evening party, where he made an important
+acquaintance. He looked in at Lady St. Jerome's after dinner; and his
+visits to Vauxe and to Muriel Towers were fraught with memorable
+results.
+
+Mrs. Putney Giles, though a staunch Protestant, was delighted to receive
+a Cardinal, and not less so that he should meet in her drawing-room the
+inexpressibly magnificent Lothair. That is all in the course of nature;
+but what has always puzzled me is the ease with which a youth of no
+particular pretensions, arriving in London from Oxford or Cambridge or
+from a country home, swims into society, and finds himself welcomed by
+people whose names he barely knows. I suppose that in this, as in more
+important matters, the helpers of the social fledgling are good-natured
+women. The fledgling probably starts by being related to one or two, and
+acquainted with three or four more; and each of them says to a friend
+who entertains--"My cousin, Freddy Du Cane, is a very nice fellow, and
+waltzes capitally. Do send him a card for your dance"--or "Tommy Tucker
+is a neighbour of ours in the country. If ever you want an odd man to
+fill up a place at dinner, I think you will find him useful." Then there
+was in those days, and perhaps there is still, a mysterious race of
+men--Hierophants of Society--who had great powers of helping or
+hindering the social beginner. They were bachelors, not very young; who
+had seen active service as dancers and diners for ten or twenty seasons;
+and who kept lists of eligible youths which they were perpetually
+renewing at White's or the Marlborough. To one of these the intending
+hostess would turn, saying, "Dear Mr. Golightly, _do_ give me your
+list;" and, if Freddy Du Cane had contrived to ingratiate himself with
+Mr. Golightly, invitations to balls and dances, of every size and sort,
+would soon begin to flutter down on him like snow-flakes. It mattered
+nothing that he had never seen his host or hostess, nor they him. Corney
+Grain expressed the situation in his own inimitable verse:
+
+
+     "Old Mr. Parvenu gave a great ball--
+     And of all his smart guests he knew no one at all.
+     Old Mr. Parvenu went up to bed,
+     And the guest said 'Good-night' to the butler instead."
+
+
+But light come, light go. Ball-going is elysian when one is very young
+and cheerful and active, but it is a pleasure which, for nine men out of
+ten, soon palls. Dinner-society, as Cardinal Grandison knew, is a more
+serious affair, and admission to it is not so lightly attained.
+
+When Sydney Smith returned from a visit to Paris, he wrote, in the
+fulness of his heart:
+
+"I care very little about dinners, but I shall not easily forget a
+_matelote_ at the 'Rochers de Cancale,' or an almond tart at Montreuil,
+or a _poulet a la Tartare_ at Grignon's. These are impressions which no
+changes in future life can obliterate."
+
+I am tempted to pursue the line of thought thus invitingly opened, but I
+forbear; for it really has no special connexion with the retrospective
+vein. I am now describing the years 1876-1880, and dinners then were
+pretty much what they are now. The new age of dining had begun. Those
+frightful hecatombs of sheep and oxen which Francatelli decreed had made
+way for more ethereal fare. The age-long tyranny of "The Joint" was
+already undermined. I have indeed been one of a party of forty in the
+dog-days, where a belated haunch of venison cried aloud for decent
+burial; but such outrages were even then becoming rare. The champagne of
+which a poet had beautifully said:
+
+
+     "How sad and bad and mad it was,
+       And Oh! how it was sweet!"
+
+
+had been banished in favour of the barely alcoholic liquor which foams
+in modern glasses. And, thanks to the influence of King Edward VII,
+after-dinner drinking had been exorcised by cigarettes. The portentous
+piles of clumsy silver which had overshadowed our fathers'
+tables--effigies of Peace and Plenty, Racing Cups and Prizes for fat
+cattle--had been banished to the plate-closets; bright china and
+brighter flowers reigned in their stead. In short, a dinner thirty-five
+years ago was very like a dinner to-day. It did not take me long to find
+that (with Cardinal Grandison) "I liked dinner-society very much," and
+that "you see the world there and hear things which you do not hear
+otherwise."
+
+I have already described the methods by which ball-society was, and
+perhaps is, recruited. An incident which befell me in my second season
+threw a similar light on the more obscure question of dinner-society.
+One day I received a large card which intimated that Mr. and Mrs.
+Goldmore requested the honour of my company at dinner. I was a little
+surprised, because though I had been to balls at the Goldmores' house
+and had made my bow at the top of the stairs, I did not really know
+them. They had newly arrived in London, with a great fortune made in
+clay pipes and dolls' eyes, and were making their way by entertaining
+lavishly. However, it was very kind of them to ask me to dinner, and I
+readily accepted. The appointed evening came, and I arrived rather late.
+In an immense drawing-room there were some thirty guests assembled, and,
+as I looked round, I could not see a single face which I had ever seen
+before. Worse than that, it was obvious that Mr. and Mrs. Goldmore did
+not know me. They heard my name announced, received me quite politely,
+and then retired into a window, where their darkling undertones,
+enquiring glances, and heads negatively shaken, made it only too clear
+that they were asking one another who on earth the last arrival was.
+However, their embarrassment and mine was soon relieved by the
+announcement of dinner. As there were more male guests than women, there
+was no need to give me a partner; so we all swept downstairs in a
+promiscuous flood, and soon were making the vital choice between
+_bisque_ and _consomme_. Eating my dinner, I revolved my plans, and
+decided to make a clean breast of it. So, when we went up into the
+drawing-room, I made straight for my hostess. "I feel sure," I said,
+"that you and Mr. Goldmore did not expect me to-night." "Oh," was the
+gracious reply, "I hope there was nothing in our manner which made you
+feel that you were unwelcome." "Nothing," I replied, "could have been
+kinder than your manner, but one has a certain social instinct which
+tells one when one has made a mistake. And yet what the mistake was I
+cannot guess. I am sure it is the right house and the right evening--Do
+please explain." "Well," said Mrs. Goldmore, "as you have found out so
+much, I think I had better tell you all. _We were not expecting you._ We
+have not even now the pleasure of knowing who you are. We were
+expecting Dr. Russell, the _Times_ Correspondent, and all these ladies
+and gentlemen have been asked to meet him." So it was not my mistake
+after all, and I promptly rallied my forces. "The card certainly had my
+first name, initials, and address all right, so there was nothing to
+make me suspect a mistake. Besides, I should have thought that everyone
+who knew the _Times_ Russell knew that his first name was William--he is
+always called 'Billy Russell.'" "Well"--and now the truth coyly
+emerged--"the fact is that we _don't_ know him. We heard that he was a
+pleasant man and fond of dining out, and so we looked him up in the
+_Court Guide_, and sent the invitation. I suppose we hit on your address
+by mistake for his." I suppose so too; and that this is the method by
+which newcomers build up a "Dinner-Society" in London.
+
+One particular form of dinner deserves a special word of commemoration,
+because it has gone, never to return. This was the "Fish Dinner" at
+Greenwich or Blackwall, or even so far afield as Gravesend. It was to a
+certain extent a picnic; without the formality of dressing, and made
+pleasant by opportunities of fun and fresh air, in the park or on the
+river, before we addressed ourselves to the serious business of the
+evening; but that was serious indeed. The "Menu" of a dinner at the Ship
+Hotel at Greenwich lies before me as I write. It contains turtle soup,
+eleven kinds of fish, two _entrees_, a haunch of venison, poultry, ham,
+grouse, leverets, five sweet dishes, and two kinds of ice. Well, those
+were great days--we shall not look upon their like again. Let a poet[28]
+who knew what he was writing about have the last word on Dinner.
+
+
+     "We may live without poetry, music, and art;
+     We may live without conscience and live without heart;
+     We may live without friends; we may live without books;
+     But civilized man cannot live without Cooks.
+
+     "He may live without lore--what is knowledge but grieving?
+     He may live without hope--what is hope but deceiving?
+     He may live without love--what is passion but pining?
+     But where is the man that can live without dining?"
+
+
+There is an exquisite truth in this lyrical cry, but it stops short of
+the fulness of the subject. It must be remembered that "dining" is not
+the only form of eating. Mr. Gladstone, who thought modern luxury rather
+disgusting, used to complain that nowadays life in a country house meant
+three dinners a day, and, if you reckoned sandwiches and poached eggs at
+five o'clock tea, nearly four. Indeed, the only difference that I can
+perceive between a modern luncheon and a modern dinner is that at the
+former meal you don't have soup or a printed _Menu_. There have always
+been some houses where the luncheons were much more famous than the
+dinners. Dinner, after all, is something of a ceremony; it requires
+forethought, care, and organization. Luncheon is more of a scramble,
+and, in the case of a numerous and scattered family, it is the
+pleasantest of reunions.
+
+My uncle Lord John Russell (1792-1878) published in 1820 a book of
+_Essays and Sketches_, in which he speaks of "women sitting down to a
+substantial luncheon at three or four," and observes that men would be
+wise if they followed the example. All contemporary evidence points to
+luncheon as a female meal, at which men attended, if at all,
+clandestinely. If a man habitually sat down to luncheon, and ate it
+through, he was regarded as indifferent to the claims of dinner, and,
+moreover, was contemned as an idler. No one who had anything to do could
+find time for a square meal in the middle of the day. But, as years went
+on, the feeling changed. Prince Albert was notoriously fond of luncheon,
+and Queen Victoria humoured him. They dined very late, and the luncheon
+at the Palace became a very real and fully recognized meal. The example,
+communicated from the highest quarters, was soon followed in Society;
+and, when I first knew London, luncheon was as firmly established as
+dinner. As a rule, it was not an affair of fixed invitation; but a
+hostess would say, "You will always find us at luncheon, somewhere about
+two"--and one took her at her word.
+
+The luncheon by invitation was a more formal, and rather terrible,
+affair. I well remember a house where at two o'clock in June we had to
+sit down with curtains drawn, lights ablaze, and rose-coloured shades to
+the candles, because the hostess thought, rightly as regarded herself,
+less so as regarded her guests, that no one's complexion could stand the
+searching trial of midsummer sunshine.
+
+"Sunday Luncheon" was always a thing apart. For some reason, not
+altogether clear, perhaps because devotion long sustained makes a strong
+demand on the nervous system, men who turned up their noses at luncheon
+on weekdays devoured roast beef and Yorkshire pudding on Sundays, and
+went forth, like giants refreshed, for a round of afternoon calls. The
+Sunday Luncheon was a recognized centre of social life. Where there was
+even a moderate degree of intimacy a guest might drop in and be sure of
+mayonnaise, chicken, and welcome. I can recall an occasion of this kind
+when I saw social Presence of Mind exemplified, as I thought and think,
+on an heroic scale. Luncheon was over. It had not been a particularly
+bounteous meal; the guests had been many; the chicken had been eaten to
+the drumstick and the cutlets to the bone. Nothing remained but a huge
+Trifle, of chromatic and threatening aspect, on which no one had
+ventured to embark. Coffee was just coming, when the servant entered
+with an anxious expression, and murmured to the hostess that Monsieur de
+Petitpois--a newly-arrived attache--had come, and seemed to expect
+luncheon. The hostess grasped the situation in an instant, and issued
+her commands with a promptitude and a directness which the Duke of
+Wellington could not have surpassed. "Clear everything away, but leave
+the Trifle. Then show M. de Petitpois in." Enter De Petitpois.
+"Delighted to see you. Quite right. Always at home at Sunday luncheon.
+Pray come and sit here and have some Trifle. It is our national Sunday
+dish." Poor young De Petitpois, actuated by the same principle which
+made the Prodigal desire the husks, filled himself with spongecake,
+jam, and whipped cream; and went away looking rather pale. If he kept a
+journal, he no doubt noted the English Sunday as one of our most curious
+institutions, and "Le Trifle" as its crowning horror.
+
+Supper is a word of very different significances. There is the Ball
+Supper, which I have described in a previous chapter. There is the
+Supper after the Missionary Meeting in the country, when "The Deputation
+from the Parent Society" is entertained with cold beef, boiled eggs, and
+cocoa. There is the diurnal Supper, fruitful parent of our national
+crudities, eaten by the social class that dines at one; and this Supper
+(as was disclosed at a recent inquest) may consist of steak, tomatoes,
+and tea.
+
+And yet, again, there is the Theatrical Supper, which, eaten in
+congenial company after _Patience_ or _The Whip_, is our nearest
+approach to the "Nights and Suppers of the Gods." This kind of supper
+has a niche of its own in my retrospects. It was my privilege when first
+I came to London to know Lady Burdett-Coutts, famous all over the world
+as a philanthropist, and also, in every tone and gesture, a survival
+from the days when great station and great manner went together. Lady
+Burdett-Coutts was an enthusiastic devotee of the drama; and, when her
+Evening Parties were breaking up, she would gently glide round the great
+rooms in Stratton Street, and say to a departing guest:
+
+"I hope you need not go just yet. I am expecting Mr. Irving to supper
+after the play, and I am asking a few friends to meet him."
+
+As far as I know, I am the only survivor of those delightful feasts.
+
+Dinner and luncheon and supper must, I suppose, be reckoned among the
+permanent facts of life; but there is, or was, one meal of which I have
+witnessed the unwept disappearance. It had its roots in our historic
+past. It clung to its place in our social economy. It lived long and
+died hard. It was the Breakfast-Party. When I first lived in London, it
+was, like some types of human character, vigorous but unpopular. No one
+could really like going out to breakfast; but the people who gave
+Breakfast-Parties were worthy and often agreeable people; and there were
+few who had the hardihood to say them Nay.
+
+The most famous breakfast-parties of the time were given by Mr.
+Gladstone, on every Thursday morning in the Session; when, while we ate
+broiled salmon and drank coffee, our host discoursed to an admiring
+circle about the colour-sense in Homer, or the polity of the ancient
+Hittites. Around the table were gathered Lions and Lionesses of various
+breeds and sizes, who, if I remember aright, did not get quite as much
+opportunity for roaring as they would have liked; for, when Mr.
+Gladstone had started on a congenial theme, it was difficult to get in a
+word edgeways. One of these breakfast-parties at 10, Downing Street,
+stands out in memory more clearly than the rest, for it very nearly had
+a part in that "Making of History" which was then so much in vogue. The
+date was April 23, 1885. The party comprised Lady Ripon, Lord Granville,
+Dean Church, and Miss Mary Anderson, then in the height of her fame and
+beauty. We were stolidly munching and listening, when suddenly we heard
+a crash as if heaven and earth had come together; and presently we
+learned that there had been an explosion of dynamite at the Admiralty,
+about a hundred yards from where we were sitting. The proximity of
+nitro-glycerine seemed to operate as a check on conversation, and, as we
+rose from the table, I heard Miss Anderson say to Miss Gladstone, "Your
+pa seemed quite scared."
+
+Other breakfast-givers of the time were Lord Houghton, Lord Arthur
+Russell, Mr. Shaw-Lefevre (afterwards Lord Eversley), and Sir John
+Lubbock (afterwards Lord Avebury); and there were even people so
+desperately wedded to this terrible tradition that they formed
+themselves into Clubs with no other object than to breakfast, and bound
+themselves by solemn pledges to meet one morning in every week, and eat
+and argue themselves into dyspepsia. Sydney Smith wrote thus to a
+friend: "I have a breakfast of philosophers to-morrow at ten
+punctually--muffins and metaphysics, crumpets and contradiction. Will
+you come?" That inviting picture, though it was drawn before I was born,
+exactly describes the breakfast-parties which I remember. One met all
+sorts of people, but very few Mary Andersons. Breakfasters were
+generally old,--politicians, diplomatists, authors, journalists, men of
+science, political economists, and everyone else who was most improving.
+No doubt it was a priceless privilege to meet them; yet, as I heard them
+prate and prose, I could not help recalling a favourite passage from
+Mrs. Sherwood's quaint tale of _Henry Milner_:--
+
+"Mr. Dolben, as usual, gave utterance at breakfast to several of those
+pure and wise and refined principles, which sometimes distil as drops of
+honey from the lips of pious and intellectual old persons." It was
+breakfast that set Mr. Dolben off. We are not told that he distilled his
+honey at dinner or supper; so his case must be added to the long list of
+deleterious results produced by breakfasting in public.
+
+Conversation must, I think, have been at rather a low ebb when I first
+encountered it in London. Men breakfasted in public, as we have just
+seen, in order to indulge in it; and I remember a terrible Club where it
+raged on two nights of every week, in a large, dark, and draughty room,
+while men sat round an indifferent fire, drinking barley-water, and
+talking for talking's sake--the most melancholy of occupations. But at
+these dismal orgies one never heard anything worth remembering. The
+"pious and intellectual old persons" whom Mrs. Sherwood admired had
+withdrawn from the scene, if indeed they had ever figured on it. Those
+who remained were neither pious nor intellectual, but compact of spite
+and greediness, with here and there worse faults. But some brighter
+spirits were coming on. To call them by the names which they then bore,
+Mr. George Trevelyan and Mr. John Morley were thought very promising,
+for social fame in London takes a long time to establish itself. Sir
+William Harcourt was capital company in the heavier style; and Lord
+Rosebery in the lighter. But Mr. Herbert Paul was known only to the
+_Daily News_, and Mr. Augustine Birrell's ray serene had not emerged
+from the dim, unfathomed caves of the Chancery Bar.
+
+So far, I have been writing about Conversation with a capital "C,"--an
+elaborate and studied art which in old days such men as Sharpe and
+Jekyll and Luttrell illustrated, and, in times more modern, Brookfield
+and Cockburn and Lowe and Hayward. For the ordinary chit-chat of social
+intercourse--chaff and repartee, gossip and fun and frolic--I believe
+that London was just as good in 1876 as it had been fifty years before.
+We were young and happy, enjoying ourselves, and on easy terms with one
+another. "It was roses, roses all the way." Our talk was unpremeditated
+and unstudied, quick as lightning, springing out of the interest or the
+situation of the moment, uttered in an instant and as soon forgotten.
+Everyone who has ever made the attempt must realize that to gather up
+the fragments of such talk as this is as impossible as to collect
+shooting stars or to reconstruct a rainbow.
+
+But, though I cannot say what we talked about in those distant days, I
+believe I can indicate with certainty two topics which were never
+mentioned. One is Health, and the other is Money. I presume that people
+had pretty much the same complaints as now, but no one talked about
+them. We had been told of a lady who died in agony because she insisted
+on telling the doctor that the pain was in her chest, whereas it really
+was in the unmentionable organ of digestion. That martyr to propriety
+has no imitator in the present day. Everyone has a disease and a doctor,
+and young people of both sexes are ready on the slightest acquaintance
+to describe symptoms and compare experiences. "Ice!" exclaimed a pretty
+girl at dessert. "Good gracious, no. So bad for indy!" And her
+companion, who had not travelled with the times, learned with interest
+that "indy" was the pet name for indigestion.
+
+Then, again, as to money. In the "Sacred Circle of the Great
+Grandmotherhood," I never heard the slightest reference to income. Not
+that the Whigs despised money. They were at least as fond of it as other
+people, and, even when it took the shape of slum-rents, its odour was
+not displeasing; but it was not a subject for conversation. People did
+not chatter about their neighbours' incomes; and, if they made their own
+money in trades or professions, they did not regale us with statistics
+of profit and loss. To-day everyone seems to be, if I may use the
+favourite colloquialism, "on the make"; and the devotion with which
+people worship money pervades their whole conversation, and colours
+their whole view of life. "Scions of Aristocracy," to use the good old
+phrase of Pennialinus, will produce samples of tea or floor-cloth from
+their pockets, and sue quite winningly for custom. A speculative bottle
+of extraordinarily cheap peach-brandy will arrive with the compliments
+of Lord Tom Noddy, who has just gone into the wine-trade; and Lord
+Magnus Charters will tell you that, if you are going to rearrange your
+electric light, his firm has got some really artistic fittings which he
+can let you have on specially easy terms.
+
+So far I have spoken of Hospitality as if it consisted wholly in eating
+and drinking. Not so. In those days Evening Parties, or Receptions, or
+Drums, or Tails, for so they were indifferently called, took place on
+four or five nights of every week. "Tails" as the name implies, were
+little parties tacked on to the end of big dinners, where a few people
+looked in, rather cross at not having been invited to dine, or else in a
+desperate hurry to get on to a larger party or a ball. The larger
+parties were given generally on Saturday evenings; and then, amid a
+crushing crowd and a din which recalled the Parrot-House at the Zoo, one
+might rub shoulders with all the famous men and women of the time. When
+Mr. St. Barbe in _Endymion_ attended a gathering of this kind, he said
+to his companion, "I daresay that Ambassador has been blundering all his
+life, and yet there is something in that Star and Ribbon. I do not know
+how you feel, but I could almost go down on my knees to him.
+
+
+     'Ye stars which are the poetry of heaven,'
+
+
+Byron wrote; a silly line, he should have written--
+
+
+     'Ye stars which are the poetry of dress.'"
+
+
+Political "Drums" had a flavour which was all their own. If they were
+given in any of the Great Houses of London, where the stateliness and
+beauty of the old world still survived, such guests as Lord
+Beaconsfield's creations, Mr. Horrocks, M.P., and Trodgitts, the
+unsuccessful candidate, would look a little subdued. But in the ordinary
+house, with a back and front drawing-room and a buffet in the
+dining-room, those good men were quite at home, and the air was thick
+with political shop--whether we should loose Pedlington or save
+Shuffleborough with a struggle--whether A would get office and how
+disgusted B would be if he did.
+
+Here and there a more thrilling note was sounded. At a Liberal party in
+the spring of 1881 an ex-Whip of the Liberal party said to a Liberal
+lady, as he was giving her a cup of tea: "Have you heard how ill old
+Dizzy is?" "Oh, yes!" replied the lady, with a rapturous wink, "I
+know--dying!" Such are the amenities of political strife.
+
+A much more agreeable form of hospitality was the Garden-Party. When I
+came to live in London, the old-fashioned phrase--a "Breakfast"--so
+familiar in memoirs and novels, had almost passed out of use. On the
+22nd of June, 1868, Queen Victoria signalized her partial return to
+social life by commanding her lieges to a "Breakfast" in the gardens of
+Buckingham Palace; and the newspapers made merry over the notion of
+Breakfast which began at four and ended at seven. The old title
+gradually died out, and by 1876 people had begun to talk about
+"Garden-Parties."
+
+By whichever names they were called, they were, and are, delightful
+festivals. Sometimes they carried one as far as Hatfield, my
+unapproached favourite among all the "Stately homes of England"; but
+generally they were nearer London--at Syon, with the Thames floating
+gravely past its lawns--Osterley, where the decorative skill of the
+Brothers Adam is superimposed on Sir Thomas Gresham's Elizabethan
+brickwork--Holland House, rife with memories of Fox and
+Macaulay--Lowther Lodge, with its patch of unspoiled country in the
+heart of Western London. Closely akin to these Garden-Parties were other
+forms of outdoor entertainment--tea at Hurlingham or Ranelagh; and
+river-parties where ardent youth might contrive to capsize the adored
+one, and propose as he rescued her, dripping, from the Thames.
+
+It is only within the last few years that we have begun to talk of
+"Week-Ends" and "week-Ending." These terrible phrases have come down to
+us from the North of England; but before they arrived the thing which
+they signify was here. "Saturday-to-Monday Parties" they were called.
+They were not so frequent as now, because Saturday was a favourite
+night for entertaining in London, and it was generally bespoken for
+dinners and drums. But, as the summer advanced and hot rooms became
+unendurable, people who lived only forty or fifty miles out of London
+began to ask if one would run down to them on Friday or Saturday, and
+stay over Sunday. Of these hospitalities I was a sparing and infrequent
+cultivator, for they always meant two sleepless nights; and, as someone
+truly observed, just as you had begun to wear off the corners of your
+soap, it was time to return to London. But there were people, more
+happily constituted, who could thoroughly enjoy and profit by the weekly
+dose of fresh air and quiet. It was seldom that Mrs. Gladstone failed to
+drag Mr. Gladstone to some country house "from Saturday to Monday."
+
+As I re-read what I have written in this chapter, I seem to have lived
+from 1876 to 1880 in the constant enjoyment of one kind or another of
+Hospitality. It is true; and for the kindness of the friends who then
+did so much to make my life agreeable, I am as grateful as I was when I
+received it. My social life in London seems to me, as I look back, "a
+crystal river of unreproved enjoyment"; and some of those who shared it
+with me are still among my closest friends.
+
+One word more, and I have done with Hospitality. I brought with me from
+Oxford a simple lad who had been a College servant. In those more
+courteous days a young man made it a rule to leave his card at every
+house where he had been entertained; so I made a list of addresses, gave
+it to my servant with a nicely-calculated batch of cards, and told him
+to leave them all before dinner. When I came in to dress, this dialogue
+ensued: "Have you left all those cards?" "Yes, sir." "You left two at
+each of the houses on your list?" "Oh no, sir. I left one at each house,
+and all the rest at the Duke of Leinster's." Surely Mrs. Humphry Ward or
+Mr. H. G. Wells might make something of this bewildering effect produced
+by exalted rank on the untutored mind.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[28] The second Lord Lytton.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+ELECTIONEERING
+
+
+     "Candidates are creatures not very susceptible of affronts, and
+     would rather, I suppose, climb in at a window than be absolutely
+     excluded. Mr. Grenville, advancing towards me, shook me by the hand
+     with a degree of cordiality that was extremely seducing.... He is
+     very young, genteel, and handsome, and the town seems to be much at
+     his service."
+                                                  _W. Cowper_, 1784.
+
+
+Gladstone's first administration, which had begun so gloriously in 1868,
+ended rather ignominiously at the General Election of 1874. Matthew
+Arnold wrote to his friend, Lady de Rothschild, "What a beating it is!
+You know that Liberalism did not seem to me quite the beautiful and
+admirable thing it does to the Liberal party in general, and I am not
+sorry that a new stage in its growth should commence, and that the party
+should be driven to examine itself, and to see how much real stuff it
+has in its mind, and how much claptrap."
+
+That wholesome discipline of self-examination was greatly assisted by
+the progress of events. England was now subjected to the personal rule
+of Disraeli. In 1868 he had been for ten months Prime Minister on
+sufferance, but now for the first time in his life he was in power. His
+colleagues were serfs or cyphers. He had acquired an influence at Court
+such as no other Minister ever possessed. He had conciliated the House
+of Lords, which in old days had looked askance at the picturesque
+adventurer. He was supported by a strong, compact, and determined
+majority in the House of Commons. He was the idol of Society, of the
+Clubs, and of the London Press. He was, in short, as nearly a dictator
+as the forms of our constitution permit; and the genius, which for forty
+years had been hampered and trammelled by the exigencies of a precarious
+struggle, could now for the first time display its true character and
+significance. Liberals who had been bored and provoked by the incessant
+blunders of the Liberal ministry in its last years, and, like Matthew
+Arnold, had welcomed a change of government, soon began to see that they
+had exchanged what was merely fatuous and foolish for what was actively
+mischievous. They were forced to ask themselves how much of the
+political faith which they had professed was "real stuff," and how much
+was "claptrap." Disraeli soon taught them that, even when all
+"claptrap" was laid aside, the "real stuff" of Liberalism--its vital and
+essential part--was utterly incompatible with Disraelitish ideals.
+
+The Session of 1874 began quietly enough, and the first disturbance
+proceeded from a quite unexpected quarter. The two Primates of the
+English Church were at this time Archbishop Tait and Archbishop Thomson.
+Both were masterful men. Both hated Ritualism; and both worshipped the
+Man in the Street. The Man in the Street was supposed to be an
+anti-Ritualist; so the two Archbishops conceived the happy design of
+enlisting his aid in the destruction of a religious movement which, with
+their own unaided resources, they had failed to crush. Bishop
+Wilberforce, who would not have suffered the Ritualists to be bullied,
+had been killed in the previous summer. Gladstone, notoriously not
+unfriendly to Ritualism, was dethroned; so all looked smooth and easy
+for a policy of persecution. On the 20th of April, 1874, Archbishop Tait
+introduced his "Public Worship Regulation Bill" into the House of Lords;
+and, in explanation of this measure, Tait's biographers say that it
+merely "aimed at reviving in a practical shape the _forum domesticum_
+of the Bishops, with just so much of coercive force added as seemed
+necessary to meet the changed circumstances of modern times." I have
+always loved this sentence. _Forum domesticum_ is distinctly good, and
+so is "coercive force." The _forum domesticum_ has quite a comfortable
+sound, and, as to the "coercive force" which lurks in the background,
+Ritualists must not enquire too curiously. The Bishops were to have it
+all their own way, and everyone was to be happy. Such was the Bill as
+introduced; but in Committee it was made infinitely more oppressive.
+Henceforward a single lay-judge, to be appointed by the two Archbishops,
+was to hear and determine all cases relating to irregularities in Public
+Worship.
+
+When the Bill reached the House of Commons, it was powerfully opposed by
+Gladstone; but the House was dead against him, and Sir William Harcourt,
+who, six months before, had been his Solicitor-General, distinguished
+himself by the truculence with which he assailed the Ritualists. On the
+5th of August, Gladstone wrote to his wife: "An able but yet frantic
+tirade from Harcourt, extremely bad in tone and taste, and chiefly aimed
+at poor me.... I have really treated him with forbearance before, but I
+was obliged to let out a little to-day."
+
+Meanwhile, Disraeli, seeing his opportunity, had seized it with
+characteristic skill. He adopted the Bill with great cordiality. He
+rejected all the glozing euphemisms which had lulled the House of Lords.
+He uttered no pribbles and prabbles about _forum domesticum_, and
+paternal guidance, and the authoritative interpretation of ambiguous
+formularies. "This," he said, "is a Bill to put down Ritualism." So the
+naked truth, carefully veiled from view in episcopal aprons and
+lawn-sleeves, was now displayed in all its native charm. Its success was
+instant and complete. The Second Reading passed unanimously; and the
+Archbishops' masterpiece became at once a law and a laughing-stock. The
+instrument of tyranny broke in the clumsy hands which had forged it, and
+its fragments to-day lie rusting in the lumber-room of archiepiscopal
+failures.
+
+But in the meantime the debates on the Bill had produced some political
+effects which its authors certainly had not desired. Gladstone's
+vehement attacks on the Bill, and his exhilarating triumph over the
+recalcitrant Harcourt, showed the Liberal party that their chief, though
+temporarily withdrawn from active service, was as vivacious and as
+energetic as ever, as formidable in debate, and as unquestionably
+supreme in his party whenever he chose to assert his power. Another
+important result of the controversy was that Gladstone was now the
+delight and glory of the Ritualists. The Committee organized to defend
+the clergy of St. Alban's, Holborn, against the _forum domesticum_ and
+"coercive force" of Bishop Jackson, made a formal and public
+acknowledgment of their gratitude for Gladstone's "noble and unsupported
+defence of the rights of the Church of England." Cultivated and earnest
+Churchmen, even when they had little sympathy with Ritualism, were
+attracted to his standard, and turned in righteous disgust from the
+perpetrator of clumsy witticisms about "Mass in masquerade." In towns
+where, as at Oxford and Brighton, the Church is powerful, the effect of
+these desertions was unmistakably felt at the General Election of 1880.
+
+It has been truly said that among the subjects which never fail to
+excite Englishmen is Slavery. "No public man," said Matthew Arnold, "in
+this country will be damaged by having even 'fanaticism' in his hatred
+of slavery imputed to him." In July, 1875, the Admiralty issued to
+Captains of Her Majesty's ships a Circular of Instructions which roused
+feelings of anger and of shame. This circular ran counter alike to the
+jealousy of patriots and to the sentiment of humanitarians. It directed
+that a fugitive slave should not be received on board a British vessel
+unless his life was in danger, and that, if she were in territorial
+waters, he should be surrendered on legal proof of his condition. If the
+ship were at sea, he should only be received and protected until she
+reached the country to which he belonged. These strange and startling
+orders were not in harmony either with the Law of Nations or with the
+law of England. They infringed the invaluable rule which prescribes that
+a man-of-war is British territory, wherever she may be; and they seemed
+to challenge the famous decision of Lord Mansfield, that a slave who
+enters British jurisdiction becomes free for ever. Parliament had risen
+for the recess just before the circular appeared, so it could not be
+challenged in the House of Commons; but it raised a storm of indignation
+out of doors which astonished its authors. Disraeli wrote "The incident
+is grave;" and, though in the subsequent session the Government tried to
+whittle down the enormity, the "incident" proved to be graver than even
+the Premier had imagined; for it showed the Liberals once again that
+Toryism is by instinct hostile to freedom.
+
+But events were now at hand before which the Public Worship Regulation
+Act and the Slave Circular paled into insignificance.
+
+In the autumn of 1875 an insurrection had broken out in Bulgaria, and
+the Turkish Government despatched a large force to repress it. This was
+done, and repression was followed by a hideous orgy of massacre and
+outrage. A rumour of these horrors reached England, and public
+indignation spontaneously awoke. Disraeli, with a strange frankness of
+cynical brutality, sneered at the rumour as "Coffee-house babble," and
+made odious jokes about the Oriental way of executing malefactors. But
+Christian England was not to be pacified with these Asiatic
+pleasantries, and in the autumn of 1876 the country rose in passionate
+indignation against what were known as "the Bulgarian Atrocities."
+Preaching in St. Paul's Cathedral, Liddon made a signal departure from
+his general rule of avoiding politics in the pulpit, and gave splendid
+utterance to the passion which was burning in his heart. "Day by day we
+English are learning that this year of grace 1876 has been signalized by
+a public tragedy which, I firmly believe, is without a parallel in
+modern times.... Not merely armed men, but young women and girls and
+babes, counted by hundreds, counted by thousands, subjected to the most
+refined cruelties, subjected to the last indignities, have been the
+victims of the Turk." And then came a fine burst of patriotic
+indignation. "That which makes the voice falter as we say it is that,
+through whatever misunderstanding, the Government which is immediately
+responsible for acts like these has turned for sympathy, for
+encouragement, not to any of the historical homes of despotism or
+oppression, not to any other European Power, but alas! to England--to
+free, humane, Christian England. The Turk has, not altogether without
+reason, believed himself, amid these scenes of cruelty, to be leaning on
+our country's arm, to be sure of her smile, or at least of her
+acquiescence."
+
+And soon a mightier voice than even Liddon's was added to the chorus of
+righteous indignation. Gladstone had resigned the leadership of the
+Liberal Party at the beginning of 1875, and for sixteen months he
+remained buried in his library at Hawarden. But now he suddenly
+reappeared, and flung himself into the agitation against Turkey with a
+zeal which in his prime he had never excelled, if, indeed, he had
+equalled it. On Christmas Day, 1876, he wrote in his diary--"The most
+solemn I have known for long; I see that eastward sky of storm and of
+underlight!" When Parliament met in February, 1877, he was ready with
+all his unequalled resources of eloquence, argumentation, and
+inconvenient enquiry, to drive home his great indictment against the
+Turkish Government and its champion, Disraeli, who had now become Lord
+Beaconsfield. For three arduous years he sustained the strife with a
+versatility, a courage, and a resourcefulness, which raised the
+enthusiasm of his followers to the highest pitch, and filled his
+antagonists with a rage akin to frenzy. I well remember that in July,
+1878, just after Lord Beaconsfield's triumphant return from Berlin, a
+lady asked me as a special favour to dine with her: "Because I have got
+the Gladstones coming, and everyone declines to meet him." Strange, but
+true.
+
+1878 was perhaps the most critical year of the Eastern question. Russia
+and Turkey were at death-grips, and Lord Beaconsfield seemed determined
+to commit this country to a war in defence of the Mahomedan Power, which
+for centuries has persecuted the worshippers of Christ in the East of
+Europe. By frustrating the sinister design Gladstone saved England from
+the indelible disgrace of a second Crimea. But it was not only in
+Eastern Europe that he played the hero's part. In Africa, and India, and
+wherever British arms were exercised and British honour was involved, he
+dealt his resounding blows at that odious system of bluster and swagger
+and might against right, on which the Prime Minister and his colleagues
+bestowed the tawdry nickname of Imperialism. In his own phrase he
+devoted himself to "counterworking the purpose of Lord Beaconsfield,"
+and all that was ardent and enthusiastic and adventurous in Liberalism
+flocked to his standard.
+
+
+     "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
+     But to be young was very heaven."
+
+
+One could not stand aloof--the call to arms was too imperious. We saw
+our Leader contending single-handed with "the obscene empires of Mammon
+and Belial," and we longed to be at his side in the thick of the fight.
+To a man born and circumstanced as I was the call came with peculiar
+power. I had the love of Freedom in my blood. I had been trained to
+believe in and to serve the Liberal cause. I was incessantly reminded of
+the verse, which, sixty years before, Moore had addressed to my uncle,
+Lord John Russell,
+
+
+     "Like the boughs of that laurel, by Delphi's decree
+       Set apart for the Fane and its service divine,
+     So the branches that spring from the old Russell tree
+       Are by Liberty claimed for the use of her shrine."
+
+
+In 1841 that same uncle wrote thus to his eldest brother: "Whatever may
+be said about other families, I do not think ours ought to retire from
+active exertion. In all times of popular movement, the Russells have
+been on the 'forward' side. At the Reformation, the first Earl of
+Bedford; in Charles the First's days, Francis, the Great Earl; in
+Charles the Second's, William, Lord Russell; in later times, Francis,
+Duke of Bedford; our father; you; and lastly myself in the Reform Bill."
+
+These hereditary appeals were strong, but there were influences which
+were stronger. A kind of romantic and religious glamour, such as one had
+never before connected with politics, seemed to surround this attack on
+the strongholds of Anti-Christ. The campaign became a crusade.
+
+Towards the end of 1879 I accepted an invitation to contest "the Borough
+and Hundreds of Aylesbury" at the next General Election. The "Borough"
+was a compact and attractive-looking town, and the "Hundreds" which
+surrounded it covered an area nearly coextensive with the present
+division of Mid Bucks. Close by was Hampden House, unaltered since the
+day when four thousand freeholders of Buckinghamshire rode up to
+Westminster to defend their impeached member, John Hampden. All around
+were those beech-clad recesses of the Chiltern Hills, in which,
+according to Lord Beaconsfield, the Great Rebellion was hatched. I do
+not vouch for that fact, but I can affirm that thirty years ago those
+recesses sheltered some of the stoutest Liberals whom I have ever known.
+The town and its surroundings were, for parliamentary purposes, a
+Borough, and, as all householders in Boroughs had been enfranchised by
+the Reform Act of 1867, the Agricultural Labourers of the district were
+already voters.
+
+It happens that Agricultural Labourers are the class of voters with
+which I am most familiar; and an intimate acquaintance with these men
+has taught me increasingly to admire their staunchness, their
+shrewdness, and their racy humour. Two or three of the old sayings come
+back to memory as I write. "More pigs and less parsons" must have been a
+survival from the days of Tithe. "The Black Recruiting Sergeant" was a
+nickname for a canvassing Incumbent. "I tell you how it is with a
+State-Parson," cried a Village Hampden: "if you take away his book, he
+can't preach. If you take away his gown he mayn't preach. If you take
+away his screw, he'll be d--d if he'll preach." A Radical M.P. suddenly
+deserted his constituency and took a peerage, and this was the verdict
+of the Village Green: "Mister So-and-so says he's going to the House of
+Lords to 'leaven it with Liberal principles.' Bosh! Mr. So-and-so can't
+no more leaven the House of Lords than you can sweeten a cartload of
+muck with a pot of marmalade."
+
+Aylesbury returned two Members to Parliament, and its political history
+had been chequered. When first I came to know it, the two members were
+Mr. Samuel George Smith and Sir Nathaniel de Rothschild (afterwards Lord
+Rothschild). Mr. Smith was a Tory. Sir Nathaniel professed to be a
+Liberal; but, as his Liberalism was of the sort which had doggedly
+supported Lord Beaconsfield all through the Eastern Question, the more
+enthusiastic spirits in the constituency felt that they were wholly
+unrepresented. It was they who invited me to stand. From the first, Sir
+Nathaniel made it known that he would not support or coalesce with me;
+and perhaps, considering the dissimilarity of our politics, it was just
+as well. So there were three candidates, fighting independently for two
+seats; there was no Corrupt Practices Act in those days; and the
+situation was neatly summarized by a tradesman of the town. "Our three
+candidates are Mr. S. G. Smith, head of 'Smith, Payne & Co.;' Sir
+Nathaniel de Rothschild, head of 'N. M. Rothschild & Sons,' and Mr.
+George Russell, who, we understand, has the Duke of Bedford behind him.
+So we are looking forward to a very interesting contest." That word
+_interesting_ was well chosen.
+
+Now began the most vivid and enjoyable portion of my life. Everything
+conspired to make it pleasant. In the first place, I believed absolutely
+in my cause. I was not, as Sydney Smith said, "stricken by the palsy of
+candour." There were no doubts or questionings or ambiguities in my
+mind. My creed with regard both to foreign and to domestic politics was
+clear, positive, and deliberate. I was received with the most
+extraordinary kindness and enthusiasm by people who really longed to
+have a hand in the dethronement of Lord Beaconsfield, and who believed
+in their politics as part of their religion.
+
+After my first speech in the Corn Exchange of Aylesbury I was severely
+reprehended because I had called Lord Beaconsfield a "Jew." If I had
+known better, I should have said "a Semite" or "an Israelite," or--his
+own phrase--"a Mosaic Arab," and all would have been well. I had and
+have close friends among the Jews, so my use of the offending word was
+not dictated by racial or social prejudice. But it expressed a strong
+conviction. I held then, and I hold now, that it was a heavy misfortune
+for England that, during the Eastern Question, her Prime Minister was
+one of the Ancient Race. The spiritual affinity between Judaism and
+Mahomedanism, founded on a common denial of the Christian Creed, could
+not be without its influence on a statesman whose deepest convictions,
+from first to last, were with the religion of his forefathers. In 1876
+Mr. Gladstone wrote--"Some new lights about Disraeli's Judaic feeling,
+in which he is both consistent and conscientious, have come in upon me."
+And similar "lights" dictated my action and my language at the crisis of
+1879-1880.
+
+Another element of enjoyment was that I was young--only twenty-six.
+Youth is an invaluable asset in a first campaign. Youth can canvass all
+day, and harangue all night. It can traverse immense distances without
+fatigue, make speeches in the open air without catching cold, sleep
+anywhere, eat anything, and even drink port with a grocer's label on it,
+at five in the afternoon. Then again, I had a natural and inborn love of
+public speaking, and I have known no enjoyment in life equal to that of
+addressing a great audience which you feel to be actively sympathetic.
+
+Yes, that spring of 1880 was a delightful time. As the condemned
+highwayman said to the chaplain who was exhorting him to repentance for
+his life of adventure on the road--"You dog, it was delicious." It was
+all so new. One emerged (like Herbert Gladstone) from the obscurity of
+College rooms or from the undistinguished herd of London ball-goers, or
+from the stables and stubbles of a country home, and became, all in a
+moment, a Personage. For the first time in one's life one found that
+people--grown-up, sensible, vote-possessing people--wished to know one's
+opinions, and gave heed to one's words. For the first time, one had
+"Colours" of one's own, as if one were a Regiment or a University; for
+the first time one beheld one's portrait, flattering though perhaps
+mud-bespattered, on every wall. For the first time one was cheered in
+the street, and entered the Corn-Exchange amid what the Liberal paper
+called "thunders of applause," and the opponent's organ whittled down to
+"cheers."
+
+But canvassing cannot, I think, be reckoned among the pleasures of a
+candidature. One must be very young indeed to find it even tolerable. A
+candidate engaged in a house-to-house canvass has always seemed to me
+(and not least clearly when I was the candidate) to sink beneath the
+level of humanity. To beg for votes, as if they were alms or broken
+victuals, is a form of mendicancy which is incompatible with common
+self-respect, and yet it is a self-abasement which thirty years ago
+custom imperatively demanded. "If my vote ain't worth calling for, I
+suppose it ain't worth 'aving" was the formula in which the elector
+stated his requirement.
+
+To trudge, weary and footsore, dusty and deliquescent, from door to
+door; to ask, with damnable iteration, if Mr. So-and-so is at home, and
+to meet the invariable rejoinder, "No, he isn't," not seldom running on
+with--"And, if he was, he wouldn't see you;" to find oneself (being
+Blue) in a Red quarter, where the very children hoot at you, and
+inebriate matrons shout personalities from upper windows--all this is
+detestable enough. But to find the voter at home and unfriendly is an
+experience which plunges the candidate lower still. A curious tradition
+of privileged insolence, which runs through all English history from the
+days when great men kept Jesters and the Universities had their _Terrae
+Filii_, asserts itself, by immemorial usage, at an election. People who
+would be perfectly civil if one called on them in the ordinary way, and
+even rapturously grateful if they could sell one six boxes of lucifers
+or a pound of toffee, permit themselves a freedom of speech to the
+suppliant candidate, which tests the fibre of his manhood. If he loses
+his temper and answers in like sort, the door is shut on him with some
+Parthian jeer, and, as he walks dejectedly away, the agent says--"Ah,
+it's a pity you offended that fellow. He's very influential in this
+ward, and I believe a civil word would have won him." If, on the other
+hand, the candidate endures the raillery and smiles a sickly smile, he
+really fares no better. After a prolonged battle of wits (in which he
+takes care not to be too successful) he discovers that the beery
+gentleman in shirtsleeves has no vote, and that, in the time which he
+has spent in these fruitless pleasantries, he might have canvassed half
+the street.
+
+There is, of course, a pleasanter side to canvassing. It warms the
+cockles of one's heart to be greeted with the words, "Don't waste your
+time here, sir. My vote's yours before you ask for it. There's your
+picture over the chimney-piece." And when a wife says, "My husband is
+out at work, but I know he means to vote for you," one is inclined to
+embrace her on the spot.
+
+These are the amenities of electioneering; but a man who enters on a
+political campaign expecting fair treatment from his opponents is indeed
+walking in a vain shadow. The ordinary rules of fairplay and
+straightforward conduct are forgotten at an election. In a political
+contest people say and do a great many things of which in every-day life
+they would be heartily ashamed. An election-agent of the old school once
+said to me in the confidence of after-dinner claret, "For my own part,
+when I go into a fight, I go in to win, and I'm not particular to a
+shade or two." All this is the common form of electioneering, but in one
+respect I think my experience rather unusual. I have been all my life as
+keen a Churchman as I am a Liberal, and some of my closest friends are
+clergymen. I never found that the Nonconformists were the least
+unfriendly to me on this account. They had their own convictions, and
+they respected mine; and we could work together in perfect concord for
+the causes of Humanity and Freedom. But the most unscrupulous opponents
+whom I have ever encountered have been the parochial clergy of the
+Church to which I belong, and the bands of "workers" whom they direct.
+Tennyson once depicted a clergyman who--
+
+
+                              "From a throne
+     Mounted in heaven should shoot into the dark
+     Arrows of lightnings,"
+
+
+and graciously added that he "would stand and mark." But, when the Vicar
+from his pulpit-throne launches barbed sayings about "those who would
+convert our schools into seminaries of Atheism or Socialism, and would
+degrade this hallowed edifice into a Lecture-Hall--nay, a Music-Hall,"
+then the Liberal candidate, constrained to "sit and mark" these bolts
+aimed at his cause, is tempted to a breach of charity. The Vicar's
+"workers" follow suit, but descend a little further into personalities.
+"You know that the Radical Candidate arrived drunk at one of his
+meetings? He had to be lifted out of the carriage, and kept in the
+Committee Room till he was sober. Shocking, isn't it? and then such
+shameful hypocrisy to talk about Local Option! But can you wonder? You
+know he's an atheist? Oh yes, I know he goes to Church, but that's all a
+blind. His one object is to do away with Religion. Yes, they do say he
+has been in the Divorce Court, but I should not like to say I know it,
+though I quite believe it. His great friend, Mr. Comus, certainly was,
+and Mr. Quickly only got off by paying an immense sum in hush-money.
+They're all tarred with the same brush, and it really is a religious
+duty to keep them out of Parliament."
+
+Such I have observed to be the attitude of parochial clergy and
+church-workers towards Liberal candidates.
+
+
+     "They said their duty both to man and God
+     Required such conduct--which seemed very odd."
+
+
+I suppose they would have justified it by that zeal for Established
+Churches and Sectarian Schools which, if it does not actually "eat up"
+its votaries, certainly destroys their sense of proportion and
+perspective.[29]
+
+Though I have said so much about the pugnacity of the clergy, I would
+not have it supposed that the Tory laity were slack or backward in
+political activity. To verbal abuse one soon became case-hardened; but
+one had also to encounter physical violence. In those days, stones and
+cabbage-stalks and rotten eggs still played a considerable part in
+electioneering. Squires hid their gamekeepers in dark coppices with
+instructions to pelt one as one drove past after dark. The linch-pin was
+taken out of one's carriage while one was busy at a meeting; and it was
+thought seriously unsafe for the candidate to walk unescorted through
+the hostile parts of the borough.
+
+But, after all, this animosity, theological, moral, physical, did no
+great harm. It quickened the zeal and strengthened the resolve of one's
+supporters; and it procured one the inestimable aid of young, active,
+and pugnacious friends, who formed themselves into a body-guard and a
+cycle-corps, protecting their candidate when the play was rough, and
+spreading the light all over the constituency.
+
+Why did not Lord Beaconsfield dissolve Parliament in July, 1878, when he
+returned in a blaze of triumph from the Congress of Berlin? Probably
+because his nerve had failed him, and he chose to retain his supremacy
+unquestioned, rather than commit it to the chances of a General
+Election. Anyhow, he let the moment pass; and from that time on his
+Government began to lose ground. In 1879 _Vanity Fair_, a strongly
+Disraelitish organ, pronounced (under a cartoon) that Gladstone was the
+most popular man in England. In the autumn of that year, the
+"Mid-Lothian Campaign" raised him to the very summit of his great
+career; and, when Christmas came, most Liberals felt that it was all
+over except the shouting.
+
+On the 9th of March, 1880, Lord Beaconsfield announced that he had
+"advised the Queen to recur to the sense of her people." His opponents
+remarked that the nonsense of her people was likely to serve his turn a
+good deal better; and to the task of exposing and correcting that
+nonsense we vigorously applied ourselves during the remaining weeks of
+Lent. It is true that the same statesman had once declared himself "on
+the side of the Angels" in order to reassure the clergy, and had once
+dated a letter on "Maundy Thursday" in order to secure the High Church
+vote. Encouraged by these signs of grace, some of his followers mildly
+remonstrated against a Lenten dissolution and an Easter poll. But
+counsels which might have weighed with Mr. Disraeli, M.P. for Bucks (who
+had clerical constituents), were thrown away on Lord Beaconsfield, who
+had the Crown, Lords, and Commons on his side; and on the 24th of March
+the Parliament which he had dominated for six years was scattered to the
+winds.
+
+Electioneering in rural districts was pure joy. It was a delicious
+spring, bright and yet soft, and the beech-forests of the Chilterns were
+in early leafage.
+
+
+     "There is a rapturous movement, a green growing,
+       Among the hills and valleys once again,
+     And silent rivers of delight are flowing
+       Into the hearts of men.
+
+     "There is a purple weaving on the heather,
+       Night drops down starry gold upon the furze;
+     Wild rivers and wild birds sing songs together,
+       Dead Nature breathes and stirs."[30]
+
+
+In the spring of 1880, Nature had no monopoly of seasonable life.
+Humanity was up and doing. Calm people were roused to passion, and
+lethargic people to activity. There was hurrying and rushing and
+plotting and planning, and all the fierce but fascinating bustle of a
+great campaign. One hurried across the Vale from a Farmers' Ordinary,
+where one had been exposing Lord Beaconsfield's nonsense about the
+"Three Profits" of agricultural land, to a turbulent meeting in a chapel
+or a barn (for the use of the schoolroom was denied to the Liberal
+candidate). As we drove through the primrose-studded lanes, or past the
+village green, the bell was ringing from the grey tower of the Parish
+Church, and summoning the villagers to the daily Evensong of Holy Week.
+The contrast was too violent to be ignored; and yet, for a citizen who
+took his citizenship seriously, the meeting was an even more imperative
+duty than the service. Hostilities were suspended for Good Friday,
+Easter Even, and Easter Day, but on Easter Monday they broke out again
+with redoubled vigour; and, before the week was over, the Paschal
+Alleluias were blending strangely with paeans of victory over conquered
+foes. When even so grave and spiritually-minded a man as Dean Church
+wrote to a triumphant Gladstonian, "I don't wonder at your remembering
+the Song of Miriam," it is manifest that political fervour had reached a
+very unusual point.
+
+On the 2nd of April I was returned to Parliament, as colleague of Sir
+Nathaniel de Rothschild, in the representation of Aylesbury. We were the
+last Members for that ancient Borough, for, before the next General
+Election came round, it had been merged, by Redistribution, in Mid
+Bucks. The Liberal victory was overwhelming. Lord Beaconsfield, who had
+expected a very different result, resigned on the 18th of April, and
+Gladstone became Prime Minister for the second time. Truly his enemies
+had been made his footstool. On the 30th of April I took the oath and my
+seat in the House of Commons, and a fresh stage of life began.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[29] I must except from this general indictment the Rev. A. T. Lloyd,
+Vicar of Aylesbury in 1880, and afterwards Bishop of Newcastle. A strong
+Conservative, but eminently a Christian gentleman.
+
+[30] Archbishop Alexander.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+PARLIAMENT
+
+
+     "Still in the Senate, whatsoe'er we lack,
+     It is not genius;--call old giants back,
+     And men now living might as tall appear;
+     Judged by our sons, not us--_we_ stand too near.
+     Ne'er of the living can the living judge--
+     Too blind the affection, or too fresh the grudge."
+                       BULWER-LYTTON, _St. Stephen's_.
+
+
+"In old days it was the habit to think and say that the House of Commons
+was an essentially 'queer place,' which no one could understand until he
+was a Member of it. It may, perhaps, be doubted whether that somewhat
+mysterious quality still altogether attaches to that assembly. 'Our own
+Reporter' has invaded it in all its purlieus. No longer content with
+giving an account of the speeches of its members, he is not satisfied
+unless he describes their persons, their dress, and their characteristic
+mannerisms. He tells us how they dine, even the wines and dishes which
+they favour, and follows them into the very mysteries of their
+smoking-room. And yet there is perhaps a certain fine sense of the
+feelings, and opinions, and humours of this Assembly which cannot be
+acquired by hasty notions and necessarily superficial remarks, but must
+be the result of long and patient observation, and of that quick
+sympathy with human sentiment, in all its classes, which is involved in
+the possession of that inestimable quality styled tact.
+
+"When Endymion Ferrars first took his seat in the House of Commons, it
+still fully possessed its character of enigmatic tradition. For himself,
+Endymion entered the Chamber with a certain degree of awe, which, with
+use, diminished, but never entirely disappeared. The scene was one over
+which his boyhood even had long mused, and it was associated with all
+those traditions of genius, eloquence, and power that charm and inspire
+youth. His acquaintance with the forms and habits of the House was of
+great advantage to him, and restrained that excitement which dangerously
+accompanies us when we enter into a new life, and especially a life of
+such deep and thrilling interests and such large proportions."[31]
+
+I quote these words from a statesman who knew the House of Commons more
+thoroughly than anyone else has ever known it; and, though Lord
+Beaconsfield was describing the Parliament which assembled in August,
+1841, his description would fit, with scarcely the alteration of a word,
+the Parliament in which I took my seat in April, 1880.[32]
+
+The "acquaintance with the forms and habits of the House," which Lord
+Beaconsfield attributes to his favourite Endymion, was also mine; from
+my earliest years I had been familiar with every nook and corner of the
+Palace of Westminster. My father's official residence in Speaker's Court
+communicated by a private door with the corridors of the Palace, and my
+father's privilege as Sergeant-at-Arms enabled him to place me in, or
+under, the Gallery whenever there was a debate or a scene of special
+interest. I was early initiated into all the forms and ceremonies of
+the House; the manoeuvres of the mace, the obeisances to the Chair,
+the rap of "Black Rod" on the locked door, the daily procession of Mr.
+Speaker and his attendants (which Sir Henry Irving pronounced the most
+theatrically effective thing of its kind in our public life).
+
+The Sergeant-at-Arms has in his gift the appointment of all the
+doorkeepers, messengers, and attendants of the House; and, as my father
+was Sergeant from 1848 to 1875, the staff was almost exclusively
+composed of men who had been servants in our own or our friends'
+families. This circumstance was vividly brought home to me on the day on
+which I first entered the House. In the Members' Lobby I was greeted by
+a venerable-looking official who bowed, smiled, and said, when I shook
+hands with him, "Well, sir, I'm glad, indeed, to see you here; and, when
+I think that I helped to put both your grandfather and your grandmother
+into their coffins, it makes me feel quite at home with you."
+
+The first duty of a new House of Commons is to elect a Speaker, and on
+the 7th of April, 1880, we re-elected Mr. Henry Brand (afterwards Lord
+Hampden), who had been Speaker since 1872. Mr. Brand was a short man,
+but particularly well set up, and in his wig and gown he carried himself
+with a dignity which fully made up for the lack of inches. His voice was
+mellow, and his utterance slightly pompous, so that the lightest word
+which fell from his lips conveyed a sense of urbane majesty. He looked
+what he was, and what the traditions of the House required--a country
+gentleman of the highest type. One of the most noticeable traits was his
+complexion, fresh and rosy as a boy's. I well remember one day, after a
+stormy "all-night sitting," saying to his train-bearer, "The Speaker has
+borne it wonderfully. He looks as fresh as paint." Whereupon the
+train-bearer, a man of a depressed spirit, made answer, "Ah! sir, it's
+the Speaker's 'igh colour that deceives you. 'E'll 'ave that same 'igh
+colour when 'e's laid out in 'is coffin."
+
+The election of the Speaker having been duly accomplished, and the
+Members sworn in, the House adjourned till the 20th of May, then to meet
+for the despatch of business; and this may be a convenient point for a
+brief recapitulation of recent events.
+
+Lord Hartington (afterwards eighth Duke of Devonshire) had been, ever
+since the beginning of 1875, the recognized leader of the Liberal Party.
+But, when Gladstone re-entered the field as the foremost assailant of
+Lord Beaconsfield's policy, Lord Hartington's authority over his party
+was sensibly diminished. Indeed, it is not too much to say that he was
+brushed on one side, and that all the fervour and fighting power of the
+Liberal Party were sworn to Gladstone's standard.
+
+When the General Election of 1880 reached its close, everyone felt that
+Gladstone was now the real, though not the titular, leader of the
+Liberal Party, and the inevitable Prime Minister. Lord Beaconsfield did
+not wait for an adverse vote in the new House, but resigned on the 18th
+of April. We do not at present know, but no doubt we shall know when Mr.
+Monypenny's "Life" is completed, whether Queen Victoria consulted Lord
+Beaconsfield as to his successor. A friend of mine once asked the Queen
+this plain question: "When a Prime Minister goes out, does he recommend
+a successor?" And the Queen replied, with equal plainness, "Not unless I
+ask him to do so." There can, I think, be little doubt that Her Majesty,
+in April, 1880, asked Lord Beaconsfield's advice in this delicate
+matter, and we may presume that the advice was that Her Majesty should
+follow the constitutional practice, and send for Lord Hartington, as
+being the leader of the victorious party. This was done, and on the 22nd
+of April Lord Hartington waited on Her Majesty at Windsor, and was
+invited to form an Administration. Feeling in the Liberal Party ran very
+high. It was not for this that we had fought and won. If Gladstone did
+not become Prime Minister, our victory would be robbed of half its joy;
+and great was our jubilation when we learned that the task had been
+declined. As the precise nature of the transaction has often been
+misrepresented, it is as well to give it in Lord Hartington's own
+words--
+
+"The advice which Lord Hartington gave to the Queen from first to last
+was that Her Majesty should send for Mr. Gladstone, and consult him as
+to the formation of a Government; and that, if he should be willing to
+undertake the task, she should call upon him to form an Administration.
+
+"Lord Hartington had up to that time had no communication with Mr.
+Gladstone on the subject, and did not know what his views as to
+returning to office might be. With the Queen's permission, Lord
+Hartington, on his return from Windsor, informed Mr. Gladstone and Lord
+Granville, but no other person, of what had passed between Her Majesty
+and himself."
+
+The result of that interview was a foregone conclusion. If Lord
+Hartington consented to form an Administration, Gladstone would not take
+a place in it. If he was not to be Prime Minister, he must remain
+outside. Having put this point beyond the reach of doubt, Lord
+Hartington returned next day to Windsor, accompanied by Lord Granville,
+who led the Liberal Party in the House of Lords. They both assured the
+Queen that the victory was Gladstone's, and that the Liberal Party would
+be satisfied with no other Prime Minister. The two statesmen returned to
+London in the afternoon, and called on Gladstone. He was expecting them
+and the message which they brought. He went down to Windsor without an
+hour's delay, and that evening "kissed hands" as Prime Minister for the
+second time.
+
+This was the climax of his career. He had dethroned Lord Beaconsfield.
+He had vindicated the cause of humanity and freedom all over the world;
+and he had been recalled, by unanimous acclamation, to the task of
+governing the British Empire. On the 20th of May he met his twelfth
+Parliament, and the second in which he had been Chief Minister of the
+Crown. "At 4.15," he wrote in his diary, "I went down to the House with
+Herbert.[33] There was a great and fervent crowd in Palace Yard, and
+much feeling in the House. It almost overpowered me, as I thought by
+what deep and hidden agencies I have been brought into the midst of the
+vortex of political action and contention.... Looking calmly on the
+course of experience, I do believe that the Almighty has employed me for
+His purposes in a manner larger or more special than before, and has
+strengthened me and led me on accordingly, though I must not forget the
+admirable saying of Hooker, that even ministers of good things are like
+torches--a light to others, waste and destruction to themselves."
+
+The conviction so solemnly expressed by Gladstone was entertained by not
+a few of his followers. We felt that, _Deo adjuvante_, we had won a
+famous victory for the cause of Right; and, as a Party, we "stood on the
+top of golden hours." An overwhelming triumph after a desperate fight;
+an immense majority, in which internecine jealousies were, at least for
+the moment, happily composed; a leader of extraordinary powers and
+popularity; an administration of All the Talents; an attractive and
+practicable programme of Ministerial measures--these were some of the
+elements in a condition unusually prosperous and promising. But trained
+observers of political phenomena laid even greater stress on Gladstone's
+personal ascendancy over the House of Commons. Old and experienced
+Members of Parliament instructed the newcomer to watch carefully the
+methods of his leadership, because it was remarkable for its
+completeness, its dexterity, and the willing submission with which it
+was received.
+
+The pre-eminence of the Premier was, indeed, the most noteworthy feature
+which the new House presented to the student of Parliamentary life.
+Whether considered morally or intellectually, he seemed to tower a head
+and shoulders above his colleagues, and above the Front Opposition
+Bench. The leader of the Opposition was the amiable and accomplished Sir
+Stafford Northcote, afterwards Lord Iddesleigh, a
+
+
+                      "scrupulous, good man,
+     Who would not, with a peremptory tone,
+     Assert the nose upon his face his own."
+
+
+In his youth he had been Gladstone's Private Secretary, and he still
+seemed to tremble at his old chief's glance.
+
+But, when everything looked so fair and smiling, Speaker Brand quietly
+noted in his diary, that the Liberal Party "were not only strong, but
+determined to have their way in spite of Mr. Gladstone." And this
+determination to "have their way" was soon and startlingly manifested,
+and challenged the personal ascendancy of which we had heard so much.
+
+Charles Bradlaugh, a defiant Atheist, and the teacher of a social
+doctrine which decent people abhor, had been returned as one of the
+Members for Northampton. When the other Members were sworn, he claimed a
+right to affirm, which was disallowed on legal grounds. He thereupon
+proposed to take the oath in the ordinary way; the Tories objected, and
+the Speaker weakly gave way. The House, on a division, decided that
+Bradlaugh must neither affirm nor swear. In effect, it decreed that a
+duly elected Member was not to take his seat. On the 23rd of June,
+Bradlaugh came to the table of the House, and again claimed his right to
+take the oath. The Speaker read the Resolution of the House forbidding
+it. Thereupon Bradlaugh asked to be heard, and addressed the House from
+the Bar. I happened to be dining that night with Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone
+in Downing Street. Gladstone came in full of excitement, and pronounced
+Bradlaugh's speech "consummate." However, it availed nothing. Bradlaugh
+was ordered to withdraw from the House; refused, and was committed to a
+farcical imprisonment of two days in the Clock Tower; and so, as Lord
+Morley says, there "opened a series of incidents that went on as long as
+the Parliament, clouded the radiance of the Party triumph, threw the new
+Government at once into a minority, dimmed the ascendancy of the great
+Minister, and showed human nature at its worst." From the day when
+Bradlaugh's case was first mooted, it became apparent that the Liberal
+Party contained a good many men who had only the frailest hold on the
+primary principles of Liberalism, and who, under the pressure of social
+and theological prejudice, were quite ready to join the Tories in a
+tyrannical negation of Religious Liberty. Gladstone, though deserted and
+defeated by his own followers, maintained the righteous cause with a
+signal consistency and courage. There was no one in the world to whom
+Bradlaugh's special opinions could have been more abhorrent; but he
+felt--and we who followed him felt the same--that the cause of God and
+morality can never be served by the insolent refusal of a civil right.
+
+There is no need to recapitulate the story in all its stages, but one
+incident deserves commemoration. In April, 1883, Gladstone brought in an
+Affirmation Bill, permitting Members of Parliament (as witnesses in
+Law-Courts were already permitted) to affirm their allegiance instead of
+swearing it. On the 26th of April he moved the Second Reading of the
+Bill in the finest speech which I have ever heard. Under the existing
+system (which admitted Jews to Parliament, but excluded Atheists), to
+deny the existence of God was a fatal bar, but to deny the Christian
+Creed was no bar at all. This, as Gladstone contended, was a formal
+disparagement of Christianity, which was thereby relegated to a place of
+secondary importance. And then, on the general question of attaching
+civil penalties to religious misbelief, he uttered a passage which no
+one who heard it can forget. "Truth is the expression of the Divine
+Mind; and, however little our feeble vision may be able to discern the
+means by which God may provide for its preservation, we may leave the
+matter in His hands, and we may be sure that a firm and courageous
+application of every principle of equity and of justice is the best
+method we can adopt for the preservation and influence of Truth."
+
+The Bill was lost by a majority of three, recreant Liberals again
+helping to defeat the just claim of a man whom they disliked; and
+Bradlaugh did not take his seat until the new Parliament in 1886
+admitted, without a division, the right which the old Parliament had
+denied. Meanwhile, a few of us, actuated by the desperate hope of
+bringing the clergy to a right view of the controversy, printed
+Gladstone's speech as a pamphlet, and sent a copy, with a covering
+letter, to every beneficed clergyman in England, Scotland, and Ireland.
+One of the clergy thus addressed sent me the following reply, which has
+ever since been hoarded among my choicest treasures:
+
+
+                                                       June 16th, 1883.
+     MY DEAR SIR,
+
+     I have received your recommendation to read carefully the speech of
+     Mr. Gladstone in favour of admitting the infidel Bradlaugh into
+     Parliament. I did so, when it was delivered, and I must say that
+     the strength of argument rests with the Opposition. I fully expect,
+     in the event of a dissolution, the Government will lose between 50
+     and 60 seats.
+
+     Any conclusion can be arrived at, according to the premises laid
+     down. Mr. G. avoided the Scriptural lines and followed his own. All
+     parties knew the feeling of the country on the subject, and,
+     notwithstanding the bullying and majority of Gladstone, he was
+     defeated.
+
+     Before the Irish Church was robbed, I was nominated to the Deanery
+     of Tuam; but, Mr. Disraeli resigning, I was defrauded of my just
+     right by Mr. Gladstone, and my wife, Lady ---- ----, the only
+     surviving child of an Earl, was sadly disappointed, but there is a
+     just Judge above. The letter of nomination is still in my
+     possession.
+                   I am, dear Sir,
+                                Yours faithfully,
+                             ---- ----, D.D. and LL.D.
+
+
+One is often asked if Gladstone had any sense of humour. My simple and
+sufficient reply is that, when he had read this letter, he returned it
+to my hands with a knitted brow and flashing eyes, and this indignant
+question: "What does the fellow mean by quoting an engagement entered
+into by my predecessor as binding on me?"
+
+The good fortune, which had so signally attended Gladstone's campaign
+against Lord Beaconsfield, seemed to desert him as soon as the victory
+was won. The refusal of the House to follow his lead in Bradlaugh's case
+put heart of grace into his opponents, who saw thus early in the new
+Parliament a hopeful opening for vicious attack. The Front Opposition
+Bench, left to its own devices, would not have accomplished much, but it
+was splendidly reinforced by the Fourth Party--a Party of Four--Lord
+Randolph Churchill, Sir Henry Drummond-Wolff, Sir John Gorst, and Mr.
+Arthur Balfour. Some light has been cast by recent memoirs on the mutual
+relations of the Four; but beyond question the head and front of the
+Party was Lord Randolph. That ingenious man possessed a deadly knack of
+"drawing" Gladstone, as the boys say. He knew the great man's
+"vulnerable temper and impetuous moods,"[34] and delighted in exercising
+them. He pelted Gladstone with rebukes and taunts and gibes, and the
+recipient of these attentions "rose freely." There was something rather
+unpleasant in the spectacle of a man of thirty playing these tricks upon
+a man of seventy; but one could not deny that the tricks were extremely
+clever; and beyond doubt they did a vast deal to consolidate the
+performer's popularity out of doors. It is not too much to say that, by
+allowing himself to be drawn, Gladstone made Lord Randolph.
+
+The most formidable enemy of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons
+was Parnell; and, when he joined forces with the Fourth Party and their
+adherents, the conjunction was disastrous to Liberalism. He figures in
+Lord Morley's "Life" of Gladstone as a high-souled and amiable patriot.
+I always thought him entirely destitute of humane feeling, and a bitter
+enemy of England. I remember the late Lord Carlisle, then George Howard
+and Member for East Cumberland, gazing at Parnell across the House and
+quoting from _The Newcomes_--"The figure of this garcon is not
+agreeable. Of pale, he has become livid." A lady who met him in a
+country house wrote me this interesting account of him:
+
+"I cannot exaggerate the impression he made on me. I never before felt
+such power and magnetic force in any man. As for his eyes, if he looks
+at you, you can't look away, and, if he doesn't, you are wondering how
+soon he will look at you again. I'm afraid I have very little trust in
+his goodness--I should think it a very minus quantity; but I believe
+absolutely in his strength and his power of influence. I should be sorry
+if he were my enemy, for I think he would stop at nothing."
+
+At the General Election of 1880, Irish questions were completely in the
+background. The demand for Home Rule was not taken seriously, even by
+Mr. John Morley,[35] who stood unsuccessfully for Westminster. Ireland
+was politically tranquil, and the distress due to the failure of the
+crops had been alleviated by the combined action of Englishmen
+irrespective of party. But during the summer of 1880 it was found that
+the Irish landlords were evicting wholesale the tenants whom famine had
+impoverished. To provide compensation for these evicted tenants was the
+object of a well-meant but hastily drawn "Disturbance Bill," which the
+Government passed through the Commons. It was rejected by an
+overwhelming majority in the Lords, and the natural consequence of its
+rejection was seen in the ghastly record of outrage and murder which
+stained the following winter.
+
+The Session of 1881 opened on the 6th of January. The speech from the
+Throne announced two Irish Bills--one to reform the tenure of land, and
+one to repress crime and outrage. The combination was stigmatized by Mr.
+T. P. O'Connor as "weak reform and strong coercion"; and the same
+vivacious orator, alluding to Mr. Chamberlain's supposed sympathy with
+the Irish cause, taunted the Right Honourable gentleman with having had
+"if not the courage of his convictions, at least the silence of his
+shame."
+
+The debate on the Address in the Commons lasted eleven nights, the
+Irish Members moving endless amendments, with the avowed object of
+delaying the Coercion Bill, which was eventually brought in by Forster
+on the 24th January. The gist of the Bill was arrest on suspicion and
+imprisonment without trial. The Irish Members fought it tooth and nail,
+and were defied by Gladstone in a speech of unusual fire. "With fatal
+and painful precision," he exclaimed, "the steps of crime dogged the
+steps of the Land League; and it is not possible to get rid of facts
+such as I have stated, by vague and general complaints, by imputations
+against parties, imputations against England, or imputations against
+Government. You must meet them, and confute them, if you can. None will
+rejoice more than myself if you can attain such an end. But in the
+meantime they stand, and they stand uncontradicted, in the face of the
+British House of Commons." The speech in which this tremendous
+indictment was delivered attracted loud cheers from Liberals and
+Conservatives alike, but stirred the Irish to fury. I remember Mr.
+O'Connor saying to me, "If only Gladstone had been in opposition, how he
+would have enjoyed tearing into shreds the statistics which he has just
+quoted!" The resistance to the Bill became impassioned. The House sat
+continuously from the afternoon of January 31st to the forenoon of
+February 2nd. Members were divided, like miners, into Day-Shifts and
+Night-Shifts. The Refreshment-Rooms at the House were kept open all
+night, and we recruited our exhausted energies with grilled bones,
+oysters, and champagne, and went to bed at breakfast-time. At 9.30 on
+Wednesday morning, February 2nd, Mr. Speaker Brand, who had been absent
+from the House for some hours, suddenly resumed the Chair, and, without
+waiting for J. G. Biggar to finish his speech, put the question that
+leave be given to bring in the Coercion Bill. The Irish raved and
+stormed, and cried out against the Speaker's action as "a Breach of
+Privilege." That it was not; but it was an unexpected and a salutary
+revolution. When questioned, later in the day, as to the authority on
+which he had acted, the Speaker said, "I acted on my own responsibility,
+and from a sense of my duty to the House." Thus was established,
+summarily and under unprecedented circumstances, that principle of
+Closure which has since developed into an indispensable feature of
+Parliamentary procedure.
+
+The Session as a whole was extremely dull. The Irish Land Bill was so
+complicated that, according to common report, only three persons in the
+House understood it, and they were Gladstone, the Irish Chancellor,[36]
+and Mr. T. M. Healy. The only amusing incident was that on the 16th of
+June, owing to the attendance of Liberal Members at Ascot Races, the
+majority on a critical division fell to twenty-five. Having occupied the
+whole Session, the Bill was so mangled by the House of Lords that the
+best part of another year had to be spent on mending it. Meanwhile, the
+Coercion Bill proved, in working, a total failure. Forster had averred
+that the police knew the "Village Ruffians" who incited to crime, and
+that, if only he were empowered to imprison them without trial, outrages
+would cease. But either he did not lay hold of the right men, or else
+imprisonment had no terrors; for all through the autumn and winter of
+1881 agrarian crimes increased with terrible rapidity. In a fit of
+desperation, Forster cast Parnell into prison, and Gladstone announced
+the feat amid the tumultuous applause of the Guildhall. But things only
+went from bad to worse, and soon there were forty agrarian murders
+unpunished. Having imprisoned Parnell without trial, and kept him in
+prison for six months, the Government now determined to release him, in
+the hope, for certainly there was no assurance, that he would behave
+like a repentant child who has been locked up in a dark cupboard, and
+would use his influence to restore order in Ireland. Dissenting, as well
+he might, from this policy, Forster resigned. His resignation was
+announced on the 2nd of May. That evening I met Gladstone at a party,
+and, in answer to an anxious friend, he said: "The state of Ireland is
+very greatly improved." Ardent Liberals on both sides of the Channel
+shared this sanguine faith, but they were doomed to a cruel
+disappointment. On the 6th of May, the Queen performed the public
+ceremony of dedicating Epping Forest, then lately rescued from
+depredation, to the service of the public. It was a forward spring; the
+day was bright, and the forest looked more beautiful than anything that
+Dore ever painted. I was standing in the space reserved for the House of
+Commons, by W. H. O'Sullivan, M.P. for the County of Limerick. He was an
+ardent Nationalist, but recent events had touched his heart, and he
+overflowed with friendly feeling. "This is a fine sight," he said to
+me, "but, please God, we shall yet see something like it in Ireland. We
+have entered at last upon the right path. You will hear no more of the
+Irish difficulty." Within an hour of the time at which he spoke, the
+newly-appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland--the gallant and high-minded
+Lord Frederick Cavendish--and the Under Secretary, Mr. Burke, were
+stabbed to death in the Phoenix Park at Dublin, and the "Irish
+difficulty" entered on the acutest phase which it has ever known.
+
+At that time Lord Northbrook was First Lord of the Admiralty, and on
+Saturday evening, the 6th of May, he gave a party at his official
+residence. The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh were among the guests, and
+there was some music after dinner. In the middle of the performance, I
+noticed a slight commotion, and saw a friend leading Mrs. Gladstone out
+of the room. The incident attracted attention, and people began to
+whisper that Gladstone, who was not at the party, must have been taken
+suddenly ill. While we were all wondering and guessing, a waiter leaned
+across the buffet in the tea-room, and said to me, "Lord Frederick
+Cavendish has been murdered in Dublin. I am a Messenger at the Home
+Office, and we heard it by telegram this evening." In an incredibly
+short time the ghastly news spread from room to room, and the guests
+trooped out in speechless horror. That night brought a condition more
+like delirium than repose. One felt as though Hell had opened her mouth,
+and the Powers of Darkness had been let loose. Next day London was like
+a city of the dead, and by Monday all England was in mourning. Sir
+Wilfrid Lawson thus described that awful Sunday: "The effect was
+horrifying--almost stupefying. No one who walked in the streets of
+London that day can ever forget the sort of ghastly depression which
+seemed to affect everyone. Perfect strangers seemed disposed to speak in
+sympathizing, horror-stricken words with those whom they met. In short,
+there was a moral gloom which could be felt over the whole place."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[31] Lord Beaconsfield. _Endymion._
+
+[32] The following incident may be worth recording for the information
+of such as are interested in the antiquities of Parliament. I first took
+my seat on the highest bench above and behind the Treasury Bench, under
+the shadow of the Gallery. A few days later, an old Parliamentarian said
+to me, "That's quite the wrong place for you. That belongs to ancient
+Privy Councillors, and they sit there because, if any difficulty arises,
+the Minister in charge of the business can consult them, without being
+observed by everyone in the House." That was the tradition in 1880, but
+it has long since died out.
+
+[33] Afterwards Lord Gladstone.
+
+[34] Gladstone's own phrase.
+
+[35] Afterwards Lord Morley of Blackburn.
+
+[36] The Right Hon. Hugh Law.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+POLITICS
+
+
+     "Ne'er to these chambers, where the mighty rest,
+     Since their foundation came a nobler guest;
+     Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss conveyed
+     A fairer spirit, or more welcome shade."
+                 T. TICKELL, _On the death of Mr. Addison_.
+
+
+Lord Frederick Cavendish was laid to rest with his forefathers at
+Edensor, near Chatsworth, on the 11th of May, 1882--and on the evening
+of that day the Home Secretary, Sir William Harcourt, brought in a
+"Prevention of Crimes Bill" for Ireland, designed to supersede the
+Coercion Act which had proved such a dismal failure. The new Bill
+provided for the creation of special tribunals composed of Judges of the
+Superior Courts, who could sit without juries; and gave the police the
+right of search at any time in proclaimed districts, and authorized them
+to arrest any persons unable to give an account of themselves. The Bill
+was succinctly described as "Martial Law in a Wig," and, as such, it
+was exactly adapted to the needs of a country in which social war had
+raged unchecked for two years. The murderous conspiracy died hard, but
+experience soon justified those who had maintained that, as soon as a
+proper tribunal was constituted, evidence would be forthcoming. The Act
+was courageously administered by Lord Spencer and Sir George Trevelyan,
+under circumstances of personal and political peril which the present
+generation can hardly realize. In less than two years the murderers of
+Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke had been hanged; the conspiracy
+which organized the murders had been broken up; and social order was
+permanently re-established.
+
+Such were the excellent effects of the Crimes Act of 1882, and annalists
+treating of this period have commonly said that the Act was due to the
+murders in the Phoenix Park. Some years ago Lord James of Hereford,
+who, as Attorney-General, had been closely associated with these events,
+placed in my hands a written statement of the circumstances in which the
+Act originated, and begged that, if possible, the truth of the matter
+might be made known. This may be a convenient opportunity for giving his
+testimony.
+
+"The Bill of 1882 was designed, and on the stocks, during the month of
+April. I saw F. Cavendish as to some of its details almost immediately
+before his starting for Ireland. As Chief Secretary, he discussed with
+me the provisions the Bill should contain. On Sunday, May 7, 1882, when
+the news of F. Cavendish's murder became known, I went to see Harcourt.
+He begged me to see that the drawing of the Bill was hastened on. About
+2 o'clock I went to the Irish Office, and found the Irish
+Attorney-General hard at work on the Bill. The first draft of it was
+then in print. No doubt F. Cavendish's death tended to affect the
+subsequent framing of the Bill. Harcourt came upon the scenes. T---- and
+J---- were called to the assistance of the Irish draftsmen, and no doubt
+the Bill was rendered stronger in consequence of the events of May 6.
+
+"I also well remember the change of front about the power of Search. The
+Irish Members in the most determined manner fought against the creation
+of this power.... Harcourt, who had charge of the Bill, would listen to
+none of these arguments, but Mr. Gladstone was much moved by them. There
+was almost a crisis produced in consequence of this disagreement; but
+Harcourt gave way, and the concession was announced."
+
+It is not my purpose in these chapters to speak about my own
+performances in Parliament, but the foregoing allusion to the concession
+on the Right of Search tempts me to a personal confession. In the Bill,
+as brought in, there was a most salutary provision giving the police the
+right to search houses in which murders were believed to be plotted.
+After making us vote for this clause three times--on the First Reading,
+on the Second Reading, and in Committee--the Government, as we have just
+seen, yielded to clamour, and proposed on Report to alter the clause by
+limiting the Right of Search to day-time. I opposed this alteration, as
+providing a "close time for murder," and had the satisfaction of helping
+to defeat the Government. The Big-Wigs of the Party were extremely
+angry, and Mr. R. H. Hutton, in _The Spectator_, rebuked us in his most
+grandmotherly style. In reply, I quoted some words of his own. "There is
+nothing which injures true Liberalism more than the sympathy of its left
+wing with the loose ruffianism of unsettled States." "Such a State," I
+said, "is Ireland; and if, under the pressure of extraordinary
+difficulties, Ministers vacillate or waver in their dealings with it,
+the truest Liberalism, I believe, is that which holds them firmly to
+their duty."
+
+In that sad Session of 1882 the troubles of the Government "came not
+single spies, but in battalions," and the most enduring of those
+troubles arose in Egypt. For the benefit of a younger generation, let me
+recall the circumstances.
+
+Ismail Pasha, the ruler of Egypt, had accumulated a national debt of
+about L100,000,000, and the pressure on the wretched peasants who had to
+pay was crushing. Presently they broke out in revolt, partly with the
+hope of shaking off this burden, and partly with a view to establishing
+some sort of self-government. But the financiers who had lent money to
+Egypt took fright, and urged the Government to interfere and suppress
+the insurrection. A meeting of Tories was held in London on June 29th
+and the Tory Leaders made the most inflammatory speeches. Unhappily, the
+Government yielded to this show of violence. It was said by a close
+observer of Parliamentary institutions that "When the Government of the
+day and the Opposition of the day take the same side, one may be almost
+sure that some great wrong is at hand," and so it was now. On July 10th
+our fleet bombarded Alexandria, smashing its rotten forts with the
+utmost ease, and killing plenty of Egyptians. I remember to this day the
+sense of shame with which I read our Admiral's telegraphic despatch:
+"Enemy's fire weak and ineffectual."
+
+The protest delivered on the following day, by Sir Wilfrid Lawson, the
+most consistent and the most disinterested politician whom I ever knew,
+deserves to be remembered.
+
+"I say deliberately, and in doing so I challenge either Tory or Liberal
+to contradict me, that no Tory Government could have done what the
+Liberal Government did yesterday in bombarding those forts. If such a
+thing had been proposed, what would have happened? We should have had
+Sir William Harcourt stumping the country, and denouncing Government by
+Ultimatum. We should have had Lord Hartington coming down, and moving a
+Resolution condemning these proceedings being taken behind the back of
+Parliament. We should have had Mr. Chamberlain summoning the Caucuses.
+We should have had Mr. Bright declaiming in the Town Hall of Birmingham
+against the wicked Tory Government; and as for Mr. Gladstone, we all
+know that there would not have been a railway-train, passing a roadside
+station, that he would not have pulled up at, to proclaim
+non-intervention as the duty of the Government."
+
+On the 12th of July John Bright retired from the Government, as a
+protest against the bombardment, and made a short speech full of solemn
+dignity. "I asked my calm judgment and my conscience what was the path I
+ought to take. They pointed it out to me, as I think, with an unerring
+finger, and I am humbly endeavouring to follow it."
+
+But it was too late. The mischief was done, and has not been undone to
+this day. I remember Mr. Chamberlain saying to me: "Well, I confess I
+was tired of having England kicked about all over the world. I never
+condemned the Tory Government for going to war; only for going to war on
+the wrong side." It was a characteristic saying; but this amazing lapse
+into naked jingoism spread wonder and indignation through the Liberal
+Party, and shook the faith of many who, down to that time, had regarded
+Gladstone as a sworn servant of Peace. The Egyptian policy of 1882 must,
+I fear, always remain the blot on Gladstone's scutcheon; and three
+years later he gave away the whole case for intervention, and threw the
+blame on his predecessors in office. In his Address to the Electors of
+Midlothian before the General Election of 1885 he used the following
+words: "We have, according to my conviction from the very first (when
+the question was not within the sphere of Party contentions), committed
+by our intervention in Egypt a grave political error, and the
+consequence which the Providential order commonly allots to such error
+is not compensation, but retribution."
+
+But, though Providence eventually allotted "retribution" to our crimes
+and follies in Egypt, and though they were always unpopular with the
+Liberal Party out of doors, it was curious to observe that the position
+of the Government in the House of Commons was stronger at the end of
+1882 than it was at the beginning. That this was so was due, I think, in
+part to the fact that for the moment we were victorious in Egypt,[37]
+and in part to admiration for the vigour with which Lord Spencer was
+fighting the murderous conspiracy in Ireland. The Government enjoyed the
+dangerous praise of the Opposition; obstruction collapsed; and some new
+Rules of Procedure were carried by overwhelming majorities. Here let me
+interpolate an anecdote. Mr. M---- L---- was a barrister, an obsequious
+supporter of the Government, and, as was generally surmised, on the
+lookout for preferment. Mr. Philip Callan, M.P. for County Louth, was
+speaking on an amendment to one of the new Rules, and Mr. M---- L----
+thrice tried to call him to order on the ground of irrelevancy. Each
+time, the Chairman of Committee ruled that, though the Honourable Member
+for Louth was certainly taking a wide sweep, he was not out of order.
+Rising the third time from the seat Callan said: "I may as well take the
+opportunity of giving notice that I propose to move the insertion of a
+new Standing Order, which will read as follows: 'Any Hon. Member who
+three times unsuccessfully calls another Hon. Member to order, shall be
+ineligible for a County Court Judgeship.'" Mr. M---- L---- looked coy,
+and everyone else shouted with glee.
+
+The Session of 1883 opened very quietly. The speech from the Throne
+extolled the success of the Ministerial policy in Ireland and Egypt, and
+promised a series of useful but not exciting measures. Meanwhile the
+more active Members of the Liberal Party, among whom I presumed to
+reckon myself, began to agitate for more substantial reforms. We had
+entered on the fourth Session of the Parliament. A noble majority was
+beginning to decline, and we felt that there was no time to lose if we
+were to secure the ends which we desired. Knowing that I felt keenly on
+these subjects, Mr. T. H. S. Escott, then Editor of the _Fortnightly_,
+asked me to write an article for his Review, and in that article I spoke
+my mind about the Agricultural Labourers' Suffrage, the Game Laws, the
+reform of the City of London, and an English Land Bill. "The action of
+the Peers," I said, "under Lord Salisbury's guidance will probably force
+on the question of a Second Chamber, and those who flatter themselves
+that the Liberal Party will shrink from discussing it will be grievously
+disillusioned. Disestablishment, begun in Ireland, will inevitably work
+round, by Scotland, to England. And who is to preside over these
+changes?"
+
+I returned to the charge in the June number of the _Nineteenth Century_,
+and urged my points more strongly. I pleaded for social reform, and for
+"a Free Church in a Free State." I crossed swords with a noble Lord who
+had pronounced dogmatically that "A Second Chamber is absolutely
+necessary." I gave my reasons for thinking that now-a-days there is very
+little danger of hasty and ill-considered legislation, and I pointed out
+that, when this danger disappears, the reason for a Second Chamber
+disappears with it. "But," I said, "granting, for the sake of argument,
+that something of this danger still survives, would it not be fully met
+by limiting the power of the Lords to a Veto for a year on a measure
+passed by the Commons?"
+
+These articles, coupled with my speeches in the House and in my
+constituency, gave dire offence to the Whigs; and I was chastened with
+rebukes which, if not weighty, were at any rate ponderous. "Not this
+way," wrote the _St. James's Gazette_, in a humorous apostrophe, "not
+this way, O Junior Member for Aylesbury, lies the road to the Treasury
+Bench," and so, indeed, it seemed. But, on returning from an evening
+party at Sir Matthew Ridley's, on the 5th of June, 1883, I found a
+letter from Mr. Gladstone, offering me the post of Parliamentary
+Secretary to the Local Government Board. One sentence of that letter I
+may be allowed to quote:
+
+"Your name, and the recollections it suggests, add much to the
+satisfaction which, independently of relationship, I should have felt in
+submitting to you this request." It was like Gladstone's courtesy to
+call his offer a "request."
+
+Thus I became harnessed to the machine of Government, and my friends,
+inside the House and out of it, were extremely kind about the
+appointment. Nearly everyone who wrote to congratulate me used the same
+image: "You have now set your foot on the bottom rung of the ladder."
+But my staunch friend George Trevelyan handled the matter more
+poetically, in the following stanza:
+
+
+     "As long as a plank can float, or a bolt can hold together,
+       When the sea is smooth as glass, or the waves run mountains high,
+     In the brightest of summer skies, or the blackest of dirty weather,
+       Wherever the ship swims, there swim I."
+
+
+The part of "the ship" to which I was now fastened was certainly not the
+most exalted or exciting of the public offices. The estimation in which
+it was held in official circles is aptly illustrated by a pleasantry of
+that eminent Civil Servant, Sir Algernon West. When the Revised Version
+of the New Testament appeared, Gladstone asked Sir Algernon (who had
+begun life in the Treasury), if he thought it as good as the Authorized
+Version. "Certainly not," was the reply. "It is so painfully lacking in
+dignity." Gladstone, always delighted to hear an innovation censured
+(unless he himself had made it), asked for an illustration. "Well," said
+West, "look at the Second Chapter of St. Luke. _There went out a decree
+from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed._ Now that always
+struck me as a sublime conception--a tax levied on the whole world by a
+stroke of the pen--an act worthy of an Imperial Treasury. But I turn to
+the Revised Version, and what do I read? _That all the world should be
+enrolled_--a census--the sort of thing the Local Government Board could
+do. That instance, to my mind, settles the question between Old and
+New."
+
+But in the office thus contemned by the Paladins of the Treasury, there
+was plenty of interesting though little-observed work. In the autumn of
+1883 I undertook, in conjunction with the President of the Board, a
+mission of enquiry into the worst slums in London. There is no need to
+recapitulate here all the horrors we encountered, for they can be read
+in the evidence given before the Royal Commission on the Housing of the
+Poor which was appointed in the following year; but one incident made a
+peculiar impression on my mind. The Sanitary Officer reported some
+underground dwellings in Spitalfields as being perhaps the worst
+specimens of human habitation which we should find, and he offered to be
+my guide. I entered a cellar-like room in a basement, which, till one's
+eyes got used to the dimness, seemed pitch-dark. I felt, rather than
+saw, the presence of a woman, and, when we began to talk, I discerned by
+her voice that she was not a Londoner. "No, sir," she replied, "I come
+from Wantage, in Berkshire." Having always heard of Wantage as a kind of
+Earthly Paradise, where the Church, the Sisterhood, and the "Great
+House" combined to produce the millennium, I said, involuntarily, "How
+you must wish to be back there!" "Back at Wantage!" exclaimed the Lady
+of the Cellar. "No, indeed, sir. This is a poor place, but it's better
+than Wantage." It was instructive to find this love of freedom, and
+resentment of interference, in the bowels of the earth of Spitalfields.
+
+An incident which helps to illustrate Gladstone's personal ascendancy
+belongs to this period. Those were the days of agitation for and
+against a Channel Tunnel, eagerly promoted by speculative tunnel-makers,
+and resolutely opposed by Mr. Chamberlain, then President of the Board
+of Trade. Gladstone, when asked if he was for or against the Tunnel,
+said very characteristically, "I am not so much in favour of the Tunnel,
+as opposed to the opponents of it"; and this of course meant that he was
+really in favour of it. About this time I met him at dinner, and after
+the ladies had gone, I think we were eight men round the table.
+Gladstone began praising the Tunnel; one of the hearers echoed him, and
+the rest of us were silent. Looking round triumphantly, Gladstone said,
+"Ah, this is capital! Here we are--eight sensible men--and all in favour
+of the Tunnel." Knowing that several of us were against the Tunnel, I
+challenged a division and collected the votes. Excepting Gladstone and
+his echo, we all were anti-tunnelites, and yet none of us would have had
+the hardihood to say so.
+
+In this year--1883--Gladstone's Government had regained some portion of
+the popularity and success which they had lost; but when the year ran
+out, their success was palpably on the wane, and their popularity of
+course waned with it. The endless contradictions and perplexities,
+crimes and follies, of our Egyptian policy became too obvious to be
+concealed or palliated, and at the beginning of 1884 the Government
+resolved on their crowning and fatal blunder. On the 18th of January,
+Lord Hartington (Secretary of State for War), Lord Granville, Lord
+Northbrook, and Sir Charles Dilke had an interview with General Gordon,
+and determined that he should be sent to evacuate the Soudan. Gladstone
+assented, and Gordon started that evening on his ill-starred errand. In
+view of subsequent events, it is worth recording that there were some
+Liberals who, from the moment they heard of it, condemned the
+undertaking. The dithyrambics of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ drew from
+William Cory[38] the following protest:
+
+
+                                                     "January 21, 1884.
+
+     "It's really ludicrous--the P. M. G. professing a clearly
+     suprarational faith in an elderly Engineer, saying that he will
+     cook the goose if no one interferes with him ... as if he could go
+     to Suakim, 'summon' a barbarous potentate, make him supply his
+     escort to Khartoum, and, when at Khartoum, issue edicts right and
+     left; as if he could act without subaltern officers, money, stores,
+     gold, etc.; as if he were an _homme drapeau_, and had an old army
+     out there ready to troop round him, as the French veterans round
+     Bonaparte at Frejus."
+
+
+In Parliament, the principal work of 1884 was to extend the
+Parliamentary Franchise to the Agricultural Labourer. A Tory Member said
+in debate that the labourers were no more fit to have the franchise than
+the beasts they tended; and Lord Goschen, who had remained outside the
+Cabinet of 1880 sooner than be party to giving them the vote, used to
+say to the end of his life that, if the Union were ever destroyed, it
+would be by the agricultural labourers. I, however, who had lived among
+them all my life and knew that they were at least as fit for political
+responsibility as the artisans, threw myself with ardour into the
+advocacy of their cause. (By the way, my speech of the Second Reading of
+the Franchise Bill was answered by the present Speaker[39] in his maiden
+speech.) All through the summer the battle raged. The Lords did not
+refuse to pass the Bill, but said that, before they passed it, they must
+see the accompanying scheme of Redistribution. It was not a very
+unreasonable demand, but Gladstone denounced it as an unheard-of
+usurpation. We all took our cue from him, and vowed that we would smash
+the House of Lords into atoms before we consented to this insolent
+claim. Throughout the Parliamentary recess, the voices of protest
+resounded from every Liberal platform, and even so lethargic a
+politician as Lord Hartington harangued a huge gathering in the Park at
+Chatsworth. Everything wore the appearance of a constitutional crisis.
+Queen Victoria, as we now know, was seriously perturbed, and did her
+utmost to avert a rupture between Lords and Commons. But still we
+persisted in our outcry. The Lords must pass the Franchise Bill without
+conditions, and when it was law, we would discuss Redistribution. A new
+Session began on 23rd of October. The Franchise Bill was brought in
+again, passed, and sent up to the Lords. At first the Lords seemed
+resolved to insist on their terms; then they wavered; and then again
+they hardened their hearts. Lord Salisbury reported that they would not
+let the Franchise Bill through till they got the Redistribution Bill
+from the Commons. Meanwhile, all sorts of mysterious negotiations were
+going on between the "moderate" men on both sides; and it was known that
+Gladstone dared not dissolve on the old franchise, as he was sure to be
+beaten in the Boroughs. His only hope was in the agricultural
+labourers. Then, acting under pressure which is not known but can be
+easily guessed, he suddenly announced, on the 17th of November, that he
+was prepared to introduce the Redistribution Bill before the Lords went
+into Committee on the Franchise Bill. It was the point for which the
+Tories had been contending all along, and by conceding it, Gladstone
+made an absolute surrender. All the sound and fury of the last six
+months had been expended in protesting that we could never do what now
+we meekly did. It was the beginning of troubles which have lasted to
+this day. The House of Lords learned the welcome lesson that, when the
+Liberal Party railed, they only had to sit still; and the lesson learnt
+in 1884 was applied in each succeeding crisis down to August 1911. It
+has always been to me an amazing instance of Gladstone's powers of
+self-deception that to the end of his life he spoke of this pernicious
+surrender as a signal victory.
+
+
+Early in 1885, it became my duty to receive at the Local Government
+Board a deputation of the Unemployed, who then were beginning to agitate
+the habitual calm of the well-fed and the easy-going. It was a curious
+experience. The deputation consisted of respectable-looking and
+apparently earnest men, some of whom spoke the language of _Alton
+Locke_, while others talked in a more modern strain of dynamite, Secret
+Societies, and "a life for a life." The most conspicuous figure in the
+deputation was an engineer called John Burns,[40] and those who are
+interested in political development may find something to their mind in
+the report of the deputation in _The Times_ of February 17th, 1885.
+There they will read that, after leaving Whitehall, the crowd adjourned
+to the Embankment, where the following resolution was carried, and
+despatched to the President of the Local Government Board:
+
+
+     "That this meeting of the unemployed, having heard the answer given
+     by the Local Government Board to their deputation, considers the
+     refusal to start public works to be a sentence of death on
+     thousands of those out of work, and the recommendation to bring
+     pressure to bear on the local bodies to be a direct incitement to
+     violence; further, it will hold Mr. G. W. E. Russell and the
+     members of the Government, individually and collectively, guilty of
+     the murder of those who may die in the next few weeks, and whose
+     lives would have been saved had the suggestion of the deputation
+     been acted on.
+
+     (Signed)        JOHN BURNS, _Engineer_.
+                     JOHN E. WILLIAMS, _Labourer_.
+                     WILLIAM HENRY, _Foreman_.
+                     JAMES MACDONALD, _Tailor_."
+
+
+The threats with which the leaders of the Unemployed regaled us derived
+a pleasing actuality from the fact that on the 24th of January
+simultaneous explosions had occurred at the Tower and in the House of
+Commons. I did not see the destruction at the Tower, but I went straight
+across from my office to the House of Commons, and saw a curious
+object-lesson in scientific Fenianism. In Westminster Hall there was a
+hole in the pavement six feet wide, and another in the roof. I had
+scarcely done examining these phenomena when another crash shook the
+whole building, and we found that an infernal machine had been exploded
+in the House of Commons, tearing the doors off their hinges, wrecking
+the galleries, and smashing the Treasury Bench into matchwood. The
+French Ambassador, M. Waddington, entered the House with me, and for a
+while stood silent and amazed. At length he said, "There's no other
+country in the world where this could happen." Certainly it must be
+admitted that at that moment our detective organization was not at its
+best.
+
+However, neither mock-heroics nor actual outrage could obscure the fact
+that during the spring of 1885 there Was an immense amount of
+unemployment, and consequent suffering, among the unskilled labourers. I
+suggested that we should issue from the Local Government Board a
+Circular Letter to all the Local Authorities in London, asking them, not
+to invent work, but to push forward works which, owing to the rapid
+extension of London into the suburbs, were becoming absolutely
+necessary. But the President of the Board, a bond slave of Political
+Economy, would not sanction even this very mild departure from the
+precepts of the Dismal Science. The distress was peculiarly acute at the
+Docks, where work is precarious and uncertain in the highest degree.
+Some well-meaning people at the West End instituted a plan of "Free
+Breakfasts" to be served at the Dock-Gates to men who had failed to
+obtain employment for the day. On one of these occasions--and very
+pathetic they were--I was the host, and the _Saturday Review_ treated me
+to some not unkindly ridicule.
+
+
+     Child of the Whigs whose name you flout,
+       Slip of the tree you fain would fell;
+     Your colleagues own, I cannot doubt,
+       Your plan, George Russell, likes them well,
+     "What will regain," you heard them cry,
+       "That popular praise we once enjoyed?"
+     And instant was your smart reply,
+       "Free Breakfasts to the Unemployed."
+
+
+And then, after six more verses of rhythmical chaff, this prophetic
+stanza:
+
+
+     And howsoe'er profusely flow
+       The tea and coffee round the board,
+     The hospitality you show
+       Shall nowise lack its due reward.
+     For soon, I trust, our turn 'twill be,
+       With joy by no regret alloyed,
+     To give the present Ministry
+       A Breakfast for the Unemployed.
+
+
+The Parliamentary work of 1885 was Redistribution. The principles had
+been settled in secret conclave by the leaders on both sides; but the
+details were exhaustively discussed in the House of Commons. By this
+time we had become inured to Tory votes of censure on our Egyptian
+policy, and had always contrived to escape by the skin of our teeth;
+but we were in a disturbed and uneasy condition. We knew--for there was
+an incessant leakage of official secrets--that the Cabinet was rent by
+acute dissensions. The Whiggish section was in favour of renewing the
+Irish Crimes Act. The Radicals wished to let it expire, and proposed to
+conciliate Ireland by a scheme of National Councils. Between the middle
+of April and the middle of May, nine members of the Cabinet, for one
+cause or another, contemplated resignation. After one of these disputes
+Gladstone said to a friend: "A very fair Cabinet to-day--only three
+resignations." Six months later, after his Government had fallen, he
+wrote: "A Cabinet does not exist out of office, and no one in his senses
+could covenant to call _the late Cabinet_ together." The solution of
+these difficulties came unexpectedly. The Budget introduced by Hugh
+Childers on the 30th of April proposed to meet a deficit by additional
+duties on beer and spirits; and was therefore extremely unpopular.
+Silently and skilfully, the Tories, the Irish, and the disaffected
+Liberals laid their plans. On Sunday, June 7th, Lord Henry Lennox--a
+leading Tory--told me at luncheon that we were to be turned out on the
+following day, and so, sure enough, we were, on an amendment to the
+Budget moved by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach.[41] It was thought at the time
+that the Liberal wirepullers welcomed this defeat, as a way out of
+difficulties. Certainly no strenuous efforts were made to avert it. The
+scene in the House when the fatal figures were announced has been often
+described, and in my mind's eye I see clearly the image of Lord Randolph
+Churchill, dancing a kind of triumphant hornpipe on the bench which for
+five momentous years had been the seat of the Fourth Party. On the 24th
+of June Lord Salisbury became Prime Minister for the first time.
+
+The break-up of the Government revealed to all the world the fact that
+the Liberal Party was cleft in twain. The Whig section was led by Lord
+Hartington, and the Radical section by Mr. Chamberlain. Gladstone did
+his best to mediate between the two, and so to present an unbroken front
+to the common foe. But the parting of the ways soon became painfully
+apparent. The fall of the Government involved, of course, the return of
+Lord Spencer from Ireland, and some of his friends resolved, after the
+manner of admiring Englishmen, to give him a public dinner. The current
+phrase was that we were to "Dine Spencer for coercing the Irish." As he
+had done that thoroughly for the space of three years, and, at the risk
+of his own life, had destroyed a treasonable and murderous conspiracy,
+he was well entitled to all the honours which we could give him. So it
+was arranged that the dinner was to take place at the Westminster Palace
+Hotel on the 24th of July. Shortly before the day arrived, Mr.
+Chamberlain said to me: "I think you had better not attend that dinner
+to Spencer. I am not going, nor is D----. Certainly Spencer has done his
+duty, and shown capital pluck; but I hope we should all have done the
+same, and there's no reason to mark it by a dinner. And, after all,
+coercion is not a nice business for Liberals, though we may be forced
+into it." However, as I had greatly admired Lord Spencer's
+administration, and as his family and mine had been politically
+associated for a century, I made a point of attending, and a capital
+evening we had. There was an enthusiastic and representative company of
+two hundred Liberals. Lord Hartington presided, and extolled Lord
+Spencer to the skies; and Lord Spencer justified the Crimes Act by
+saying that, when it was passed, there was an organization of thirty
+thousand Fenians, aided by branches in Scotland and England, and by
+funds from America, defying the law of the land in Ireland. Not a word
+in all this about Home Rule, or the Union of Hearts, but we cheered it
+to the echo, little dreaming what the next six months had in store for
+us.
+
+Though I was thoroughly in favour of resolute dealing with murder and
+outrage, I was also--and this was a combination which sorely puzzled
+_The Spectator_--an enthusiastic Radical, and specially keen on the side
+of social reform. My views on domestic politics were substantially the
+same as those set forth with extraordinary vigour and effect in a long
+series of speeches by Mr. Chamberlain, who was now unmuzzled, and was
+making the fullest use of his freedom. He was then at the very zenith of
+his powers, and the scheme of political and social reform which he
+expounded is still, in my opinion, the best compendium of Radical
+politics; but it tended in the direction of what old-fashioned people
+called Socialism, and this was to Gladstone an abomination. One day, to
+my consternation, he asked me if it was true that Socialism had made
+some way among the younger Liberals, of whom I was then one.
+Endeavouring to parry a question which must have revealed my own guilt,
+I feebly asked if by Socialism my venerable Leader meant the practice of
+taking private property for public uses, or the performance by the State
+of what ought to be left to the individual; whereupon he replied, with
+startling emphasis: "I mean both, but I reserve my worst Billingsgate
+for the attack on private property."
+
+On the 18th of September Gladstone issued his Address to the Electors of
+Midlothian--an exceedingly long-winded document, which seemed to commit
+the Liberal Party to nothing in particular. _Verbosa et grandis
+epistola_, said Mr. John Morley. "An old man's manifesto," wrote the
+_Pall Mall_. By contrast with this colourless but authoritative
+document, Mr. Chamberlain's scheme became known as "The Unauthorized
+Programme," and of that programme I was a zealous promoter.
+
+As soon as the Franchise Bill and the Redistribution Bill had passed
+into law, it was arranged that the dissolution should take place in
+November. The whole autumn was given up to electioneering. The
+newly-enfranchised labourers seemed friendly to the Liberal cause, but
+our bewildered candidates saw that their leaders were divided into two
+sections--one might almost say, two camps. This was a condition of
+things which boded disaster to the Liberal Party; but Gladstone never
+realized that Chamberlain was a power which it was madness to alienate.
+
+On the 2nd of October I went on a visit to Hawarden, and the next day
+Gladstone opened a conversation on the state of the Party and the
+prospects of the Election. He said: "I believe you are in Chamberlain's
+confidence. Can you tell me what he means?" I replied that I was not the
+least in Chamberlain's confidence, though he had always been very
+friendly to me, and I admired his Programme. "But," I said, "I think
+that what he means is quite clear. He has no thought of trying to oust
+you from the Leadership of the Liberal Party; but he is determined that,
+when you resign it, he, and not Hartington, shall succeed you." This
+seemed to give the Chief some food for reflection, and then I ventured
+to follow up my advantage. "After all," I said, "Chamberlain has been
+your colleague for five years. Surely your best plan would be to invite
+him here, and ascertain his intentions from himself." If I had
+suggested that my host should invite the Sultan or the Czar, he could
+not have looked more surprised. "I have always made a point," he said,
+"of keeping this place clear of political transactions. We never invite
+anyone except private friends." "Well," I said, "but we are within six
+weeks of the Election, and it will never do for us to go to the country
+with you and Chamberlain professing two rival policies."
+
+Backed by Mrs. Gladstone, I carried my point, and with my own hand wrote
+the telegram inviting Mr. Chamberlain. Unfortunately I had to leave
+Hawarden on the 6th of October, so I was not present at the meeting
+which I had brought about; but a few days later I had a letter from Mr.
+Chamberlain saying that, though his visit had been socially pleasant, it
+had been politically useless. He had not succeeded in making Gladstone
+see the importance of the Unauthorized Programme, and "if I were to drop
+it now," he said, "the stones would immediately cry out."
+
+What then ensued is matter of history. Parliament was dissolved on the
+18th of November. When the elections were finished, the Liberal Party
+was just short of the numerical strength which was requisite to defeat
+a combination of Tories and Parnellites. Lord Salisbury, therefore,
+retained office, but the life of his administration hung by a thread.
+
+On the 24th of November, 1884, the great Lord Shaftesbury, moved by the
+spirit of prophecy, had written: "In a year or so we shall have Home
+Rule disposed of (at all hazards) to save us from daily and hourly
+bores." On the 17th of December, 1885, the world was astonished by an
+anonymous announcement in two newspapers--and the rest followed suit
+next day--that, if Gladstone were returned to power, he would be
+prepared to deal, in a liberal spirit, with the demand for Home Rule.
+This announcement was an act of folly not easy to explain or condone. We
+now know whose act it was, and we know that it was committed without
+Gladstone's privity. As Lord Morley says: "Never was there a moment when
+every consideration of political prudence more imperatively counselled
+silence." But now every political tongue in the United Kingdom was set
+wagging, and Gladstone could neither confirm nor deny. Our bewilderment
+and confusion were absolute. No one knew what was coming next; who was
+on what side; or whither his party--or, indeed, himself--was tending.
+One point only was clear: if Gladstone meant what he seemed to mean, the
+Parnellites would support him, and the Tories would be turned out. The
+new Parliament met on the 21st of January, 1886. On the--, the
+Government were defeated on an amendment to the Address, in favour of
+Municipal Allotments, and Lord Salisbury resigned. It was a moment of
+intense excitement, and everyone tasted for a day or two "the joy of
+eventful living."
+
+On the 29th of January, I dined with Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone. The host
+was in a grim mood of suppressed excitement, anger, and apprehension.
+All day long he had been expecting a summons from the Queen, and it had
+not arrived. "It begins to look," he said, "as if the Government meant
+after all to ignore the vote of the House of Commons, and go on. All I
+can say is that, if they do, the Crown will be placed in a worse
+position than it has ever occupied in my lifetime." But after the party
+had broken up, Sir Henry Ponsonby arrived with the desired message from
+the Queen; and on the 1st of February Gladstone kissed hands, as Prime
+Minister for the third time.
+
+"When Gladstone runs down a steep place, his immense majority, like the
+pigs in Scripture but hoping for a better issue, will go with him,
+roaring in grunts of exultation." This was Lord Shaftesbury's prediction
+in the previous year; but it was based on an assumption which proved
+erroneous. It took for granted the unalterable docility of the Liberal
+Party. I knew little at first hand of the transactions and tumults which
+filled the spring and early summer of 1886. At the beginning of February
+I was laid low by serious illness, resulting from the fatigue and
+exposure of the Election; and when, after a long imprisonment, I was out
+of bed, I went off to the seaside for convalescence. But even in the
+sick-room I heard rumours of the obstinate perversity with which the
+Liberal Government was rushing on its fate, and the admirably effective
+resistance to Home Rule engineered by Lord Hartington and Mr.
+Chamberlain. The Liberal leaders ran down the steep place, but an
+important minority of the pigs refused to follow them. The Home Rule
+Bill was thrown out on the 8th of June. Parliament was immediately
+dissolved. The General Election gave a majority of more than a hundred
+against Home Rule; the Government retired and Lord Salisbury again
+became Prime Minister.
+
+In those distant days, there was a happy arrangement by which once a
+year, when my father was staying with me, Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone dined
+with me to meet him. My father and Gladstone had both entered public
+life at the General Election of 1832, and my father loved to describe
+him as he appeared riding in Hyde Park on a grey Arabian mare, "with his
+hat, narrow-brimmed, high up on the centre of his head, sustained by a
+crop of thick, curly hair," while a passer-by said: "That's Gladstone.
+He is to make his maiden speech to-night. It will be worth hearing." The
+annual rencounter took place on the 21st of July, 1886. After dinner,
+Gladstone drew me into a window and said: "Well, this Election has been
+a great disappointment." I replied that we could certainly have wished
+it better, but that the result was not unexpected. To my amazement,
+Gladstone replied that it was completely unexpected. "The experts
+assured me that we should sweep the country." (I always wish that I
+could have had an opportunity of speaking my mind to those "experts.")
+Pursuing the subject, Gladstone said that the Queen had demurred to a
+second election in six months, and that some of his colleagues had
+recommended more moderate courses. "But I said that, if we didn't
+dissolve, we should be showing the white feather."
+
+It is no part of my purpose to trace the dismal history of the Liberal
+Party between 1886 and 1892. But one incident in that time deserves to
+be recorded. I was dining with Lord and Lady Rosebery on the 4th of
+March, 1889; Gladstone was of the company, and was indulging in
+passionate diatribes against Pitt. One phrase has always stuck in my
+memory. "There is no crime recorded in history--I do not except the
+Massacre of St. Bartholomew--which will compare for a moment with the
+means by which the Union was brought about." When the party was breaking
+up, one of the diners said: "I hope Mr. Gladstone won't draw that
+parallel, between the Union and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, on a
+public platform, or we shall stand even less well with the thinking
+public than we do now."
+
+Parliament was dissolved in June, 1892, and, when the elections were
+over, it was found that the Liberal Party, including the Irish, had only
+a majority of 40. When Gladstone knew the final figures, he saw the
+impossibility of forcing Home Rule through the Lords, and exclaimed: "My
+life's work is done." However, as we all remember, he took the
+Premiership for a fourth time, and during the Session of 1893 passed a
+Home Rule Bill through the House of Commons. The Lords threw it out by
+419 to 41, the minority being mainly wage-receivers. Other troubles
+there were, both inside the Government and outside it; Mr. Gladstone
+told his friends that the Naval Estimates demanded by the Admiralty were
+"mad and drunk"; and people began to suspect that the great change was
+at hand.
+
+On the 1st of March, 1894, Gladstone made his last speech in the House
+of Commons. In that speech he bequeathed to his party the legacy of a
+nobly-worded protest against the irresponsible power of the "Nominated
+Chamber"; and then, having accomplished sixty-one years of Parliamentary
+service, he simply disappeared, without ceremony or farewell. In my
+mind's eye I see him now, upright as ever, and walking fast, with his
+despatch-box dangling from his right hand, as he passed the Speaker's
+Chair, and quitted the scene of his life's work for ever.
+
+In spite of warnings and anticipations, the end had, after all, come
+suddenly; and, with a sharp pang of regretful surprise, we woke to the
+fact that "our master was taken away from our head to-day." Strong men
+were shaken with emotion and hard men were moved to unaccustomed tears,
+as we passed out of the emptied House in the dusk of that gloomy
+afternoon.
+
+On the 6th of March, 1894, Gladstone wrote to me as follows, in reply to
+my letter of farewell:
+
+"My speculative view into the future shows me a very mixed spectacle,
+and a doubtful atmosphere. I am thankful to have borne a part in the
+emancipating labours of the last sixty years; but entirely uncertain
+how, had I now to begin my life, I could face the very different
+problems of the next sixty years. Of one thing I am, and always have
+been, convinced--it is not by the State that man can be regenerated, and
+the terrible woes of this darkened world effectually dealt with. In
+some, and some very important, respects, I yearn for the impossible
+revival of the men and the ideas of my first twenty years, which
+immediately followed the first Reform Act. But I am stepping out upon a
+boundless plain.
+
+"May God give you strength of all kinds to perform your appointed work
+in the world."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[37] The British troops entered Cairo on the 14th of September, 1882.
+
+[38] Better known as "Billy Johnson," the famous Eton Tutor.
+
+[39] The Right Hon. J. W. Lowther.
+
+[40] Afterwards the Right Hon. John Burns, M.P., President of the Local
+Government Board.
+
+[41] Afterwards Lord St. Aldwyn.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+ORATORY
+
+
+     [Greek: esti d' ouch ho logos tou rhetoros, Aischine, timion, oud'
+     ho tonos tes phones, alla to tauta proaireisthai tois pollois, kai
+     to tous autous misein kai philein, housper an he patris.]
+                                              DEMOSTHENES. _De Corona_.
+
+     The important thing in public speaking is neither the diction nor
+     the voice. What is important is that the speaker should have the
+     same predilections as the majority, and that his country's friends
+     and foes should be also his own.
+
+
+I hope that I shall not be reproached with either Pedantry or Vanity
+(though I deserve both) if, having begun so classically, I here
+introduce some verses which, when I was a boy at Harrow, my kind Head
+Master addressed to my Father. The occasion of these verses was that the
+recipient of them, who was then Sergeant-at-Arms in the House of Commons
+and was much exhausted by the long Session which passed the first Irish
+Land Act, had said in his haste that he wished all mankind were dumb.
+This petulant ejaculation drew from Dr. Butler the following
+remonstrance:
+
+
+     Semper ego auditor? Requies data nulla loquelae
+       Quae miseras aures his et ubique premit?
+     Tot mala non tulit ipse Jobas, cui constat amicos
+       Septenos saltem conticuisse dies.
+     "Si mihi non dabitur talem sperare quietem,
+       Sit, precor, humanum sit sine voce genus!"
+     Mucius[42] haec secum, sortem indignatus iniquam,
+       (Tum primum proavis creditus esse minor)
+     Seque malis negat esse parem: cui Musa querenti,
+       "Tu genus humanum voce carere cupis?
+     Tene adeo fatis diffidere! Non tibi Natus
+       Quem jam signavit Diva Loquela suum?
+     En! ego quae vindex 'mutis quoque piscibus' adsum,
+       Donatura cycni, si ferat hora, sonos,
+     Ipsa loquor vates: Patriae decus addere linguae
+       Hic sciet, ut titulis laus eat aucta tuis.
+     Hunc sua fata vocant; hunc, nostro numine fretum,
+       Apta jubent aptis ponere verba locis.
+     Hunc olim domus ipsa canet, silvaeque paternae,
+       Curiaque, et felix vatibus Herga parens.
+     Nec lingua caruisse voles, quo vindice vestrae
+       Gentis in aeternum fama superstes erit."
+                                              H. M. B.,
+                                               Aug., 1870.
+
+
+The prophecy has scarcely been fulfilled; but it is true that from my
+earliest days I have had an inborn love of oratory. The witchery of
+words, powerful enough on the printed page, is to me ten times more
+powerful when it is reinforced by voice and glance and gesture. Fine
+rhetoric and lofty declamation have always stirred my blood; and yet I
+suppose that Demosthenes was right, and that, though rhetoric and
+declamation are good, still the most valuable asset for a public speaker
+is a complete identification with the majority of his countrymen, in
+their prejudices, their likings, and their hatreds.
+
+If Oratory signifies the power of speaking without premeditation,
+Gladstone stands in a class by himself, far above all the public
+speakers whom I have ever heard. The records of his speaking at Eton and
+Oxford, and the reports of his earliest performances in Parliament,
+alike give proof that he had, as Coleridge said of Pitt, "a premature
+and unnatural dexterity in the combination of words"; and this developed
+into "a power of pouring forth, with endless facility, perfectly
+modulated sentences of perfectly chosen language, which as far surpassed
+the reach of a normal intellect as the feats of an acrobat exceed the
+capacities of a normal body."
+
+His voice was flexible and melodious (in singing it was a baritone);
+though his utterance was perceptibly marked by a Lancastrian "burr"; his
+gestures were free and graceful, though never violent; every muscle of
+his face seemed to play its part in his nervous declamation; and the
+flash of his deep-set eyes revealed the fiery spirit that was at work
+within. It may be remarked in passing that he considered a moustache
+incompatible with effective speaking--"Why should a man hide one of the
+most expressive features of his face?" With regard to the still more
+expressive eyes, Lecky ruefully remarked that Gladstone's glance was
+that of a bird of prey swooping on its victim.
+
+Lord Chief Justice Coleridge told me that he had once asked Gladstone if
+he ever felt nervous in public speaking. "In opening a subject," said
+Gladstone, "often; in reply never," and certainly his most triumphant
+speeches were those in which, when winding up a debate, he recapitulated
+and demolished the hostile arguments that had gone before. One writes
+glibly of his "most triumphant" speeches; and yet, when he was among us,
+he always delivered each Session at least one speech, of which we all
+used to say, with breathless enthusiasm, "That's the finest speech he
+ever made." On the platform he was incomparable. His fame as an orator
+was made within the walls of Parliament; but, when he ceased to
+represent the University of Oxford, and was forced by the conditions of
+modern electioneering to face huge masses of electors in halls and
+theatres and in the open air, he adapted himself with the utmost ease to
+his new environment, and captivated the constituencies as he had
+captivated the House. His activities increased as his life advanced. He
+diffused himself over England and Wales and Scotland. In every
+considerable centre, men had the opportunity of seeing and hearing this
+supreme actor of the political stage; but Midlothian was the scene of
+his most astonishing efforts. When, on the 2nd of September, 1884, he
+spoke on the Franchise Bill in the Waverley Market at Edinburgh, it was
+estimated that he addressed thirty thousand people.
+
+
+     "Beneath his feet the human ocean lay,
+     And wave on wave flowed into space away,
+     Methought no clarion could have sent its sound
+     Even to the centre of the hosts around;
+     And, as I thought, rose the sonorous swell,
+     As from some church-tower swings the silvery bell.
+     Aloft and clear, from airy tide to tide,
+     It glided, easy as a bird may glide;
+     To the last verge of that vast audience sent,
+     It played with each wild passion as it went;
+     Now stirred the uproar, now the murmur stilled:
+     And sobs or laughter answered as it willed:"[43]
+
+
+It is painful to descend too abruptly from such a height as that: but
+one would be giving a false notion of Gladstone's speaking if one
+suggested that it was always equally effective. Masterly in his appeal
+to a popular audience, supernaturally dexterous in explaining a
+complicated subject to the House of Commons, supremely solemn and
+pathetic in a Memorial Oration, he was heard to least advantage on a
+social or festive occasion. He would use a Club-dinner or a
+wedding-breakfast, a flower-show or an Exhibition, for the utterance of
+grave thoughts which had perhaps been long fermenting in his mind; and
+then his intensity, his absorption in his theme, and his terrible
+gravity, disconcerted hearers who had expected a lighter touch. An
+illustration of this piquant maladroitness recurs to my memory as I
+write. In 1882 I was concerned with a few Radical friends in founding
+the National Liberal Club.[44] We certainly never foresaw the palatial
+pile of terra-cotta and glazed tiles which now bears that name.[45] Our
+modest object was to provide a central meeting-place for Metropolitan
+and provincial Liberals, where all the comforts of life should be
+attainable at what are called "popular prices." Two years later,
+Gladstone laid the foundation-stone of the present Club-house, and, in
+one of his most austere orations, drew a sharp contrast between our poor
+handiwork and those "Temples of Luxury and Ease" which gaze in haughty
+grandeur on Pall Mall. We had hoped to provide what might seem like
+"luxury" to the unsophisticated citizen of Little Pedlington; and, at
+the least, we meant our Club to be a place of "ease" to the Radical
+toiler. But Gladstone insisted that it was to be a workshop dedicated to
+strenuous labour; and all the fair promises of our Prospectus were
+trodden under foot.[46]
+
+I have often heard Gladstone say that, in the nature of things, a speech
+cannot be adequately reported. You may get the words with literal
+precision, but the loss of gesture, voice, and intonation, will
+inevitably obscure the meaning and impede the effect. Of no one's
+speaking is this more true than of his own. Here and there, in the
+enormous mass of his reported eloquence, you will come upon a fine
+peroration, a poetic image, a verse aptly cited, or a phrase which can
+be remembered. But they are few and far between--_oases_ in a wilderness
+of what reads like verbiage. Quite certainly, his speeches, in the mass,
+are not literature, as those found to their cost who endeavoured to
+publish them in ten volumes.
+
+For speeches which are literature we must go to John Bright; but then
+Bright's speaking was not spontaneous, and therefore, according to the
+definition suggested above, could not be reckoned as Oratory. Yet, when
+delivered in that penetrating voice, with its varied emphasis of scorn
+and sympathy and passion; enforced by the dignity of that noble head,
+and punctuated by the aptest gesture, they sounded uncommonly like
+oratory. The fact is that Bright's consummate art concealed the
+elaborate preparation which went to make the performance. When he was
+going to make a speech, he was encompassed by safeguards against
+disturbance and distraction, which suggested the rites of Lucina. He was
+invisible and inaccessible. No bell might ring, no door might bang, no
+foot tread too heavily. There was a crisis, and everyone in the house
+knew it; and when at length the speech had been safely uttered, there
+was the joy of a great reaction.
+
+My Father, unlike most of the Whigs, had a warm admiration for Bright;
+and Bright showed his appreciation of this feeling by being extremely
+kind to me. Early in my Parliamentary career, he gave me some hints on
+the art of speech-making, which are interesting because they describe
+his own practice. "You cannot," he said, "over-prepare the substance of
+a speech. The more completely you have mastered it, the better your
+speech will be. But it is very easy to over-prepare your words. Arrange
+your subject, according to its natural divisions, under three or four
+heads--not more. Supply each division with an 'island'; by which I mean
+a carefully-prepared sentence to clinch and enforce it. You must trust
+yourself to swim from one 'island' to another, without artificial aids.
+Keep your best 'island'--your most effective passage--for your
+peroration; and, when once you have uttered it, sit down at once. Let no
+power induce you to go on."
+
+Anyone who studies Bright's speeches will see that he exactly followed
+his own rule. The order and symmetry are perfect. The English is simple
+and unadorned. Each department of the speech has its notable phrase; and
+the peroration is a masterpiece of solemn rhetoric. And yet after all
+what Demosthenes said is true of these two great men--the Twin Stars of
+Victorian Oratory. Each had all the graces of voice and language, and
+yet each failed conspicuously in practical effect whenever he ran
+counter to the predilections and passions of his countrymen. Gladstone
+succeeded when he attacked the Irish Church, and denounced the
+abominations of Turkish misrule: he failed when he tried to palliate his
+blunders in Egypt, and to force Home Rule down the throat of the
+"Predominant Partner." Bright succeeded when he pleaded for the Repeal
+of the Corn Laws and the extension of the Suffrage: he failed when he
+opposed the Crimean War, and lost his seat when he protested against our
+aggression on China. It must often fall to the lot of the patriotic
+orator thus to set himself against the drift of national sentiment, and
+to pay the penalty. No such perils beset the Demagogue.
+
+I should not ascribe the title of orator to Mr. Chamberlain. He has
+nothing of the inspiration, the poetry, the "vision splendid," the
+"faculty divine," which make the genuine orator. But as a speaker of the
+second, and perhaps most useful, class, he has never been surpassed.
+His speaking was the perfection of clearness. Each argument seemed
+irresistible, each illustration told. His invective was powerful, his
+passion seemed genuine, his satire cut like steel and froze like ice.
+His perception of his hearers' likes and dislikes was intuitive, and was
+heightened by constant observation. His friends and his enemies were
+those whom he esteemed the friends and the enemies of England; and he
+never committed the heroic but perilous error of setting himself against
+the passing mood of national feeling. He combined in rare harmony the
+debating instinct which conquers the House of Commons, with the power of
+appeal to popular passion which is the glory of the Demagogue.
+
+The word with which my last sentence closed recalls inevitably the
+tragic figure of Lord Randolph Churchill. The adroitness, the courage,
+and the persistency with which between 1880 and 1885 he sapped
+Gladstone's authority, deposed Northcote, and made himself the most
+conspicuous man in the Tory Party, have been described in his Biography,
+and need not be recapitulated here. Mr. Chamberlain, who was exactly
+qualified to resist and abate him, had not yet acquired a commanding
+position in the House of Commons; and on the platform Churchill could
+not be beaten. In these two men each party possessed a Demagogue of the
+highest gifts, and it would have puzzled an expert to say which was the
+better exponent of his peculiar art. In January, 1884, Churchill made a
+speech at Blackpool, and thus attacked his eminent rival--"Mr.
+Chamberlain a short time ago attempted to hold Lord Salisbury up to the
+execration of the people as one who enjoyed great riches for which he
+had neither toiled nor spun, and he savagely denounced Lord Salisbury
+and his class. As a matter of fact, Lord Salisbury from his earliest
+days has toiled and spun in the service of the State, and for the
+advancement of his countrymen in learning, in wealth, and in prosperity;
+but no Radical ever yet allowed himself to be embarrassed by a question
+of fact. Just look, however, at what Mr. Chamberlain himself does; he
+goes to Newcastle, and is entertained at a banquet there, and procures
+for the president of the feast a live Earl--no less a person than the
+Earl of Durham. Now, Lord Durham is a young person who has just come of
+age, who is in the possession of immense hereditary estates, who is well
+known on Newmarket Heath, and prominent among the gilded youth who
+throng the doors of the Gaiety Theatre; but he has studied politics
+about as much as Barnum's new white elephant, and the idea of rendering
+service to the State has not yet commenced to dawn on his ingenuous
+mind. If by any means it could be legitimate, and I hold it is
+illegitimate, to stigmatize any individual as enjoying great riches for
+which he has neither toiled nor spun, such a case would be the case of
+the Earl of Durham; and yet it is under the patronage of the Earl of
+Durham, and basking in the smiles of the Earl of Durham, and bandying
+vulgar compliments with the Earl of Durham, that this stern patriot,
+this rigid moralist, this unbending censor, the Right Honourable Joseph
+Chamberlain, flaunts his Radical and levelling doctrines before the
+astonished democrats of Newcastle. 'Vanity of Vanities,' saith the
+preacher, 'all is vanity.' 'Humbug of Humbugs,' says the Radical, 'all
+is humbug.'"
+
+And with that most characteristic specimen of popular eloquence, we may
+leave the two great demagogues of the Victorian Age.
+
+At the period of which I am speaking the House of Commons contained two
+or three orators surviving from a class which had almost died away.
+These were men who, having no gift for extempore speaking, used to study
+the earlier stages of a debate, prepare a tremendous oration, and then
+deliver it by heart. Such, in days gone by, had been the practice of
+Bulwer-Lytton, and, as far as one can see, of Macaulay. In my day it was
+followed by Patrick Smyth, Member for Tipperary, and by Joseph Cowen,
+Member for Newcastle. Both were real rhetoricians. Both could compose
+long discourses, couched in the most flowery English, interlarded with
+anecdotes and decorated with quotations; and both could declaim these
+compositions with grace and vigour. But the effect was very droll. They
+would work, say, all Tuesday and Wednesday at a point which had been
+exhausted by discussion on Monday, and then on Thursday they would burst
+into the debate just whenever they could catch the Speaker's eye, and
+would discharge these cascades of prepared eloquence without the
+slightest reference to time, fitness, or occasion.
+
+My uncle, Lord Russell, who entered Parliament in 1813, always said that
+the first Lord Plunket was, on the whole, the finest speaker he had ever
+heard, because he combined a most cogent logic with a most moving
+eloquence; and these gifts descended to Plunket's grandson, now Lord
+Rathmore, and, in the days of which I am speaking, Mr. David Plunket,
+Member for the University of Dublin. Voice, manner, diction, delivery,
+were all alike delightful; and, though such finished oratory could
+scarcely be unprepared, Mr. Plunket had a great deal too much of his
+nation's tact to produce it except when he knew that the House was
+anxious to receive it. In view of all that has happened since, it is
+curious to remember that Mr. Arthur Balfour was, in those days, a
+remarkably bad speaker. No one, I should think, was ever born with less
+of the orator's faculty, or was under heavier obligations to the
+Reporters' Gallery. He shambled and stumbled, and clung to the lapels of
+his coat, and made immense pauses while he searched for the right word,
+and eventually got hold of the wrong one. In conflict with Gladstone, he
+seemed to exude the very essence of acrimonious partisanship, and yet he
+never exactly scored. As Lord Beaconsfield said of Lord Salisbury, "his
+invective lacked finish."
+
+A precisely opposite description might befit Sir Robert Peel, the
+strangely-contrasted son of the great Free Trader. Peel was naturally an
+orator. He could make the most slashing onslaughts without the
+appearance of ill-temper, and could convulse the House with laughter
+while he himself remained to all appearance unconscious of the fun. His
+voice, pronounced by Gladstone the most beautiful he ever heard in
+Parliament, was low, rich, melodious, and flexible. His appearance was
+striking and rather un-English, his gestures were various and animated,
+and he enforced his points with beautifully shaped hands. If voice and
+manner could make a public speaker great, Sir Robert Peel might have led
+the Tory Party; but Demosthenes was right after all. The graces of
+oratory, though delightful for the moment, have no permanent effect. The
+perfection of Parliamentary style is to utter cruel platitudes with a
+grave and informing air; and, if a little pomposity be superadded, the
+House will instinctively recognize the speaker as a Statesman. I have
+heard Sir William Harcourt say, "After March, comes April," in a tone
+which carried conviction to every heart.
+
+A word must be said about speakers who read their speeches. I do not
+think I shall be contradicted if I say that in those distant days Sir
+William Harcourt, Sir George Trevelyan, and Mr. Gibson, now Lord
+Ashbourne, wrote every word, and delivered their speeches from the
+manuscript. In late years, when Harcourt had to pilot his famous Budget
+through Committee, he acquired a perfect facility in extempore speech;
+but at the beginning it was not so. The Irish are an eloquent nation,
+and we are apt to send them rather prosy rulers. "The Honourable Member
+for Bletherum was at that time perambulating the district with very
+great activity, and, I need not say, with very great ability." Such a
+sentence as that, laboriously inscribed in the manuscript of a Chief
+Secretary's speech, seems indeed to dissipate all thoughts of oratory.
+Mr. Henry Richard, a "Stickit Minister" who represented Merthyr, was the
+worst offender against the Standing Order which forbids a Member to read
+his speech, though it allows him to "refresh his memory with notes"; and
+once, being called to order for his offence, he palliated it by saying
+that he was ready to hand his manuscript to his censor, and challenged
+him to read a word of it.
+
+The least oratorical of mankind was the fifteenth Lord Derby, whose
+formal adhesion to the Liberal Party in 1882 supplied _Punch_ with an
+admirable cartoon of a female Gladstone singing in impassioned strain--
+
+
+     "Always the same, Derby my own!
+     Always the same to your old Glad-stone."
+
+
+Lord Derby wrote every word of his speeches, and sent them in advance to
+the press. It was said that once he dropped his manuscript in the
+street, and that, being picked up, it was found to contain such entries
+as "Cheers," "Laughter," and "Loud applause," culminating in "'But I am
+detaining you too long.' (Cries of 'No, no,' and 'Go on.')"
+
+The mention of Lord Derby reminds me of the much-criticized body to
+which he belonged. When I entered Parliament, the Chief Clerk of the
+House of Commons was Sir Thomas Erskine May, afterwards Lord
+Farnborough--an hereditary friend. He gave me many useful hints, and
+this among the rest--"Always go across to the House of Lords when they
+are sitting, even if you only stop five minutes. You may often happen on
+something worth hearing; and on no account ever miss one of their
+full-dress debates." I acted on the advice, and soon became familiar
+with the oratory of "the Gilded Chamber," as Pennialinus calls it. I
+have spoken in a former chapter of the effect produced on me as a boy by
+the predominance of Disraeli during the debates on the Reform Bill of
+1867. He had left the House of Commons before I entered it, but that
+same mysterious attribute of predominance followed him to the House of
+Lords, and indeed increased with his increasing years. His strange
+appearance--un-English features, corpse-like pallor, blackened locks,
+and piercing eyes--marked him out as someone quite aloof from the common
+population of the House of Lords. When he sat, silent and immovable, on
+his crimson bench, everyone kept watching him as though they were
+fascinated. When he rose to speak, there was strained and awe-stricken
+attention. His voice was deep, his utterance slow, his pronunciation
+rather affected. He had said in early life that there were two models of
+style for the two Houses of Parliament--for the Commons, _Don Juan_: for
+the Lords, _Paradise Lost_. As the youthful Disraeli, he had out-Juaned
+Juan; when, as the aged Beaconsfield, he talked of "stamping a
+deleterious doctrine with the reprobation of the Peers of England," he
+approached the dignity of the Miltonic Satan. It was more obviously true
+of him than of most speakers that he "listened to himself while he
+spoke"; and his complete mastery of all the tricks of speech
+countervailed the decay of his physical powers. He had always known the
+value of an artificial pause, an effective hesitation, in heralding the
+apt word or the memorable phrase; and just at the close of his life he
+used the method with a striking though unrehearsed effect. On the 4th of
+March, 1881, he was speaking in support of Lord Lytton's motion
+condemning the evacuation of Kandahar. "My Lords," he said, "the Key of
+India is not Merv, or Herat, or,"--here came a long pause, and rather
+painful anxiety in the audience; and then the quiet resumption of the
+thread--"It is not the place of which I cannot recall the name--the Key
+of India is London."
+
+At a dinner at Lord Airlie's in the previous month Lord Beaconsfield,
+talking to Matthew Arnold, had described the great (that is, the
+fourteenth) Lord Derby as having been "a man full of nerve, dash, fire,
+and resource, who carried the House irresistibly along with him." Bishop
+Samuel Wilberforce was reckoned by Mr. Gladstone as one of the three men
+who, of all his acquaintance, had the greatest natural gift of public
+speaking.[47] Both the Bishop and the Statesman found, each in the
+other, a foeman worthy of his steel; but both had passed beyond these
+voices before I entered Parliament, leaving only tantalizing
+traditions--"Ah! but you should have heard Derby on the Irish Church,"
+or "It was a treat to hear 'Sam' trouncing Westbury." Failing those
+impossible enjoyments, I found great pleasure in listening to Lord
+Salisbury. I should reckon him as about the most interesting speaker I
+ever heard. His appearance was pre-eminently dignified: he looked,
+whether he was in or out of office, the ideal Minister of a great
+Empire--
+
+
+     "With that vast bulk of chest and limb assigned
+     So oft to men who subjugate their kind;
+     So sturdy Cromwell pushed broad-shouldered on;
+     So burly Luther breasted Babylon;
+     So brawny Cleon bawled his agora down;
+     And large-limb'd Mahomed clutched a Prophet's crown."
+
+
+In public speaking, Lord Salisbury seemed to be thinking aloud, and to
+be quite unconscious of his audience. Though he was saturated with his
+subject there was apparently no verbal preparation. Yet his diction was
+peculiarly apt and pointed. He never looked at a note; used no gesture;
+scarcely raised or lowered his voice. But in a clear and penetrating
+monotone he uttered the workings of a profound and reflective mind, and
+the treasures of a vast experience. Though massive, his style was never
+ponderous: and it was constantly lightened by the sallies of a pungent
+humour. In the debate on the Second Reading of the Home Rule Bill of
+1893, Lord Ribblesdale, then recently converted from Unionism to
+Gladstonianism, and Master of the Buckhounds in the Liberal government,
+had given the history of his mental change. In replying, Lord Salisbury
+said, "The next speech, my lords, was a confession. Confessions are
+always an interesting form of literature--from St. Augustine to
+Rousseau, from Rousseau to Lord Ribblesdale." The House laughed, and the
+Master of the Buckhounds laughed with it.
+
+One of the most vigorous orators whom I have ever heard, in the House of
+Lords or out of it, was Dr. Magee, Bishop of Peterborough, and
+afterwards Archbishop of York. He had made his fame by his speech on the
+Second Reading of the Irish Church Bill, and was always at his best when
+defending the temporal interests of ecclesiastical institutions. No
+clergyman ever smacked so little of the pulpit. His mind was essentially
+legal--clear, practical, logical, cogent. No one on earth could make a
+better case for a bad cause; no one could argue more closely, or
+declaim more vigorously. When his blood was up, he must either speak or
+burst; but his indignation, though it found vent in flashing sarcasms,
+never betrayed him into irrelevancies or inexactitudes.
+
+A fine speaker of a different type--and one better fitted for a
+Churchman--was Archbishop Tait, whose dignity of speech and bearing,
+clear judgment, and forcible utterance, made him the worthiest
+representative of the Church in Parliament whom these latter days have
+seen. To contrast Tait's stately calm with Benson's fluttering
+obsequiousness[48] or Temple's hammering force, was to perceive the
+manner that is, and the manners that are not, adapted to what Gladstone
+called "the mixed sphere of Religion and the _Saeculum_."
+
+By far the greatest orator whom the House of Lords has possessed in my
+recollection was the late Duke of Argyll. I have heard that Lord
+Beaconsfield, newly arrived in the House of Lords and hearing the Duke
+for the first time, exclaimed, "And has this been going on all these
+years, and I have never found it out?" It is true that the Duke's
+reputation as an administrator, a writer, a naturalist, and an amateur
+theologian, distracted public attention from his power as an orator; and
+I have been told that he himself did not realize it. Yet orator indeed
+he was, in the highest implication of the term. He spoke always under
+the influence of fiery conviction, and the live coal from the altar
+seemed to touch his lips. He was absolute master of every mood of
+oratory--pathos, satire, contemptuous humour, ethical passion, noble
+wrath; and his unstudied eloquence flowed like a river through the
+successive moods, taking a colour from each, and gaining force as it
+rolled towards its close.
+
+On the 6th of September, 1893, I heard the Duke speaking on the Second
+Reading of the Home Rule Bill. He was then an old man, and in broken
+health; the speech attempted little in the way of argument, and was
+desultory beyond belief. But suddenly there came a passage which lifted
+the whole debate into a nobler air. The orator described himself
+standing on the Western shores of Scotland, and gazing across towards
+the hills of Antrim: "We can see the colour of their fields, and in the
+sunset we can see the glancing of the light upon the windows of the
+cabins of the people. This is the country, I thought the other day when
+I looked on the scene--this is the country which the greatest English
+statesman tells us must be governed as we govern the Antipodes." And he
+emphasized the last word with a downward sweep of his right hand, which
+in a commonplace speaker would have been frankly comic, but in this
+great master of oratory was a master-stroke of dramatic art.
+
+Before I close this chapter, I should like to recall a word of
+Gladstone's which at the time when he said it struck me as memorable. In
+August, 1895, I was staying at Hawarden. Gladstone's Parliamentary life
+was done, and he talked about political people and events with a freedom
+which I had never before known in him. As perhaps was natural, we fell
+to discussing the men who had been his colleagues in the late Liberal
+Ministry. We reviewed in turn Lord Spencer, Sir William Harcourt, Lord
+Rosebery, Mr. John Morley, Sir George Trevelyan, and Mr. Asquith. It is
+perhaps a little curious, in view of what happened later on, that Sir
+Henry Campbell-Bannerman was not mentioned; but, with regard to the
+foregoing names, I perfectly recollect, though there is no need to
+repeat, the terse and trenchant judgment passed on each. When we had
+come to the end of my list, the ex-Premier turned on me with one of
+those compelling glances which we knew so well, and said with emphasis,
+"But you haven't mentioned the most important man of all." "Who is
+that?" "Edward Grey--there is the man with the real Parliamentary gift."
+I am happy to make the Foreign Secretary a present of this handsome
+compliment.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[42] Mucius Scaevola per multos annos "Princeps Senatus."
+
+[43] Bulwer-Lytton, _St. Stephen's_.
+
+[44] Mr. A. J. Willams, Mr. A. G. Symond, Mr. Walter Wren, Mr. W. L.
+Bright, and Mr. J. J. Tylor were some of them; and we used to meet in
+Mr. Bright's rooms at Storey's Gate.
+
+[45] "It is an extraordinary big club done in a bold, wholesale, shiny,
+marbled style, richly furnished with numerous paintings, steel
+engravings, busts, and full-length statues of the late Mr.
+Gladstone."--H. G. Wells, _The New Machiavelli_.
+
+[46] "Speaking generally, I should say there could not be a less
+interesting occasion than the laying of the foundation-stone of a Club
+in London. For, after all, what are the Clubs of London? I am afraid
+little else than temples of luxury and ease. This, however, is a club of
+a very different character."
+
+[47] The others were the late Duke of Argyll and the eighth Lord Elgin.
+
+[48] "I had to speak in the House of Lords last night. It is a really
+terrible place for the unaccustomed. Frigid impatience and absolute
+goodwill, combined with a thorough conviction of the infallibility of
+laymen (if not too religious) on all sacred subjects, are the tone,
+_morale_, and reason, of the House as a living being. My whole
+self-possession departs, and ejection from the House seems the best
+thing which could happen to one."--Archbishop Benson to the Rev. B. F.
+Westcott, March 22, 1884.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+LITERATURE
+
+
+     There was Captain Sumph, an ex-beau, still about town, and related
+     in some indistinct manner to Literature and the Peerage. He was
+     said to have written a book once, to have been a friend of Lord
+     Byron, to be related to Lord Sumphington.... This gentleman was
+     listened to with great attention by Mrs. Bungay; his anecdotes of
+     the Aristocracy, of which he was a middle-aged member, delighted
+     the publisher's lady.
+                                     W. M. THACKERAY, _Pendennis_.
+
+
+When I am writing Reminiscences, I always feel dreadfully like Captain
+Sumph; but, in order to make the resemblance quite exact, I must devote
+a chapter to Literature.
+
+I seem, from my earliest conscious years, to have lived in a world of
+books; and yet my home was by no means "bookish." I was trained by
+people who had not read much, but had read thoroughly; who regarded good
+literature with unfeigned admiration; and who, though they would never
+have dreamt of forcing or cramming, yet were pleased when they saw a boy
+inclined to read, and did their best to guide his reading aright. As I
+survey my early life and compare it with the present day, one of the
+social changes which impresses me most is the general decay of
+intellectual cultivation. This may sound paradoxical in an age which
+habitually talks so much about Education and Culture; but I am persuaded
+that it is true. Dilettantism is universal, and a smattering of
+erudition, infinitely more offensive than honest and manly ignorance,
+has usurped the place which was formerly occupied by genuine and liberal
+learning. A vast deal of specialism, "mugged up," as boys say, at the
+British Museum or the London Library, may coexist with a profound
+ignorance of all that is really worth knowing. It sounds very
+intellectual to chatter about the authorship of the Fourth Gospel, or to
+scoff at St. John's "senile iterations and contorted metaphysics"; but,
+when a clergyman read St. Paul's eulogy on Charity, instead of an
+address, at the end of a fashionable wedding, one of his hearers said,
+"How very appropriate that was! Where did you get it from?" Everyone can
+patter nonsense about the traces of Bacon's influence in _The Merry
+Wives of Windsor_, and can ransack their family histories for the
+original of "Mr. W. H." But, when _Cymbeline_ was put on the stage,
+Society was startled to find that the principal part was not a woman's.
+When some excellent scenes from Jane Austen were given in a Belgravian
+drawing-room, a lady of the highest notoriety, enthusiastically praising
+the performance, enquired who was the author of the dialogue between Mr.
+and Mrs. John Dashwood, and whether he had written anything else. I have
+known a Lord Chief Justice who had never seen the view from Richmond
+Hill; a publicist who had never heard of Lord Althorp; and an authoress
+who did not know the name of Izaak Walton.
+
+Perhaps these curious "ignorances," as the Prayer Book calls them,
+impressed me the more forcibly because I was born a Whig, and brought up
+in a Whiggish society; for the Whigs were rather specially the allies of
+learning; and made it a point of honour to know, though never to parade,
+the best that has been thought and written. Very likely they had no
+monopoly of culture: the Tories may have been just as well-informed. But
+a man "belongs to his belongings"; one can only describe what one has
+seen; and here the contrast between Past and Present is palpable
+enough. I am not thinking of professed scholars and students, such as
+Lord Stanhope the Historian, and Sir Edward Bunbury the Senior Classic;
+or of professed blue-stockings, such as Barbarina, Lady Dacre, and
+Georgiana, Lady Chatterton; but of ordinary men and women of good family
+and good position, who had received the usual education of their class,
+and had profited by it.
+
+Mr. Gladstone used to say that, in his schooldays at Eton, a boy might
+learn much, or learn nothing; but he could not learn superficially. A
+similar remark would have applied to the attainments of people who were
+old when I was young. They might know much, or they might know nothing;
+but they did not know superficially. What they professed to know, that
+you could be sure they knew. The affectation of culture was despised;
+and ignorance, where it existed, was avowed. For example, everyone knew
+Italian, but no one pretended to know German. I remember men who had
+never been at a University, but had passed straight from a Public School
+to a Cavalry Regiment or the House of Commons, and who yet could quote
+Horace as easily as the present generation quotes Kipling. These people
+inherited the traditions of Mrs. Montagu, who "vindicated the genius of
+Shakespeare against the calumnies of Voltaire," and they knew the
+greatest poet of all time with an absolute ease and familiarity. They
+did not trouble themselves about various readings, and corrupt texts,
+and difficult passages. They had nothing in common with that true father
+of all Shakespearean criticism, Mr. Curdle, in _Nicholas Nickleby_, who
+had written a treatise on the question whether Juliet's nurse's husband
+was really "a merry man," or whether it was only his widow's
+affectionate partiality that induced her so to report him. But they knew
+the whole mass of the Plays with a natural and unforced intimacy; their
+speech was saturated with the immortal diction, and Hamlet's
+speculations were their nearest approach to metaphysics. Pope was quoted
+whenever the occasion suggested him, and Johnson was esteemed the Prince
+of Critics. Broadly speaking, all educated people knew the English poets
+down to the end of the eighteenth century. Byron and Moore were enjoyed
+with a sort of furtive and fearful pleasure; Wordsworth was tolerated,
+and Tennyson was "coming in." Everyone knew Scott's novels by heart, and
+had his or her favourite heroine and hero.
+
+I said in a former chapter that I had from my earliest days free access
+to an excellent library; and, even before I could read comfortably by
+myself, my interest in books was stimulated by listening to my elders as
+they read aloud. The magic of words and cadence--the purely sensuous
+pleasure of melodious sound--stirred me from the time when I was quite a
+child. Poetry, of course, came first; but prose was not much later. I
+had by nature a good memory, and it retained, by no effort on my part,
+my favourite bits of Macaulay and Scott. _The Battle of Lake Regillus_
+and _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_, the impeachment of Warren Hastings
+and the death of Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, are samples of the literature
+with which my mind was stored. Every boy, I suppose, attempts to imitate
+what he admires, and I was eternally scribbling. When I was eleven, I
+began a novel, of which the heroine was a modern Die Vernon. At twelve,
+I took to versification, for which the swinging couplets of _English
+Bards and Scotch Reviewers_ supplied the model. Fragments of prose and
+verse came thick and fast. When I was thirteen, I made my first
+appearance in print; with a set of verses on a Volunteer Encampment,
+which really were not at all bad; and at fourteen I published
+(anonymously) a religious tract, which had some success in Evangelical
+circles.
+
+The effect of Harrow was both to stimulate and to discipline my taste
+for literature. It was my good fortune to be taught my Sophocles and
+Euripides, Tacitus and Virgil, by scholars who had the literary sense,
+and could enrich school-lessons with all the resources of a generous
+culture. My sixteenth and seventeenth years brought me a real and
+conscious growth in the things of the mind, and with that period of my
+life I must always gratefully associate the names of Frederic Farrar,
+Edward Bowen, and Arthur Watson.[49]
+
+Meanwhile I was not only learning, but also practising. My teachers with
+one accord incited me to write. Essay-writing formed a regular part of
+our work in school and pupil-room, and I composed a great deal for my
+own amusement. I wrote both prose and verse, and verse in a great many
+metres; but it was soon borne in upon me--conclusively after I had been
+beaten for the Prize Poem[50]--that the Muse of Poetry was not mine. In
+prose, I was more successful. My work for _The Harrovian_ gave me
+constant practice, and I twice won the School-Prize for an English
+Essay. In writing, I indulged to the full my taste for resonant and
+rolling sound; and my style was ludicrously rhetorical. The subject for
+the Prize Essay in 1872 was "Parliamentary Oratory: its History and
+Influence," and the discourse which I composed on that attractive theme
+has served me from that day to this as the basis of a popular lecture.
+The "Young Lion" of the _Daily Telegraph_ thus "roared" over my
+performance--
+
+"The English Essay now takes a higher place on Speech Day than it did in
+the old season; and the essay which was crowned yesterday was notable
+alike for the theme, the opinions, and the literary promise of the
+writer. The young author bore the historical name of Russell, and he was
+really reviewing the forerunners and the fellow-workers of his own
+ancestors, in describing the rhetorical powers of the elder and the
+younger Pitt, Fox, Burke, Sheridan, Canning and Grey.... The well-known
+Constitutional note of Lord Russell was heard in every page, and the
+sonorous English was such as the Earl himself might have written fifty
+years ago, if the undergraduates of that day had been able to copy a
+Macaulay. The essayist has read the prose of that dangerous model until
+he has imitated the well-known and now hackneyed devices of the great
+rhetorician with a closeness which perilously brought to mind the show
+passages of the 'Essays' and the 'History.' Mr. Russell has caught the
+trick of cutting up his paragraphs into rolling periods, and short,
+sharp, and disjointed sentences; but he will go to more subtle and more
+simple masters of style than Macaulay, when he shall have passed the
+rhetorical stage of youth."
+
+This prophecy was soon fulfilled, and indeed the process of fulfilment
+had already begun. In the Sixth Form, we naturally were influenced by
+Dr. Butler, who, though he certainly did not despise fine rhetoric,
+wrote a beautifully simple style, and constantly instructed us in the
+difference between eloquence and journalese. "Let us leave _commence_
+and _partake_ to the newspapers," was an admonition often on his lips.
+Our Composition Masters were Edward Young, an exquisite scholar of the
+Eton type, and the accomplished Henry Nettleship, who detested
+flamboyancy, and taught us to admire Newman's incomparable easiness and
+grace. And there was Matthew Arnold living on the Hill, generously
+encouraging every bud of literary promise, and always warning us against
+our tendency to "Middle-class Macaulayese."
+
+At Oxford, the chastening process went on apace. Newman became my
+master, as far as language was concerned; and I learned to bracket him
+with Arnold and Church as possessing "The Oriel style." Thackeray's
+Latinized constructions began to fascinate me; and, though I still loved
+gorgeous diction, I sought it from Ruskin instead of Macaulay.
+
+All this time I was writing--in a very humble and obscure way,
+certainly, but still writing. I wrote in local newspapers and Parish
+Magazines. I published anonymous comments on current topics. I
+contributed secretly to ephemeral journals. I gave lectures and printed
+them as pamphlets. It was all very good exercise; but the odd part of it
+seems to me, in looking back, that I never expected pay, but rather
+spent my own money in printing what I wrote. That last infirmity of
+literary minds I laid aside soon after I left Oxford. I rather think
+that the first money which I made with my pen was payment for a
+character-study of my uncle, Lord Russell, which I wrote for _The
+World_; thereby eliciting from Matthew Arnold the urbane remark, "Ah, my
+dear George, I hear you have become one of Yates's hired stabbers."
+
+After I entered Parliament, opportunities of writing, and of writing for
+profit, became more frequent. I contributed to the _Quarterly_, the _New
+Quarterly_, the _Nineteenth Century_, the _Fortnightly_, the
+_Contemporary_, the _Spectator_, and the _Pall Mall_. Yet another
+magazine recurs pleasantly to my mind, because of the warning which was
+inscribed on one's proof-sheet--"The cost of _corrigenda_ will be
+deducted from _honoraria_." What fine language! and what a base economy!
+
+It did not take me long to find that the society in which I habitually
+lived, and which I have described in a former chapter, was profoundly
+ignorant. A most amusing law-suit between a Duchess and her maid took
+place about the time of which I am writing, and the Duchess's
+incriminated letter, beginning in the third person, wandering off into
+the first, and returning with an effort to the third, was indeed an
+object-lesson in English composition. A young sprig of fashion once said
+to me, in the tone of a man who utters an accepted truth, "It is so
+much more interesting to talk about people than things"--even though
+those "things" were the literary triumphs of humour or tragedy. In one
+great house, Books were a prohibited subject, and the word "Books" was
+construed with such liberal latitude that it seemed to include
+everything except Bradshaw. Even where people did not thus truculently
+declare war against literature, they gave it an uncommonly wide berth,
+and shrank with ill-concealed aversion from such names as Meredith and
+Browning. "Meredith," said Oscar Wilde, "is a prose-Browning--and so is
+Browning." And both those forms of prose were equally eschewed by
+society.
+
+Of course, when one is surveying a whole class, one sees some
+conspicuous exceptions to the prevailing colour; and here and there one
+had the pleasure of meeting in society persons admirably accomplished. I
+have already mentioned Lord Houghton, poet, essayist, pamphleteer,
+book-lover, and book-collector, who was equally at home in the world of
+society and the world of literature. Nothing that was good in books,
+whether ancient or modern, escaped his curious scrutiny, and at his
+hospitable table, which might truly be called a "Festive Board,"
+authors great and small rubbed shoulders with dandies and diplomats and
+statesmen. On the 16th of June, 1863, Matthew Arnold wrote--"On Sunday I
+dined with Monckton Milnes,[51] and met all the advanced Liberals in
+religion and politics, and a Cingalese in full costume.... The
+philosophers were fearful! George Lewes, Herbert Spencer, a sort of
+pseudo-Shelley called Swinburne, and so on. Froude, however, was there,
+and Browning, and Ruskin."
+
+The mention of Matthew Arnold reminds me that, though I had admired and
+liked him in a reverent sort of way, when I was a Harrow boy and he was
+a man, I found him even more fascinating when I met him on the more even
+terms of social life in London. He was indeed the most delightful of
+companions; a man of the world entirely free from worldliness, and a man
+of letters without the faintest trace of pedantry. He walked through the
+world enjoying it and loving it; and yet all the time one felt that his
+"eyes were on the higher loadstars" of the intellect and the spirit. In
+those days I used to say that, if one could fashion oneself, I should
+wish to be like Matthew Arnold; and the lapse of years has not altered
+my desire.
+
+Of Robert Browning, as he appeared in society, I have already spoken;
+but here let me add an instance which well illustrates his tact and
+readiness. He once did me the honour of dining with me, and I had
+collected a group of eager disciples to meet him. As soon as dinner was
+over, one of these enthusiasts led the great man into a corner, and
+began cross-examining him about the identity of _The Lost Leader_ and
+the meaning of _Sordello_. For a space Browning bore the catechism with
+admirable patience; and then, laying his hand on the questioner's
+shoulder, he exclaimed, "But, my dear fellow, this is too bad. _I_ am
+monopolizing _you_," and skipped out of the corner.
+
+Lord Tennyson was scarcely ever to be encountered in society; but I was
+presented to him at a garden-party by Mr. James Knowles, of the
+_Nineteenth Century_. He was, is, and always will be, one of the chief
+divinities of my poetical heaven; but he was more worshipful at a
+distance than at close quarters, and I was determined not to dispel
+illusion by a too near approach to the shrine. J. A. Froude was a man of
+letters whom from time to time one encountered in society. No one could
+doubt his cleverness; but it was a cleverness which rather repelled than
+attracted. With his thin lips, his cold smile, and his remorseless,
+deliberate, way of speaking, he always seemed to be secretly gloating
+over the hideous scene in the hall of Fotheringay, or the last agonies
+of a disembowelled Papist. Lord Acton was, or seemed to be, a man of the
+world first and foremost; a politician and a lover of society; a gossip,
+and, as his "Letters" show, not always a friendly gossip.[52] His
+demeanour was profoundly sphinx-like, and he seemed to enjoy the sense
+that his hearers were anxious to learn what he was able but unwilling to
+impart. His knowledge and accomplishments it would, at this time of day,
+be ridiculous to question; and on the main concerns of human
+life--Religion and Freedom--I was entirely at one with him. All the more
+do I regret that in society he so effectually concealed his higher
+enthusiasms, and that, having lived on the vague fame of his "History of
+Liberty," he died leaving it unwritten.
+
+I am writing of the years when I first knew London socially, and I may
+extend them from 1876 to 1886. All through those years, as through many
+before and since, the best representative of culture in society was Mr.,
+now Sir, George Trevelyan--a poet, a scholar to his finger-tips, an
+enthusiast for all that is best in literature, ancient or modern, and
+author of one of the six great Biographies in the English language.
+There is no need to recapitulate Sir George's services to the State, or
+to criticize his performances in literature. It is enough to record my
+lively and lasting gratitude for the unbroken kindness which began when
+I was a boy at Harrow, and continues to the present hour.
+
+I have spoken, so far, of literary men who played a more or less
+conspicuous part in society; but, as this chapter is dedicated to
+Literature, I ought to say a word about one or two men of Letters who
+always avoided society, but who, when one sought them out in their own
+surroundings, were delightful company. Foremost among these I should
+place James Payn.
+
+Payn was a man who lived in, for, and by Literature. He detested
+exercise. He never travelled. He scarcely ever left London. He took no
+holidays. If he was forced into the country for a day or two, he used
+the exile as material for a story or an essay. His life was one
+incessant round of literary activity. He had published his first book
+while he was an Undergraduate at Trinity, and from first to last he
+wrote more than a hundred volumes. _By Proxy_ has been justly admired
+for the wonderful accuracy of its local colour, and for a masterly
+knowledge of Chinese character; but the writer drew exclusively from
+encyclopaedias and books of travel. In my judgment, he was at his best in
+the Short Story. He practised that difficult art long before it became
+popular, and a book called originally _People, Places, and Things_, but
+now _Humorous Stories_, is a masterpiece of fun, invention, and
+observation. In 1874, he became "Reader" to Messrs. Smith and Elder, and
+in that capacity had the happiness of discovering _Vice Versa_, and the
+less felicitous experience of rejecting _John Inglesant_ as unreadable.
+
+It was at this period of his life that I first encountered Payn, and I
+fell at once under his charm. His was not a faultless character, for he
+was irritable, petulant, and prejudiced. He took the strongest dislikes,
+sometimes on very slight grounds; was unrestrained in expressing them,
+and was apt to treat opinions which he did not share very cavalierly.
+But none of these faults could obscure his charm. He was the most
+tender-hearted of human beings, and the sight, even the thought, of
+cruelty set his blood on fire. But, though he was intensely humane, he
+was absolutely free from mawkishness; and a wife-beater, or a
+child-torturer, or a cattle-maimer would have had short shrift at his
+hands. He was genuinely sympathetic, especially towards the hopes and
+struggles of the young and the unbefriended. Many an author, once
+struggling but now triumphant, could attest this trait. But his chief
+charm was his humour. It was absolutely natural; bubbled like a
+fountain, and danced like light. Nothing escaped it, and solemnity only
+stimulated it to further activities. He had the power, which Sydney
+Smith described, of "abating and dissolving pompous gentlemen with the
+most successful ridicule;" and, when he was offended, the ridicule had a
+remarkably sharp point. It was of course, impossible that all the humour
+of a man who joked incessantly could be equally good. Sometimes it was
+rather boyish, playing on proper names or personal peculiarities; and
+sometimes it descended to puns. But, for sheer rapidity, I have never
+known Payn's equal. When a casual word annoyed him, his repartee
+flashed out like lightning. I could give plenty of instances, but to
+make them intelligible I should have to give a considerable amount of
+introduction, and that would entirely spoil the sense of flashing
+rapidity. There was no appreciable interval of time between the
+provoking word and the repartee which it provoked.
+
+Another great element of charm in Payn was his warm love of Life,
+
+
+     "And youth, and bloom, and this delightful world."
+
+
+While he hated the black and savage and sordid side of existence with a
+passionate hatred, he enjoyed all its better--which he believed to be
+its larger--part with an infectious relish. Never have I known a more
+blithe and friendly spirit; never a nature to which Literature and
+Society--books and men--yielded a more constant and exhilarating joy. He
+had unstinted admiration for the performances of others, and was wholly
+free from jealousy. His temperament indeed was not equable. He had ups
+and downs, bright moods and dark, seasons of exaltation and seasons of
+depression. The one succeeded the other with startling rapidity, but the
+bright moods triumphed, and it was impossible to keep him permanently
+depressed. His health had always been delicate, but illness neither
+crushed his spirit nor paralysed his pen. Once he broke a blood-vessel
+in the street, and was conveyed home in an ambulance. During the
+transit, though he was in some danger of bleeding to death, he began to
+compose a narrative of his adventure, and next week it appeared in the
+_Illustrated London News_.
+
+During the last two years of his life he was painfully crippled by
+arthritic rheumatism, and could no longer visit the Reform Club, where
+for many years he had every day eaten his luncheon and played his
+rubber. Determining that he should not completely lose his favourite, or
+I should rather say his only, amusement, some members of the Club banded
+themselves together to supply him with a rubber in his own house twice a
+week; and this practice was maintained to his death. It was a striking
+testimony to the affection which he inspired. In those years I was a
+pretty frequent visitor, and, on my way to the house, I used to bethink
+me of stories which might amuse him, and I used even to note them down
+between one visit and another, as a provision for next time. One day
+Payn said, "A collection of your stories would make a book, and I think
+Smith and Elder would publish it." I thought my anecdotage scarcely
+worthy of so much honour; but I promised to make a weekly experiment in
+the _Manchester Guardian_. My _Collections and Recollections_ ran
+through the year 1897, and appeared in book-form at Easter, 1898. But
+Payn died on the 25th of the previous March; and the book, which I had
+hoped to put in his hand, I could only inscribe to his delightful
+memory.
+
+Another remarkable man of letters, wholly remote from the world, was
+Richard Holt Hutton, for thirty-six years (1861-1897) the honoured
+Editor of _The Spectator_. Hutton was a "stickit minister" of the
+Unitarian persuasion, who had been led, mainly by the teaching of F. D.
+Maurice, to the acceptance of orthodox Christianity; and who devoted all
+the rest of his life to the inculcation of what he conceived to be moral
+and religious truth, through the medium of a weekly review. He lived, a
+kind of married hermit, on the edge of Windsor Forest, and could hardly
+be separated, even for a week's holiday, from his beloved _Spectator_.
+His output of work was enormous and incessant, and was throughout
+critical and didactic. The style was pre-eminently characteristic of
+the man--tangled, untidy, ungraceful, disfigured by "trailing relatives"
+and accumulated epithets; and yet all the time conveying the sense of
+some real and even profound thought that strove to express itself
+intelligibly. As the style, so the substance. "_The Spectator_," wrote
+Matthew Arnold in 1865, "is all very well, but the article has Hutton's
+fault of seeing so very far into a mill-stone." And, two years later,
+"_The Spectator_ has an article in which Hutton shows his strange
+aptitude for getting hold of the wrong end of the stick." Both were
+sound criticisms. When Hutton addressed himself to a deep topic of
+abstract speculation, he "saw so very far into it" that even his most
+earnest admirers could not follow the visual act. When he handled the
+more commonplace subjects of thought or action with which ordinary men
+concern themselves, he seemed to miss the most obvious and palpable
+points. He was a philosophical thinker, with a natural bent towards the
+abstract and the mystical--a Platonist rather than an Aristotelian. He
+saw things invisible to grosser eyes; he heard voices not audible to
+ordinary ears; and, when he was once fairly launched in speculation on
+such a theme as Personal Identity or the Idea of God, he "found no end,
+in wandering mazes lost."
+
+But the very quality of aloofness from other men and their ways of
+thinking, which made it impossible for him to be the exponent of a
+system or the founder of a school, made him a peculiarly interesting
+friend. In homely phrase, you never knew where to have him; he was
+always breaking out in a fresh place. Whatever subject he handled, from
+impaled Bulgarians to the credibility of miracles, was certain to be
+presented in a new and unlooked-for aspect. He was as full of splendid
+gleams as a landscape by Turner, and as free from all formal rules of
+art and method. He was an independent thinker, if ever there was one,
+and as honest as he was independent. In his belief, truth was the most
+precious of treasures, to be sought at all hazards, and, when acquired,
+to be safeguarded at all costs. His zeal for truth was closely allied
+with his sense of justice. His mind came as near absolute fairness as is
+possible for a man who takes any part in live controversies. He never
+used an unfair argument to establish his point, nor pressed a fair
+argument unduly. He was scrupulously careful in stating his adversary's
+case, and did all in his power to secure a judicial and patient hearing
+even for the causes with which he had least sympathy. His own
+convictions, which he had reached through stern and self-sacrificing
+struggles, were absolutely solid. By the incessant writing of some forty
+years, he enforced the fundamental truth of human redemption through God
+made Man on the attention of people to whom professional preachers speak
+in vain, and he steadily impressed on his fellow-Christians those
+ethical duties of justice and mercy which should be, but sometimes are
+not, the characteristic fruits of their creed. It was a high function,
+excellently fulfilled.
+
+The transition is abrupt, but no catalogue of the literary men with whom
+I was brought in contact could be complete without a mention of Mr.
+George Augustus Sala. He was the very embodiment of Bohemia; and, alike
+in his views and in his style, the fine flower of such journalism as is
+associated with the name of the _Daily Telegraph_. His portrait,
+sketched with rare felicity, may be found in Letter XII. of that
+incomparable book, _Friendship's Garland_. "Adolescens Leo" thus
+describes him--"Sala, like us his disciples, has studied in the book of
+the world even more than in the world of books. But his career and
+genius have given him somehow the secret of a literary mixture novel and
+fascinating in the last degree: he blends the airy epicureanism of the
+_salons_ of Augustus with the full-bodied gaiety of our English
+cider-cellar. With our people and country, _mon cher_, this mixture is
+now the very thing to go down; there arises every day a larger public
+for it; and we, Sala's disciples, may be trusted not willingly to let it
+die."
+
+That was written in 1871; and, when sixteen years had elapsed, I thought
+it would be safe, and I knew it would be amusing, to bring Sala and
+Matthew Arnold face to face at dinner. For the credit of human nature
+let it be recorded that the experiment was entirely successful; for, as
+Lord Beaconsfield said, "Turtle makes all men equal," and vindictiveness
+is exorcised by champagne.
+
+The Journalist of Society in those days was Mr. T. H. S. Escott, who was
+also Editor of the _Fortnightly_ and leader-writer of the _Standard_. I
+should be inclined to think that no writer in London worked so hard; and
+he paid the penalty in shattered health. It is a pleasure to me, who in
+those days owed much to his kindness, to witness the renewal of his
+early activities, and to welcome volume after volume from his prolific
+pen. Mr. Kegan Paul, essayist, critic, editor, and ex-clergyman, was
+always an interesting figure; and his successive transitions from
+Tractarianism to Latitudinarianism, and from Agnosticism to
+Ultramontanism, gave a peculiar piquancy to his utterances on religion.
+He deserves remembrance on two quite different scores--one, that he was
+the first publisher to study prettiness in the production of even cheap
+books; and the other, that he was an early and enthusiastic worker in
+the cause of National Temperance. It was my privilege to be often with
+him in the suffering and blindness of his last years, and I have never
+seen a trying discipline more bravely borne.
+
+More than once in these chapters I have referred to "Billy Johnson," as
+his pupils and friends called William Cory in remembrance of old times.
+He was from 1845 to 1872 the most brilliant tutor at Eton: an
+astonishing number of eminent men passed through his hands, and retained
+through life the influence of his teaching. After leaving Eton, he
+changed his name from Johnson to Cory, and established himself on the
+top of the hill at Hampstead, where he freely imparted the treasures of
+his exquisite scholarship to all who cared to seek them, and not least
+willingly to young ladies. He was a man of absolutely original mind;
+paradoxical, prejudiced, and intellectually independent to the point of
+eccentricity. His range was wide, his taste infallible, and his love of
+the beautiful a passion. He lived, from boyhood to old age, the life of
+the Intellect; and yet posterity will know him only as having written
+one thin book of delightful verse;[53] a fragmentary History of England;
+and some of the most fascinating letters in the language.
+
+A friend and brother-Scholar of mine at Oxford was "Willy" Arnold, son
+of Mr. Thomas Arnold, and nephew of Matthew. After taking his degree, he
+joined the staff of the _Manchester Guardian_, and before long became
+one of the first journalists of his time. He was not merely a
+journalist, but also a publicist, and could have made his mark in public
+life by his exceptional knowledge of European politics. We had not seen
+one another for a good many years, when we met casually at dinner in the
+summer of 1887. To that chance meeting I owed my introduction to the
+_Manchester Guardian_. My first contribution to it was a description of
+the Jubilee Garden-Party at Buckingham Palace on the 29th of June,
+1887; so I can reckon almost a quarter of a century of association with
+what I am bold to call (defying all allusion to the fabled Tanner) the
+best newspaper in Great Britain.
+
+But journalism, though now practised on a more dignified level, was only
+a continuation and development of a life-long habit; whereas, though I
+had been scribbling ever since I was a boy, I had never written a book.
+In 1890 Messrs. Sampson Low started a series of _The Queen's Prime
+Ministers_. Froude led off, brilliantly, with Lord Beaconsfield; and the
+editor[54] asked me to follow with Mr. Gladstone. Before acceding to
+this proposal, I thought it right to ask whether Gladstone had any
+objection; and, supposing that he had not, whether he would give me any
+help. His reply was eminently characteristic,--
+
+"When someone proposed to write a book about Harry Phillpotts, Bishop of
+Exeter, the Bishop procured an Injunction in Chancery to stop him. I
+shall not seek an Injunction against you--but that is all the help I can
+give you."
+
+Thus encouraged, or rather, I should say, not discouraged, I addressed
+myself to the task, and the book came out in July, 1891. I was told
+that Gladstone did not read it, and this assurance was in many respects
+a relief. But someone told him that I had stated, on the authority of
+one of his school-fellows, that he played no games at Eton. The next
+time I met him, he referred to this point; declared that I had been
+misinformed; and affirmed that he played both cricket and football, and
+"was in the Second Eleven at Cricket." In obedience to his request, I
+made the necessary correction in the Second Edition; but _a priori_ I
+should not have been inclined to suspect my venerated leader of having
+been a cricketer.
+
+It is no part of my plan to narrate my own extremely humble performances
+in the way of authorship. The heading of the chapter speaks not of
+Book-making, but of Literature; and for a man to say that he has
+contributed to Literature would indeed be to invite rebuff. I am
+thinking now, not of what I have done, but of what I have received; and
+my debt to Literature is great indeed. I do not know the sensation of
+dulness, but, like most human beings, I know the sensation of sorrow;
+and with a grateful heart I record the fact that the darkest hours of my
+life have been made endurable by the Companionship of Books.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[49] To Mr. Watson I owed my introduction to Matthew Arnold's _Essays in
+Criticism_--a real event in one's mental life.
+
+[50] By Sir Walter Strickland; whose poem on William Tyndale was justly
+admired.
+
+[51] Richard Monckton Milnes was created Lord Houghton, August 20, 1863.
+
+[52] It is only fair to observe that those "Letters" were written in the
+strictest confidence.
+
+[53] Ionica.
+
+[54] Mr. Stuart J. Reid.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+SERVICE
+
+
+     May He "in knowledge of Whom standeth our eternal life, Whose
+     service is perfect freedom"--_Quem nosse vivere, Cui servire
+     regnare est_--teach us the rules and laws of that eternal service,
+     which is now beginning on the scene of time.
+                     R. W. CHURCH, _Human Life and its Conditions_.
+
+
+It was my happiness to be born and brought up in a home where Religion
+habitually expressed itself in Social Service. I cannot remember a time
+when those nearest to me were not actively engaged in ministering to the
+poor, the sick, the underfed, and the miserable. The motive of all this
+incessant ministration was the Christian Faith, and its motto was
+_Charitas Christi urget nos_. The religion in which the children of an
+Evangelical home were reared was an intensely vivid and energetic
+principle, passionate on its emotional side, definite in its theory,
+imperious in its demands, practical, visible, and tangible in its
+effects. If a boy's heart--
+
+
+     "Were less insensible than sodden clay
+     In a sea-river's bed at ebb of tide,"
+
+
+it could scarcely fail to carry with it into the world outside the
+impressions stamped by such a training. I can remember quite clearly
+that, even in my Harrow days, the idea of Life as Service was always
+present to my mind: and it was constantly enforced by the preaching of
+such men as Butler, Westcott, and Farrar.
+
+"Here you are being educated either for life or for fashion. Which is
+it? What is your ambition? Is it to continue, with fewer restrictions,
+the amusements which have engrossed you here? Is it to be favourite or
+brilliant members of a society which keeps want and misery at a
+distance? Would this content you? Is this your idea of life? Or may we
+not hope that you will have a nobler conception of what a Christian
+manhood may be made in a country so rich in opportunities as our own now
+presents?"[55]
+
+In Dr. Butler's sermons our thoughts were directed to such subjects as
+the Housing of the Working Classes, Popular Education, and the contrast
+between the lot of the rich and the lot of the poor. "May God never
+allow us to grow proud, or to grow indolent, or to be deaf to the cry of
+human suffering." "Pray that God may count you worthy to be foremost in
+the truly holy and heroic work of bringing purity to the homes of the
+labouring classes, and so hastening the coming of the day when the
+longing of our common Lord shall be accomplished." "Forget not the
+complaints, and the yet more fatal silence, of the poor, and pray that
+the ennobling of your own life, and the gratification of your own
+happiness, may be linked hereafter with some public Christian labour."
+
+Thus the influences of school co-operated with the influences of home to
+give one, at the most impressionable age, a lively interest in Social
+Service; and that interest found a practical outlet at Oxford. When
+young men first attempt good works, they always begin with teaching; and
+a Sunday School at Cowley and a Night School at St. Frideswide's were
+the scenes of my (very unsuccessful) attempts in that direction. Through
+my devotion to St. Barnabas', I became acquainted with the homes and
+lives of the poor in the then squalid district of "Jericho"; and the
+experience thus acquired was a valuable complement to the knowledge of
+the agricultural poor which I had gained at home. It was at this time
+that I first read _Yeast_ and _Alton Locke_. The living voice of Ruskin
+taught us the sanctity of work for others. A fascinating but awful book
+called _Modern Christianity a Civilized Heathenism_ laid compelling
+hands on some young hearts; and in 1875 Dr. Pusey made that book the
+subject of a sermon before the University, in which he pleaded the cause
+of the poor with an unforgettable solemnity.[56]
+
+For two or three years, illness and decrepitude interfered with my
+active service, but the ideal was still enthroned in my heart; and, as
+health returned, the shame of doing nothing for others became
+intolerable. Return to activity was a very gradual process, and, if one
+had ever "despised the day of small things," one now learned to value
+it. When I came up to London, two or three of us, who had been
+undergraduate friends at Oxford, formed a little party for
+workhouse-visiting. One of the party has since been a Conservative
+Minister, one a Liberal Minister, and one a high official of the Central
+Conservative Association. Sisters joined their brothers, and we used to
+jog off together on Saturday afternoons to the Holborn Workhouse,
+which, if I remember right, stood in a poetically-named but
+prosaic-looking street called "Shepherdess Walk." The girls visited the
+women, and we the men. We used to take oranges and flowers to the wards,
+give short readings from amusing books, and gossip with the bedridden
+about the outside world. We always had the kindest of welcomes from our
+old friends; and great was their enthusiasm when they learned that two
+of their visitors had been returned to Parliament at the General
+Election of 1880. As one of the two was a Conservative and one a
+Liberal, the political susceptibilities of the ward were not offended,
+and we both received congratulations from all alike. One quaint incident
+is connected with these memories. Just outside the Workhouse was a sort
+of booth, or "lean-to," where a very respectable woman sold daffodils
+and wall-flowers, which we used to buy for our friends inside. One day,
+when one of the girls of our party was making her purchase, the
+flower-seller said, "Would your Ladyship like to go to the Lady
+Mayoress's Fancy Dress Ball? If so, I can send you and your brother
+tickets. You have been good customers to me, and I should be very glad
+if you would accept them." The explanation was that the flower-seller
+was sister to the Lady Mayoress, whom the Lord Mayor had married when he
+was in a humbler station. The tickets were gratefully accepted; and,
+when we asked the giver if she was going to the Ball, she replied, with
+excellent sense and taste, "Oh, no. My sister, in her position, is
+obliged to give these grand parties, but I should be quite out of place
+there. You must tell me all about it next time you come to the
+Workhouse."
+
+
+Meanwhile, during this "day of small things" a quiet but momentous
+revolution had been going on all round us, in the spheres of thought and
+conscience; and the earlier idea of individual service had been, not
+swamped by, but expanded into, the nobler conception of corporate
+endeavour.
+
+It had been a work of time. The Christian Socialism of 1848--one of the
+finest episodes in our moral history--had been trampled underfoot by the
+wickedness of the Crimean War. To all appearance, it fell into the
+ground and died. After two years of aimless bloodshed, peace was
+restored in 1856, and a spell of national prosperity succeeded. The
+Repeal of the Corn Laws had done its work; food was cheaper; times were
+better; the revenue advanced "by leaps and bounds." But commercialism
+was rampant. It was the heyday of the Ten Pound Householder and the
+Middle Class Franchise. Mr. Podsnap and Mr. Gradgrind enounced the
+social law. Bright and Cobden dominated political thinking. The
+Universities were fast bound in the misery and iron of Mill and Bain.
+Everywhere the same grim idols were worshipped--unrestricted
+competition, the survival of the fittest, and universal selfishness
+enthroned in the place which belonged to universal love. "The Devil take
+the hindermost" was the motto of industrial life. "In the huge and
+hideous cities, the awful problem of Industry lay like a bad dream; but
+Political Economy warned us off that ground. We were assured that the
+free play of competitive forces was bound to discover the true
+equipoise. No intervention could really affect the inevitable outcome.
+It could only hinder and disturb."[57] The Church, whose pride it had
+been in remoter ages to be the Handmaid of the Poor, was bidden to leave
+the Social Problem severely alone; and so ten years rolled by, while the
+social pressure on labour became daily more grievous to be borne. But
+meanwhile the change was proceeding underground, or at least out of
+sight. Forces were working side by side which knew nothing of each
+other, but which were all tending to the same result. The Church, boldly
+casting aside the trammels which had bound her to wealth and culture,
+went down into the slums; brought the beauty and romance of Worship to
+the poorest and the most depraved, and compelled them to come in.
+Whenever such a Church as St. Alban's, Holborn, or St. Barnabas, Oxford,
+was established in the slums of a populous city, it became a centre not
+only of religious influence, but of social, physical, and educational
+reform. Ruskin's many-coloured wisdom, long recognized in the domain of
+Art, began to win its way through economic darkness, and charged
+cheerfully against the dismal strongholds of Supply and Demand. _Unto
+this Last_ became a handbook for Social Reformers. The teaching of
+Maurice filtered, through all sorts of unsuspected channels, into
+literature and politics and churchmanship. In the intellectual world,
+Huxley transformed "the Survival of the Fittest," by bidding us devote
+ourselves to the task of fitting as many as possible to survive. At
+Oxford, the "home" not of "lost" but of victorious "causes," T. H.
+Green, wielding a spiritual influence which reached farther than that of
+many bishops, taught that Freedom of Contract, if it is to be anything
+but a callous fraud, implies conditions in which men are really free to
+contract or to refuse; and insisted that all wholesome competition
+implies "adequate equipment for the competitors."
+
+It is impossible to say exactly how all these influences intertwined and
+co-operated. One man was swayed by one force; another by another; and,
+after long years of subterranean working, a moment came, as it comes to
+the germinating seed deep-hidden in the furrow, when it must pierce the
+superincumbent mass, and show its tiny point of life above ground.[58]
+The General Election of 1880, by dethroning Lord Beaconsfield and
+putting Gladstone in power, had fulfilled the strictly political objects
+which during the preceding three years my friends and I had been trying
+to attain. So we, who entered Parliament at that Election, were set
+free, at the very outset of our public career, to work for the Social
+Reform which we had at heart. We earnestly desired to make the lives of
+our fellow-men healthier, sweeter, brighter, and more humane; and it was
+an ennobling and invigorating ambition, lifting the pursuit of politics,
+out of the vulgar dust of office-seeking and wire-pulling, into the
+purer air of unselfish endeavour. To some of us it was much more; for it
+meant the application of the Gospel of Christ to the practical business
+of modern life. But the difficulties were enormous. The Liberal party
+still clung to its miserable old mumpsimus of _Laissez-faire_, and
+steadily refused to learn the new and nobler language of Social Service.
+Alone among our leading men, Mr. Chamberlain seemed to apprehend the
+truth that political reform is related to social reform as the means to
+the end, and that Politics, in its widest sense, is the science of human
+happiness.
+
+But, in spite of all discouragements, we clung to "a Social Philosophy
+which, however materialistic some of its tendencies might have become,
+had been allied with the spiritual Hegelianism with which we had been
+touched. It took its scientific shape in the hands of Karl Marx, but it
+also floated to us, in dreams and visions, using our own Christian
+language, and invoking the unity of the Social Body, as the Law of
+Love, and the Solidarity of Humanity."[59]
+
+At the sound of these voices the old idols fell--_Laissez-faire_ and
+_Laissez-aller_, Individualism and Self-content, Unrestricted
+Competition and the Survival of the Fittest. They all went down with a
+crash, like so many dishonoured Dagons; and, before their startled
+worshippers had time to reinstate them, yet another voice of warning
+broke upon our ears. _The Bitter Cry of Outcast London_, describing the
+enormous amount of preventable misery caused by over-crowding, startled
+men into recognizing the duty of the State to cope with the evil. Then
+came Henry George with his _Progress and Poverty_, and, as Dr. Holland
+says, he "forced us on to new thinking." That "new thinking" took
+something of this form--"Here are the urgent and grinding facts of human
+misery. The Political Economy of such blind guides as Ricardo and
+Bastiat and Fawcett has signally failed to cure or even mitigate them.
+Now comes a new prophet with his gospel of the Single Tax. He may, or
+may not, have found the remedy, but at any rate he has shown us more
+clearly than ever the immensity of the evil, and our responsibility for
+suffering it to continue. We profess and call ourselves Christians. Is
+it not about time that, casting aside all human teachings, whether
+Economic or Socialistic, we tried to see what the Gospel says about the
+subject, and about our duty in regard to it?"
+
+Out of this stress of mind and heart arose "The Christian Social Union."
+It was founded in Lent, 1889, and it set forth its objects in the
+following statement--
+
+
+     "This Union consists of Churchmen who have the following objects at
+     heart:--
+
+     (i) To claim for the Christian Law the ultimate authority to rule
+     social practice.
+
+     (ii) To study in common how to apply the moral truths and
+     principles of Christianity to the social and economic difficulties
+     of the present time.
+
+     (iii) To present CHRIST in practical life as the Living Master and
+     King, the enemy of wrong and selfishness, the power of
+     righteousness and love."
+
+
+The Christian Social Union, originating with some Oxford men in London,
+was soon reinforced from Cambridge, which had fallen under the inspiring
+though impalpable influence of Westcott's teaching. Westcott was, in
+some sense, the continuator of Mauricianism; and so, when Westcott
+joined the Union, the two streams, of Mauricianism and of the Oxford
+Movement, fused. Let Dr. Holland, with whom the work began, tell the
+rest of the story--"We founded the C. S. U. under Westcott's
+presidentship, leaving to the Guild of St. Matthew their old work of
+justifying God to the People, while we devoted ourselves to converting
+and impregnating the solid, stolid, flock of our own church folk within
+the fold.... We had our work cut out for us in dislodging the horrible
+cast-iron formulae, which were indeed wholly obsolete, but which seemed
+for that very reason to take tighter possession of their last refuge in
+the bulk of the Church's laity."
+
+
+     "Let no man think that sudden in a minute
+       All is accomplished and the work is done;--
+     Though with thine earliest dawn thou shouldst begin it,
+       Scarce were it ended in thy setting sun."[60]
+
+
+The spirit which created the Christian Social Union found, in the same
+year, an unexpected outlet in the secular sphere. In the Session of
+1888, the Conservative Ministry, noting the general disgust which had
+been aroused by the corrupt misgovernment of Greater London, passed the
+"Local Government Act," which, among other provisions, made London into
+a County, gave it a "County Council," and endowed that Council with
+far-reaching powers. To social reformers this was a tremendous event.
+For forty years they had been labouring to procure something of the
+sort, and now it dropped down from the skies, and seemed at first almost
+too good to be true. Under the shock of the surprise, London suddenly
+awoke to the consciousness of a corporate life. On every side men were
+stirred by an honest impulse to give the experiment a good start; to
+work the new machine for all it was worth; and to make the
+administration of Greater London a model for all lesser municipalities.
+The Divisions of London, for the purposes of its new Council, were the
+same as its Parliamentary Divisions, but each constituency returned two
+members, and the City four. Every seat (except those for St. George's,
+Hanover Square) was contested, and there were often as many as six or
+seven candidates for one division. It was said at the time that "the
+uncertainty of the issues, the multitude of candidates, and the
+vagueness of parties made it impossible to tabulate the results with the
+same accuracy and completeness which are possible in the case of the
+House of Commons." Some candidates stood professedly as Liberals, and
+others as Conservatives. The majority, however, declared themselves to
+be "strictly non-political." Some leading objects, such as Better
+Housing of the Poor, Sanitary Reform, and the abolition of jobbery and
+corruption, were professed by all alike; and the main issues in dispute
+were the control of the Police by the Council, the reform of the
+Corporation of London and of the City Guilds, the abolition of dues on
+coal coming into the Port of London, and the taxation of ground-rents.
+
+In such projects as these it was easy to discern the working of the new
+spirit. Men were trying, earnestly though amid much confusion, to
+translate the doctrines of Social Reform into fact. "Practicable
+Socialism" became the ideal of the reforming party, who styled
+themselves "Progressives." Their opponents got the unfortunate name of
+"Moderates"; and between the ideas roughly indicated by those two names
+the battle was fought. The Election took place in January, 1889. The
+result was that 71 candidates labelled "Progressive" were returned, and
+47 "Moderates." The Act empowered the Council to complete its number by
+electing 19 Aldermen. Of these, 18 were Progressives, and one was a
+Moderate; so the total result was a "Progressive" majority of 41.
+
+By the time of which I write I had become, by habitual residence, a
+Londoner; and I hope I was as keen on Social Reform as anyone in London,
+or outside it. But, after what I said in an earlier chapter, it will
+surprise no one that I declined to be a candidate for the London County
+Council. My dislike of electioneering is so intense that nothing on
+earth except the prospect of a seat in Parliament would tempt me to
+undertake it; so to all suggestions that I should stand in the
+Progressive interest I turned a resolutely deaf ear. But, when the
+election was over and the Progressive majority had to choose a list of
+Aldermen, I saw my opportunity and volunteered my services. By the
+goodwill of my friends on the Council, I was placed on the "Progressive
+List," and on the 5th of February I was elected an Alderman for six
+years. Among my colleagues were Lord Meath, Lord Lingen, Lord Hobhouse,
+Mr. Quintin Hogg, Sir Thomas Farrer, and Mr. Frederic Harrison. Lord
+Meath was accepted by the Progressive party, in recognition of his
+devoted services to the cause of social amelioration, especially in the
+matter of Public Gardens and Open Spaces; but, with this sole
+exception, the list was frankly partisan. The Progressives had got a
+majority on the new "Parliament of London," and had no notion of
+watering it down.
+
+Before the Council was created, the governing body for Greater London
+had been the "Metropolitan Board of Works," which had its dwelling in
+Spring Gardens. The old building had to be adapted to its new uses, and,
+while the reconstruction was in progress, the County Council was
+permitted by the Corporation to meet in the Guildhall. There we
+assembled on the 12th of February, a highly-diversified, and, in some
+respects, an interesting company. A careful analysis of our quality and
+occupations gave the following results: Peers, 4; M.P.'s and ex-M.P.'s,
+9; Clergymen, 2; Barristers, 14; Solicitors, 3; Soldiers, 4; Doctors, 5;
+Tutors, 2; Architects, 2; Builders, 4; Engineers, 3; Journalists, 4;
+Publisher, 1; Bankers, 5; Stock-Exchange men, 5; Auctioneers, 3; Brewer,
+1; Clothiers, 2; Confectioner, 1; Drapers, 2; Grocers, 2; Mineral
+Water-maker, 1; Optician, 1; Shoemaker, 1; Merchants, 22; Manufacturers,
+13; Gentlemen at large, 8; "Unspecified," 10. And to these must be added
+three ladies, who had been illegally elected and were soon unseated. A
+current joke of the time represented one of our more highly-cultured
+Councillors saying to a colleague drawn from another rank,--"The
+acoustics of this Hall seem very defective"--to which the colleague,
+after sniffing, replies--"Indeed? I don't perceive anything unpleasant."
+Which things were an allegory; but conveyed a true impression of our
+social and educational diversities.
+
+The first business which we had to transact was the election of a
+Chairman. Lord Rosebery was elected by 104 votes to 17; and so began the
+most useful portion of his varied career. The honorary office of
+Vice-Chairman was unanimously conferred on Sir John Lubbock, afterwards
+Lord Avebury; and for the Deputy Chairmanship, a salaried post of
+practical importance, the Council chose Mr. J. F. B. Firth, who had made
+his name as an exponent of the intricacies of Metropolitan Government.
+
+To watch the methods of Lord Rosebery's chairmanship was an interesting
+study. After much experience of public bodies and public meetings, I
+consider him the best chairman but one under whom I ever sat. The best
+was Mr. Leonard Courtney, now Lord Courtney of Penwith, who to the gifts
+of accuracy, promptness, and mastery of detail, added the rarer grace
+of absolute impartiality. Lord Rosebery had the accuracy, the
+promptness, and the mastery, but he was not impartial. He was inclined
+to add the functions of Leader of the House to those of Speaker, which
+were rightly his. When a subject on which he felt strongly was under
+discussion, and opinion in the Council was closely balanced, Lord
+Rosebery would intervene just at the close of the debate, with a short,
+strong, and emphatic speech, and so influence the division in favour of
+his own view. This practice is, in my judgment, inconsistent with ideal
+chairmanship, but in the early days of the Council it was not without
+its uses.
+
+We had to furnish ourselves with a constitution, to distribute our
+various powers, to frame rules of debate, and to create an order of
+business. To do all this in a full Council of 137 members, most of them
+quite unversed in public life, many of them opinionated, all articulate,
+and not a few vociferous, was a work of the utmost difficulty, and Lord
+Rosebery engineered it to perfection. He was suave and courteous;
+smoothed acrid dissensions with judicious humour; used sarcasm
+sparingly, but with effect; and maintained a certain dignity of bearing
+which profoundly impressed the representatives of the Great Middle
+Class. "By Jove, how these chaps funk Rosebery!" was the candid
+exclamation of Sir Howard Vincent; and his remark applied quite equally
+to his own "Moderate" friends and to my "Progressives." It was
+characteristic of these gentry that they longed to call Lord Rosebery
+"My Lord," and were with difficulty induced to substitute "Mr.
+Chairman." The one member of the Council who stands out in my memory as
+not having "funked" the Chairman is Mr. John Burns, whose action and
+bearing in the Council formed one of my most interesting studies. The
+events of February, 1885, were still present to my memory, though the
+Councillor for Battersea had probably forgotten them. The change which
+four years had wrought was extraordinary. He spoke constantly and
+effectively, but always with moderation, good feeling, and common sense.
+At the same time, he maintained a breezy independence, and, when he
+thought that the Chair ought to be defied, defied it. This was awkward,
+for the Chairman had no disciplinary powers, and there was no executive
+force to compel submission to his rulings. As far as I could observe,
+Mr. Burns never gave way, and yet he soon ceased to enter into conflict
+with the Chair. What was the influence which tamed him? I often
+wondered, but never knew.
+
+The Council had got itself duly divided into Committees, and it was
+noticeable that there was an enormous rush of Councillors anxious to
+serve on the Housing Committee. The "Bitter Cry of Outcast London" had
+not been raised in vain, and every man in the Council seemed anxious to
+bear his part in the work of redressing an intolerable wrong. The weekly
+Session of the Council was fixed for Tuesday afternoon, to the disgust
+of some Progressives who hankered after the more democratic hour of 7
+p.m. The main part of the business was the discussion of the Reports
+brought up from the various Committees, and, when those were disposed
+of, abstract motions could be debated. Some earnest Liberals were always
+trying to raise such questions as Home Rule, Land Law, Enfranchisement
+of Leaseholds, and other matters which lay outside the purview of the
+Council; and it was delightful to see Lord Rosebery damping down these
+irregular enthusiasms, and reminding his hearers of the limits which
+Parliament had set to their activities. Those limits were, in all
+conscience, wide enough, and included in their scope Housing, Asylums,
+Bridges, Fire-Brigades, Highways, Reformatory Schools, Main Drainage,
+Parks, Theatres, and Music-Halls, besides the complicated system of
+finance by which all our practice was regulated. The Committees dealing
+with these subjects, and several others of less importance, were manned
+by able, zealous, and conscientious servants of the public, who gave
+ungrudgingly of their time (which in many cases was also money),
+thought, and labour. The Council as a whole displayed a voracious
+appetite for work, and rendered, without fee or reward, a service to
+Greater London which no money could have purchased.
+
+In the autumn of this year--1889--some correspondence appeared in
+newspapers and reviews about what was called "The New Liberalism." By
+that title was meant a Liberalism which could no longer content itself
+with the crudities of official politics, but longed to bear its part in
+the social regeneration of the race. In an article in the _Nineteenth
+Century_, I commented on the insensibility of the Liberal Leaders to
+this new inspiration. "Who would lead our armies into Edom?" I confess
+that I thought of Lord Rosebery as our likeliest champion; but I put the
+cause above the man. "Wherever our leader may come from, I am confident
+that the movement will go on. _Ca ira! Ca ira! Malgre les mutins, tout
+reussira!_ The cause of Social Service arouses that moral enthusiasm
+which cannot be bought and cannot be resisted, and which carries in
+itself the pledge of victory. The terrible magnitude and urgency of the
+evils with which we have to cope cannot be overstated. Those who set out
+to fight them will have to encounter great and manifold
+difficulties--ignorance, stupidity, prejudice, greed, cruelty,
+self-interest, instincts of class, cowardly distrust of popular
+movements, 'spiritual wickedness in high places.' And, in the face of
+these opposing forces, it is cheering to think that, after long years of
+single-handed striving, the good cause now has its workers everywhere.
+And to none does it make a more direct or a more imperious appeal than
+to us Liberal politicians. If we are worthy of the name, we must be in
+earnest about a cause which promises happiness, and health, and length
+of days to those who by their daily labour of hand and head principally
+maintain the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon race. We must be impatient of
+a state of society in which healthy dwellings and unadulterated food and
+pure water and fresh air are made the monopolies of the rich. We must be
+eager to do our part towards abolishing filth and eradicating disease,
+and giving free scope to those beneficent laws of Nature which, if only
+we will obey them, are so manifestly designed to promote the welfare and
+the longevity of man. If we believe that every human being has equally
+and indefeasibly the right to be happy, we must find our chief interest
+and most satisfying occupation in Social Service. Our aim is, first, to
+lighten the load of existence for those thronging thousands of the human
+family whose experience of life is one long suffering, and then to 'add
+sunshine to daylight by making the happy happier.' The poor, the
+ignorant, the weak, the hungry, the over-worked, all call for aid; and,
+in ministering to their wants, the adherent of the New Liberalism knows
+that he is fulfilling the best function of the character which he
+professes, and moreover is helping to enlarge the boundaries of the
+Kingdom of God."
+
+When those words were written, the London County Council had just begun
+its work. I served on it till March, 1895; and during those six years it
+had proved in practice what a right-minded Municipality can do towards
+brightening and sweetening human life. It cut broad roads through
+squalid slums, letting in light and air where all had been darkness and
+pollution. It cleared wide areas of insanitary dwellings, where only
+vice could thrive, and re-housed the dispossessed. It broke up the
+monotony of mean streets with beautiful parks and health-giving
+pleasure-grounds. It transfigured the Music-Halls, and showed that, by
+the exercise of a little firmness and common sense, the tone and
+character of the "Poor Man's Theatre" could be raised to the level of
+what would be applauded in a drawing-room. By forbidding the sale of
+refreshments in the auditorium, it crushed the old-fashioned
+superstition that public entertainment and alcoholic drink are
+inseparably connected. In some of these good works it was my privilege
+to bear a part; and, in that matter of the purification of the
+Music-Halls, I was proud to follow the lead of Sir John McDougall, who
+has since been Chairman of the Council, and who, at the time of which I
+am writing, fearlessly exposed himself to unbounded calumny, and even
+physical violence, in his crusade for the moral purity of popular
+amusement. Those were six years of fruitful service; and, though a long
+time has elapsed since I left the Council, I have constantly watched its
+labours, and can heartily assent to the eulogy pronounced by my friend
+Henry Scott Holland, when he was quitting his Canonry at St. Paul's for
+his Professorship at Oxford:
+
+"As for London, my whole heart is still given to the lines of the
+Progressive policy on the County Council. I still think that this has
+given London a soul; and that it has been by far the most effective work
+that one has watched happening.... The hope of London lies with the
+County Council."
+
+Before I say goodbye to this portion of my "Autobiography," let me
+record the fact that the London County Council produced a poet of its
+own. The first Council came to an end in March, 1892, and the second,
+elected on the 5th of that month, gave the Progressives a greatly
+increased majority. One of the newly-elected Councillors uttered his
+triumphant joy in song.
+
+
+     "Here then you have your answer, you that thought
+         To find our London unawakened still,
+         A sleeping plunder for you, thought to fill
+     The gorge of private greed, and count for naught
+     The common good. Time unto her has brought
+         Her glorious hour, her strength of public will
+         Grown conscious, and a civic soul to thrill
+     The once dull mass that for your spoil you sought.
+     Lo, where the alert majestic city stands,
+         Dreaming her dream of golden days to be,
+     With shaded eyes beneath her arching hands
+         Scanning the forward pathway, like a seer
+         To whom the riven future has made clear
+     The marvel of some mighty destiny."[61]
+
+
+Moved by the desire to gratify a young ambition, I introduced the poet
+to Mr. Gladstone, and that great man, who never damned with faint
+praise, pronounced that this was the finest thing written about London
+since Wordsworth's Sonnet "Composed upon Westminster Bridge."
+
+In August, 1892, Gladstone became Prime Minister for the fourth time. He
+gave me a place in his Government; and for the next three years my
+activities were limited to North Bedfordshire, which I then represented,
+the House of Commons, and Whitehall. I was restored to liberty by the
+dissolution of July, 1895. In my chapter about Oxford, I spoke of the
+Rev. E. S. Talbot, then Warden of Keble, and now Bishop of Winchester,
+as one of those whose friendship I had acquired in undergraduate days.
+After serving for a while as Vicar of Leeds, he was appointed in 1895 to
+the See of Rochester, which then included South London. Soon after he
+had entered on his new work, he said to me, "Men of leisure are very
+scarce in South London. Will you come across the Thames, and lend us a
+hand?"
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[55] Dr. Butler's Harrow Sermons. Series II.
+
+[56] "Christianity without the Cross a Corruption of the Gospel of
+Christ."
+
+[57] Rev. H. Scott Holland, D.D.
+
+[58] Honourable mention ought here to be made of "The Guild of St.
+Matthew," founded by the Rev. Stewart Headlam in 1877. Its object was
+"To justify God to the People," and it prepared the way for later
+organizations.
+
+[59] The Rev. H. S. Holland, D.D.
+
+[60] F. W. H. Myers.
+
+[61] F. Henderson, _By the Sea, and other poems_.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+ECCLESIASTICA
+
+
+     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.
+                               J. H. SHORTHOUSE, _John Inglesant_.
+
+
+Mr. Shorthouse, like most people who have come over to the Church from
+Dissent, set an inordinate value on the principle of Establishment. He
+seemed (and in that particular he resembled Archbishop Tait) incapable
+of conceiving the idea of a Church as separate from, and independent of,
+the State. The words "as established by the law of England" in the
+passage which stands at the head of this chapter appear to suggest a
+doubt whether the English Church, if she ceased to be "established,"
+could still discharge her function as the divinely-appointed dispenser
+of sacramental grace to the English people. Those who, like Mr.
+Gladstone, believe that no change in her worldly circumstances could
+"compromise or impair her character as the Catholic and Apostolic Church
+of this country," would omit Mr. Shorthouse's qualifying words, and
+would say, simply, that the English Church, whether established or not,
+offers the Supernatural to all who choose to come, and that she is, has
+been, and always will be, "historically the same institution through
+which the Gospel was originally preached to the English Nation." But
+this is not the place for theorization; so, for the moment, I am content
+to take Mr. Shorthouse's statement as it stands, and to say that a
+loving pride in the English Church has been the permanent passion of my
+life. I hold with Dean Church, a man not given to hyperbole, that "in
+spite of inconsistencies and menacing troubles, she is still the most
+glorious Church in Christendom."
+
+I was baptized in the Parish Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Woburn,
+formerly a chapel dependent on the Cistercian Abbey hard by, which the
+first Earl of Bedford received as a gift from Henry VIII.[62] This truly
+interesting church was destroyed, to please an innovating incumbent, in
+1864; but my earliest impressions of public worship are connected with
+it, and in my mind's eye I can see it as clearly as if it were still
+standing. It had never been "restored "; but had been decorated by my
+grandfather, who inherited the ecclesiastical rights of the Abbots of
+Woburn, and whose "Curate" the incumbent was.[63] My grandfather was a
+liberal giver, and did his best, according to his lights, to make the
+Church beautiful. He filled the East Window with stained glass, the
+central subject being his own coat of arms, with patriarchs and saints
+grouped round it in due subordination. Beneath the window was a fine
+picture, by Carlo Maratti, of the Holy Family. The Holy Table was a
+table indeed, with legs and drawers after the manner of a writing-table,
+and a cover of red velvet. The chancel was long; and the south side of
+it was engrossed by "the Duke's Pew," which was enclosed within high
+walls and thick curtains, and contained a fireplace. The north side of
+the chancel was equally engrossed by a pew for the Duke's servants. The
+choir, male and female after their kind, surrounded the organ in a
+gallery at the West End. The whole Church was pewed throughout, and
+white-washed, the chancel being enriched with plaster mouldings. On the
+capital of each pillar was a scutcheon, bearing the arms of some family
+allied to our own. The largest and most vivid presentment of the Royal
+Arms which I have ever seen crowned the chancel-arch.
+
+Our clerical staff consisted of the incumbent (who became a "Vicar" by
+Act of Parliament in 1868) and a curate. Our list of services was as
+follows: Sunday--11 a.m., Morning Prayer, Litany, Table-prayers, and
+Sermon; 6 p.m., Evening Prayer and Sermon. There was Evening Prayer with
+a sermon on Thursdays, and a prayer-meeting in the schoolroom on Tuesday
+evenings. There were no extra services in Lent or Advent, nor on any
+Holy Days except Good Friday and Ascension Day. The Holy Communion was
+administered after Morning Service on the first Sunday of the month, and
+on Christmas and Easter Days; and after Evening Service on the third
+Sunday. The black gown was, of course, worn in the pulpit, and I
+remember a mild sensation caused by the disuse of bands. The prayers
+were preached; the Psalms were read; and the hymn-book in use was "The
+Church and Home Metrical Psalter and Hymnal"--a quaint compilation which
+I have never seen elsewhere. It would not be easy to describe the
+dreariness of the services; and the preaching corresponded to them.
+This is curious, for Evangelical preaching generally was rousing and
+effective. I remember that we heard preaching of that type from
+strangers who occasionally "took duty" or "pleaded for Societies"; but
+our own pastors always expatiated on Justification by Faith only. I
+cannot recall any other subject; and, even in enforcing this,
+"Pulpit-eloquence," topical allusions, and illustrations whether from
+nature or from books, were rigidly eschewed. "As dull as a sermon" is a
+proverbial saying which for me in early boyhood had an awful truth.
+
+It has been stated in an earlier chapter that I discovered the
+Sacramental System of the Church by the simple method of studying the
+Prayer Book. Certainly I got no help in that direction from my spiritual
+pastors. The incumbent was, I should think, the Lowest Churchman who
+ever lived. He was a Cambridge man; a thorough gentleman; well-read;
+wholly devoted to his sacred calling; and fearless in his assertion of
+what he believed to be right. (He once refused to let Jowett preach in
+our pulpit, though the noble patron made the request.) He was entirely
+insensible to poetry, beauty, romance, and enthusiasm; but his mind was
+essentially logical, and he followed his creed to its extremest
+consequences. Baptismal grace, of course, he absolutely denied. He
+prepared me for Confirmation, and he began his preparation by assailing
+my faith in the Presence and the Succession. He defined Confirmation as
+"a coming of age in the things of the soul." I perfectly remember a
+sermon preached on "Sacrament Sunday," which ended with some such words
+as these, "I go to yonder table to-day; not expecting to meet the Lord,
+because I know He will not be there." I have seldom heard the doctrine
+of the Real Absence stated with equal frankness.
+
+All my religious associations were with the Evangelical school, of which
+my parents were devoted adherents. My uncle, the Rev. Lord Wriothesley
+Russell (1804-1886), had been a disciple of Charles Simeon at Cambridge,
+but had completely discarded such fragments of Churchmanship as lingered
+in his master's teaching. My mother (1810-1884) had been in early life
+closely allied with "the Clapham Sect"; and our friendship with the last
+survivor of that sect, Miss Marianne Thornton (1797-1887), linked us to
+the Wilberforces, the Venns, and the Macaulays. My acquaintance with
+Lord Shaftesbury (1801-1885) I have always esteemed one of the chief
+honours of my life. He combined in a singular degree the gifts which
+make a Leader. He had an imperious will, a perfervid temper, unbounded
+enthusiasm, inexhaustible energy. Any movement with which he was
+connected he controlled. He brooked neither opposition nor criticism.
+His authority was reinforced by advantages of aspect and station; by a
+stately manner, by a noble and commanding eloquence. But all these gifts
+were as nothing when compared with the power of his lifelong
+consistency. When he was a boy at Harrow, a brutal scene at a pauper's
+funeral awoke his devotion to the cause of the poor and helpless.
+Seventy years later, when he lay on his deathbed, his only regret was
+that he must leave the world with so much misery in it. From first to
+last, he was an Evangelical of the highest and purest type, displaying
+all the religious and social virtues of that school in their perfection.
+Yet he left it on record that he had been more harshly treated by the
+Evangelical party than by any other. Perhaps the explanation is that
+those excellent people were only kicking against the pricks of a
+too-absolute control.
+
+Such were the religious associations of my early life; and I am deeply
+thankful for them. I have found, by much experiment, that there is no
+foundation on which the superstructure of Catholic religion can be more
+securely built than on the Evangelical confession of man's utter
+sinfulness, and of the free pardon purchased by the Blood of Christ. A
+man trained in that confession may, without sacrificing a jot of his
+earlier creed, learn to accept all that the Catholic Church teaches
+about Orders and Sacraments; but to the end he will retain some
+characteristic marks of his spiritual beginnings. For my own part, I
+hold with Mr. Gladstone that to label oneself with an ecclesiastical
+nickname would be to compromise "the first of earthly blessings--one's
+mental freedom[64]"; but if anyone chose to call me a "Catholic
+Evangelical," I should not quarrel with the designation.
+
+I said in an earlier chapter that I had an inborn fondness for Catholic
+ceremonial, and this, I suppose, was part of my general love of material
+beauty. Amid such surroundings as I have described, it was a fondness
+not easily indulged. When I was twelve years old, I was staying at
+Leamington in August, and on a Holy Day I peeped into the Roman Church
+there, and saw for the first time the ceremonies of High Mass; and from
+that day on I longed to see them reproduced in the Church of England.
+During one of our periodical visits to London, I discovered the
+beautiful church in Gordon Square where the "Adherents of a Restored
+Apostolate" celebrate Divine Worship with bewildering splendour. The
+propinquity of our house to Westminster Abbey enabled me to enter into
+the more chastened, yet dignified, beauty of the English rite. At Harrow
+the brightness and colour of our School-Chapel struck my untutored eye
+as "exceeding magnifical"; and the early celebrations in the Parish
+Church had a solemnity which the Chapel lacked.
+
+But the happiest memory of all is connected with a little Church[65]
+about two miles from my home. It is a tiny structure of one aisle, with
+the altar fenced off by a screen of carved oak. It served a group of
+half a dozen houses, and it stood amid green fields, remote from
+traffic, and scarcely visible except to those who searched for it. There
+an enthusiastic and devoted priest spent five and twenty years of an
+isolated ministry; and there, for the first time in our communion, I saw
+the Divine Mysteries celebrated with the appropriate accessories.
+
+My walks to that secluded altar, in the fresh brightness of summer
+mornings, can never be forgotten until the whole tablet is blotted. On
+the sky-line, the great masses of distant woodland, half-veiled in mist,
+lay like a blue cloud. Within, there was "the fair white linen cloth
+upon the wooden table, with fresh flowers above, and the worn slabs
+beneath that record the dim names of the forgotten dead"; and there
+"amid the faint streaks of the early dawn, the faithful, kneeling round
+the oaken railing, took into their hands the worn silver of the Grail--
+
+
+     "The chalice of the Grapes of God."[66]
+
+
+Perhaps it was just as well for a boy that these glimpses of beautiful
+worship were few and far between. One was saved from the perils of a
+mere externalism, and was driven inward on the unseen realities which
+ceremonial may sometimes obscure. And then, when one got up to Oxford,
+one found all the splendours of the sanctuary in rich abundance, and
+enjoyed them with a whole-hearted self-abandonment. I need not repeat
+what I have already said about St. Barnabas and Cowley and the other
+strongholds of Catholic worship. I am eternally their debtor, and the
+friends with whom I shared them have helped to shape my life.
+
+But, in spite of all these enjoyments, religious life at Oxford between
+1872 and 1876 was not altogether happy. A strong flood of Romanism burst
+upon the University, and carried some of my best friends from my side;
+and, concurrently with this disturbance, an American teacher attacked
+our faith from the opposite quarter. He taught an absolute disregard of
+all forms and rites, and, not content with the ordinary doctrine of
+instantaneous conversion, preached the absolute sinlessness of the
+believer. The movement which, in 1874, he set on foot was marked by
+disasters, of which the nature can best be inferred from a
+characteristic saying, "The believer's conflict with Sin is all stuff."
+This teaching had its natural consequences, and the movement issued in
+spiritual tragedy.
+
+In the following year we were touched by the much more wholesome
+enterprise of Messrs. Moody and Sankey. Their teaching was wholly free
+from the perilous stuff which had defiled the previous mission; and
+though it shook the faith of some who had cultivated the husk rather
+than the kernel of ritualism, still all could join in the generous
+tribute paid by Dr. Liddon on Whitsun Day, 1876:
+
+"Last year two American preachers visited this country, to whom God had
+given, together with earnest belief in some portions of the gospel, a
+corresponding spirit of fearless enterprise. Certainly they had no such
+credentials of an Apostolic Ministry as a well-instructed and believing
+Churchman would require.... And yet, acting according to the light which
+God had given them, they threw themselves on our great cities with the
+ardour of Apostles; spoke of a higher world to thousands who pass the
+greater part of life in dreaming only of this; and made many of us feel
+that we owe them at least the debt of an example, which He Who breatheth
+where He listeth must surely have inspired them to give us."[67]
+
+When I came up to London after leaving Oxford, "the world was all before
+me where to choose," and I made a pretty wide survey before deciding on
+my habitual place of worship. St. Paul's Cathedral had lately awoke from
+its long sleep, and, under the wise guidance of Church, Gregory, and
+Liddon, was beginning to show the perfection of worship on the strict
+line of the English Prayer-Book.
+
+Being by temperament profoundly Gothic, I hold (with Sir William
+Richmond) that Westminster Abbey is the most beautiful church in the
+world. But it had nothing to offer in the way of seemly worship; and,
+while Liddon was preaching the Gospel at St. Paul's, Dean Stanley at
+Westminster was delivering the fine rhetoric and dubious history which
+were his substitutes for theology, and with reference to which a Jewish
+lady said to me, "I have heard the Dean preach for eighteen years, and I
+have never heard a word from him which I could not accept." At the
+Temple, Dr. Vaughan was at the height of his vogue, and Sunday after
+Sunday was teaching the lawyers the effective grace of a nervous and
+finished style.
+
+All Saints, Margaret Street, St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, and St.
+Barnabas, Pimlico, showed a type of worship refined, artistic, and
+rather prim. St. Alban's, Holborn, "the Mother and Mistress" of all
+ritualistic churches, combined Roman ceremonial with the passionately
+Evangelical teaching of the greatest extempore preacher I have ever
+heard, Arthur Stanton. St. Michael's, Shoreditch, and St. Peter's,
+London Docks, were outposts of the ritualistic army. The Low Church
+congregated at Portman Chapel, and Belgrave Chapel, and Eaton Chapel
+(all since demolished), at St. Michael's, Chester Square, and St.
+John's, Paddington. Broad Churchmen, as a rule, were hidden in holes and
+corners; for the bizarre magnificence of Holy Trinity, Sloane Street,
+had not yet superseded the humble structure in which Henry Blunt had
+formerly preached into the Duchess of Beaufort's[68] ear-trumpet; and
+St. Margaret's, Westminster, had only just begun to reverberate the
+rolling eloquence of Dr. Farrar. At St. Peter's, Eaton Square, amid
+surroundings truly hideous, George Wilkinson, afterward Bishop of St.
+Andrews, dominated, sheerly by spiritual force, a congregation which,
+having regard to the numbers, wealth, and importance of the men who
+composed it, was the most remarkable that I have ever seen. Cabinet
+Ministers, great noblemen, landed proprietors, Members of Parliament,
+soldiers, lawyers, doctors, and "men about town," were the clay which
+this master-potter moulded at his will.
+
+Then, as now, Society loved to be scolded, and the more Mr. Wilkinson
+thundered, the more it crowded to his feet. "Pay your bills." "Get up
+when you are called." "Don't stay at a ball till two, and then say you
+are too delicate for early services." "Eat one dinner a day instead of
+three, and try to earn that one." "Give up champagne for the season, and
+what you save on your wine-merchant's bill send to the Mission-Field."
+"You are sixty-five years old, and have never been confirmed. Never too
+late to mend. Join a Confirmation Class at once, and try to remedy, by
+good example now, the harm you have done your servants or your
+neighbours by fifty years' indifference." "Sell that diamond cross which
+you carry with you into the sin-polluted atmosphere of the Opera, give
+the proceeds to feed the poor, and wear the only real cross--the cross
+of self-discipline and self-denial." These are echoes, faint, indeed,
+but not, I think, unfaithful, of St. Peter's pulpit in its days of
+glory.
+
+When I look back upon the Church in London as it was when I first knew
+it, and when I compare my recollections with what I see now, I note, of
+course, a good many changes, and not all of them improvements. The
+Evangelicals, with their plain teaching about sin and forgiveness, are
+gone, and their place is taken by the professors of a flabby
+latitudinarianism, which ignores sin--the central fact of human
+life--and therefore can find no place for the Atonement. Heresy is
+preached more unblushingly than it was thirty years ago; and when it
+tries to disguise itself in the frippery of aesthetic Anglicanism, it
+leads captive not a few. In the churches commonly called Ritualistic, I
+note one great and significant improvement. English Churchmen have
+gradually discovered that they have an indigenous ritual of their
+own--dignified, expressive, artistic, free from fuss and fidgets--and
+that they have no need to import strange rites from France or Belgium.
+The evolution of the English Rite is one of the wholesome signs of the
+times. About preaching, I am not so clear. The almost complete disuse of
+the written sermon is in many ways a loss. The discipline of the paper
+protects the flock alike against shambling inanities, and against a too
+boisterous rhetoric. No doubt a really fine extempore sermon is a great
+work of art; but for nine preachers out of ten the manuscript is the
+safer way.
+
+As regards the quality of the clergy, the change is all to the good.
+When I was a boy at Harrow, Dr. Vaughan, preaching to us on our
+Founder's Day, spoke with just contempt of "men who choose the Ministry
+because there is a Family Living waiting for them; or because they think
+they can make that profession--that, and none other--compatible with
+indolence and self-indulgence; or because they imagine that a scantier
+talent and a more idle use of it can in that one calling be made to
+suffice." "These notions," he added, "are out of date, one Act of
+Disestablishment would annihilate them." That Act of Disestablishment
+has not come yet, but the change has come without waiting for it. Even
+the "Family Living" no longer attracts. Young men seek Holy Orders
+because they want work. Clerical dreams of laziness or avarice,
+self-seeking or self-indulgence, have gone out for ever; and the English
+Church has in her commissioned service a band of men whose devotion and
+self-sacrifice would be a glory to any Church in Christendom.
+
+An active politician, as I was thirty years ago, has not much leisure;
+but all through my parliamentary work I sought to bear in mind that Life
+is Service. I helped to found the White Cross League, and worked hard
+for the cause which it represents. I bore a hand in Missions and
+Bible-classes. I was a member of a Diocesan Conference. I had ten years
+of happy visiting in Hospitals, receiving infinitely more than I could
+ever give. And I should think that no man of my age has spoken on so
+many platforms, or at so many Drawing Room meetings. But all this was
+desultory business, and I always desired a more definite obligation.
+
+On St. Luke's Day, 1895, my loved and honoured friend, Edward Talbot,
+formerly Warden of Keble, was consecrated 100th Bishop of Rochester; and
+the diocese at that time included all South London. As soon as he
+established himself there, the new Bishop, so I have already stated,
+asked me to come across the Thames, and do some definite work in South
+London. At first, that work consisted of service on a Public Morals
+Committee, and of lecturing on ecclesiastical topics; but gradually the
+field contracted in one direction and expanded in another.
+
+It was in 1891 that Dr. Temple, then Bishop of London, and afterwards
+Archbishop of Canterbury, being anxious to lighten the burden of
+preaching which lies so heavily on hardworked clergy, determined to
+license lay-readers to speak in consecrated buildings. It was a bold
+step, and of doubtful legality; but the Bishop characteristically
+declared that he would chance the illegality, feeling sure that, when
+the Vicar and Churchwardens invited a lay-reader to speak, no one would
+be churlish enough to raise legal objections. The result proved that the
+Bishop was perfectly right, and the Diocese of London has now a band of
+licensed lay-preachers who render the clergy a great deal of valuable
+aid. I was from the first a good deal attracted by the prospect of
+joining this band, but Parliament and Office left me no available
+leisure. When Dr. Talbot became Bishop of Rochester, he at once took in
+hand the work of reorganizing the body of Lay-Readers in his Diocese;
+and before long had determined to follow the example set by Bishop
+Temple, and to license some of his readers to speak at extra services in
+consecrated buildings. He made it quite clear from the first--and the
+point has subsequently been established by Convocation--that there was
+no idea of reviving the Minor Orders. The lay-reader was to be, in every
+sense, a layman; and, while he might speak, under proper restrictions,
+in a consecrated building, he still would speak not "as one having
+authority," but simply as brother-man to brother-men.
+
+I was admitted to the office of a Diocesan Lay-Reader, in the Private
+Chapel of the Bishop's House at Kennington, on the 15th of January,
+1898, and have been permitted to spend fifteen years of happy service in
+this informal ministry.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[62] Cf. Froude's "Short Studies in Great Subjects."
+
+[63] It may perhaps be worth noting that my parents were married, in
+1834, by a Special License issued by my grandfather as Abbot of Woburn.
+
+[64] _Letters on the Church and Religion._ Vol. I., p. 385.
+
+[65] Pottesgrove.
+
+[66] J. H. Shorthouse--Introduction to George Herbert's _Temple_.
+
+[67] _Influences of the Holy Spirit._ University Sermons, Series II.
+
+[68] Charlotte Sophia, Duchess of Beaufort, a leader of the Evangelical
+party, died 1854--aged eighty-four.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography, by
+George William Erskine Russell
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