XVI.
Interview with Mr. Lambkin.
A representative ofThe J. C. R.had, but a short while before his death, the privilege of an interview with Mr. Lambkin on those numerous questions of the day which the enterprise of the Press puts before its readers. The meeting has a most pathetic interest! Here was the old man full and portly, much alive to current questions, and to the last a true representative of his class. Within a week the fatal Gaudy had passed and he was no more! Though the words here given are reported by another, they bear the full, fresh impress of his personality and I treasure them as the last authentic expression of that great mind.
“Ringing the bell” (writes our representative) “at a neat villa in the Banbury Road, the door was answered by a trim serving-maidin a chintz gown and with a white cap on her head. The whole aspect of Mr. Lambkin’s household without and within breathes repose and decent merriment. I was ushered into a well-ordered study, and noticed upon the walls a few handsome prints, chosen in perfect taste and solidly mounted in fine frames, ‘The meeting of Wellington and Blucher at Waterloo,’ ‘John Knox preaching before Mary Queen of Scots,’ ‘The trial of Lord William Russell,’ and two charming pictures of a child and a dog: ‘Can ’oo talk?’ and ‘Me too!’ completed the little gallery. I noticed also a fine photograph of the Marquis of Llanidloes, whose legal attainments and philological studies had formed a close bond between him and Mr. Lambkin. A faded daguerreotype of Mr. Lambkin’s mother and a pencil sketch of his father’s country seat possessed a pathetic interest.
“Mr. Lambkin came cheerily into the room, and I plunged at once ‘in medias res.’
“‘Pray Mr. Lambkin what do you think of the present position of parties?’”
“‘Why, if you ask me,’ he replied, with an intelligent look, ‘I think the great party system needs an opposition to maintain it in order, and I regret the absence of any man of weight or talent—I had almost said of common decency—on the Liberal side. The late Lord Llanidloes—who was the old type of Liberal—such a noble heart!—said to me in this very room, ‘Mark my words, Lambkin’ (said he) ‘the Opposition is doomed.’ This was in Mr. Gladstone’s 1885 Parliament; it has always seemed to me a wonderful prophecy. But Llanidloes was a wonderful man, and the place of second Under-Secretary for Agriculture was all too little a reward for such services as his to the State. ‘Do you know those lines,’ here Mr. Lambkin grew visibly affected, ‘Then all were for the party and none were for the State, the rich man paid the poor man, and the weak man loved the great’? ‘I fear those times will never come again.’
“A profound silence followed. ‘However,’ continued he with quiet emphasis, ‘Home Rule is dead, and there is no immediate danger of any tampering withthe judicial system of Great Britain after the fashion that obtains in France.’
“‘Yes,’ he continued, with the smile that makes him so familiar, ‘these are my books: trifles,—but my own. Here’ (taking down a volume), ‘isWhat would Cromwell have done?—a proposal for reforming Oxford. Then here, in a binding with purple flowers, is myTime and Purpose,—a devotional book which has sold largely. The rest of the shelf is what I call my ‘casual’ work. It was mainly done for that great modern publisher,—Matthew Straight, who knows so well how to combine the old Spirit with Modern exigencies. You know his beautiful sign of the Boiling Pot in Plummer’s Court? It was painted for him by one of his young artists. You have doubtless seen his name in the lists of guests at country houses; I often meet him when I go to visit my friends, and we plan a book together.
“‘Thus myBoys of Great Britain—an historical work, was conceived over the excellent port of Baron Gusmann at Westburton Abbey. Then there is the expansion of this book,English Boyhood, in threevolumes, of which only two have appeared—Anglo-Saxon BoyhoodandMediæval Boyhood in England. It is very laborious.
“‘No,’ he resumed, with nervous rapidity, ‘I have not confined myself to these. There is “What is Will?” “Mehitopel the Jewess of Prague” (a social novel); “The Upper House of Convocation before History;” “Elements of the Leibnitzian Monodology for Schools” (which is the third volume in the High School Series); “Physiology of the Elephant” and its little abbreviated form for the use of children, “How Jumbo is made Inside,” dedicated, by the way, to that dear little fairy, Lady Constantia de la Pole: such a charming child, and destined, I am sure, to be a good and beautiful woman. She is three years old, and shooting up like a graceful young lily.’
“‘I fear I am detaining you,’ I said, as the good man, whose eyes had filled with tears during the last remark (he is a great lover of children) pulled out a gold watch and consulted its tell-tale dial. ‘Not at all!,’ he replied with finished courtesy, ‘but I always make a point of going in to HighTea and seeing my wife and family well under weigh before I go off to Hall. Surely that must be the gong, and there (as the pleasant sound of children’s high voices filled the house) come what I call my young barbarians.’
“He accompanied me to the door with true old-world politeness and shook me beautifully by the hand. ‘Good-bye,’ he said, ‘Good-bye and God-speed. You may make what use you like of this, that I believe the task of the journalist to be among the noblest in our broad land. The Press has a great mission, a great mission.’
“With these words still ringing in my ears I gathered up my skirts to cross the muddy roadway and stepped into the tram.”
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