Cannes Dec. 18, 1884
If sleeplessness comes on again do represent the merits of Cannes in their proper light. January is often the finest month, and this is the finest season ever known. Also it is the emptiest. I hear that Thorenc is not to let, in the hope that the Wolvertons may take it. Such rest and change as he would get here, after so much hard work, might be quite invaluable, especially if it is in his thoughts that the Session of 1885 is to be his last in office. That would beworth refreshing for; and we shall do our best to occupy and distract him, and all of you, during your stay.
Croker[246] was so large and promising a morsel that I postponed temptation and read no part of him carefully; besides it is a question hot with hidden fire. Have you not discovered, have I never betrayed, what a narrow doctrinaire I am, under a thin disguise of levity? The Duke of Orleans nearly described my feelings when he spoke, testamentarily, of his religiousflagand his politicalfaith. Politics come nearer religion with me, a party is more like a church, error more like heresy, prejudice more like sin, than I find it to be with better men. And by these canons I am forced to think ill of Peel, to think, if you won't misunderstand me, that he was not a man of principle. The nature of Toryism is to be entangled in interests, traditions, necessities, difficulties, expedients, to manage as best one may, without creating artificial obstacles in the shape of dogma, or superfluous barriers of general principle. "Périssent les colonies plutôt que les principes" (which is a made-up sentence, no more authentic than "Roma locuta est"), expresses the sort of thing Liberalism means and Toryism rejects. Government must be carried on, even if we must tolerate some measure of wrong, use some bad reasons, trample on some unlucky men. Other people could recognise the face and the sanctity of morality where it penetrated politics, taking the shape of sweeping principle, as in Emancipation, Free Trade, and so many other doctrinaire questions. Peel could not until he was compelled by facts. Because he was reluctant to admit the sovereignty of considerations whichwere not maxims of state policy, which condemned his own past and the party to which he belonged.
But if party is sacred to me as a body of doctrine, it is not, as an association of men bound together, not by common convictions but by mutual obligations and engagements. In the life of every great man there is a point where fidelity to ideas, which are the justifying cause of party, diverges from fidelity to arrangements and understandings, which are its machinery. And one expects a great man to sacrifice his friends—at least his friendship—to the higher cause.
Progress depends not only on the victory, the uncertain and intermittent victory, of Liberals over Conservatives, but on the permeation of Conservatism with Liberal ideas, the successive conversion of Tory leaders, the gradual desertion of the Conservative masses by their chiefs—Fox, Grenville, Wellesley, Canning, Huskisson, Peel—Tory ministers passing Emancipation, Free Trade, Reform—are in the order of historic developments. Still the complaints of Croker are natural. He had been urged along a certain line, and being a coarse, blatant fellow, he overdid it, and wrote things from which there was no release. It was not in his brutal nature to appreciate the other side of questions. He did not begin by seeing the strong points of his enemy's case, and so far he was dishonest.
My impression is that Peel was justified towards his party in 1846 by what occurred in 1845. He explained his views; some of his friends declared against them; and he resigned. After the exchange of Stanley for Mr. Gladstone, it was a new Ministry, a new departure on distinct lines. Nobody was betrayed. Peel did not carry his friends with himbecause he had not the ascendency which his great lieutenant possesses. The Radicals have been made to look as foolish as Croker. The bread has been taken out of their mouths, as they are not to devour the Lords. They have consolations in the future which the Protectionists have not; but they are in as false a position as the Protectionists were; and yet they stand fire on the whole well, and without secession.—But I am conscious of more nearly hating Croker than anybody, except Lord Clare, in English history. It was my one link with a late, highly-lamented statesman and novelist.[247]
*****
La Madeleine Jan. 14, 1885
Yes! at last, foreign affairs are in a very wretched way, and are unjustly and unreasonably injuring Mr. Gladstone's own position. If Morier is still in England, I wish he could see him before Petersburg. He is our only strong diplomatist; but he is only strong.
I have bored the P.M. to extinction with praise of Liddon, and as all I could say is obvious to others, I am not tempted to repeat the offence. But the death of that uninteresting, good Bishop Jackson[248] disturbs my rest. It is clear, very clear to me, that it would not be right to pass Liddon over now that there are two important vacancies to fill; and one asks oneself why he should not be chosen for the more important of the two, and who is manifestly worthier to occupy the greatest see in Christendom? The real answer, I suppose, is that his appointment will give great offence, and that he isa decided partisan, and a partisan of nearly the same opinions as the P.M. himself.
No doubt there would be much irritation on the thorough Protestant side, and in quarters very near Downing Street, and I feel, myself, more strongly than many people, that partisanship in Liddon runs to partiality, to one-sidedness, to something very like prejudice. And with all that strong feeling, I cannot help being agitated with the hope that the great and providential opportunity will not be lost.
Assuredly Liddon is the greatest power in the conflict with sin, and in turning the souls of men to God, that the nation now possesses. He is also, among all the clergy, the man best known to numbers of Londoners. There must be a very strong reason to justify a Minister in refusing such a bishop to such a diocese.
The argument of continuity does not convince me, because it was disregarded when Philpotts died. Still more, because so eminent a representative of Church principles had not occupied the see of London within living memory, and there is a balance to redress. When I think of his lofty and gracious spirit, his eloquence, his radiant spirituality, all the objections which I might feel, vanish entirely.
The time has really come when the P.M. has authority to do what he likes, and to disregard cavil. He is lifted above all considerations which might weaken action at other times and in other men. No ill consequences of his use of patronage can reach him. He can be guided by the supreme motive, and by the supreme motive only. It may well be that these are the last conspicuous ecclesiastical appointments thatwill be his to make. He is able now to bequeath an illustrious legacy to the people of London.
And, speaking on a lower level, the shock of Liddon's elevation might be blunted by the contemporaneous choice for Lincoln.
One qualification ought to be remembered. He is more in contact than other churchmen with questions of the day. Not only politics and criticism, but science. Paget delights to relate how Owen was discoursing on the brevity of life in the days of the patriarchs, and how beautifully Liddon baffled him by asking whether there is any structural reason for a cockatoo to live ten times as long as a pigeon. If it was my duty, which it is not, or my habit—which it is still less—to speak all my mind, I would say that there is, within my range of observation, some inclination to make too much of distinguished men in the Church. I name no names, but if I did, I might name Pusey, Wilberforce, Mozley, Church, Westcott, as men whom there has been some tendency to overestimate, at least in comparison with Liddon. Not that he is their superior, but that he seems to me to have fallen short of his due as much as they, in various ways, have been overpaid, in praise, confidence, and fame. If there have been reasons explaining this, I think they ought not to operate now.
Who are conceivable candidates? Temple, Westcott, Wilkinson, Butler, Lightfoot? Two of these are more learned and more indefinite theologians; but I can see no other point of rivalry. And I do not learn that Dunelm possesses unusual light in dealing with men. Fraser? Who can say that he has the highest qualities in Liddon's measure? Templeis vigorous and open; but he is not highly spiritual, or attractive, or impressive as a speaker; he has an arid mind, and a provincial note in speech and manner. But he also understands science. The Dean assures me that, Pusey being gone, Liddon will be under no personal influence, that he has more confidence in himself and more backbone than I was able to discover for myself.
*****
La Madeleine Jan. 22, 1885
Of course I know very well that we shall not make our Bishop of London; and ever since I wrote to you I have been seeking points of consolation, and magnifying to myself my own sources of misgiving. Yesterday I chanced to see, at Mentone, the best of the Anglican clergy that I have ever known, a Mr. Sidebotham. He told me of a luncheon at Bishop Hamilton's, where he sat, a young clergyman, between Liddon and Tait. Liddon, after a few words, shut up like an oyster; and Tait took a good deal of pains to please his neighbour and to draw him out. From which experience, my friend, himself a truly Catholic Anglican, thinks that Liddon, whom he deems the greatest preacher living, would not make a good Bishop of London. This testimony, from a personal admirer and theological adherent, was rather welcome to me. When I asked him whether there was any dark horse, any candidate not obvious to outsiders, he said "No"; but seemed to think thatBedford[249] would be the sort of strong-backed prelate you mean. He fully expected Temple's appointment. Thank you so much for speaking of Morier. You know that for all people not private friends of hisown —— is disappointing. He is a bad listener, easily bored, and distrustful of energetic men who make work for themselves and for the Foreign Office. Morier, in particular, has force without tact, and stands ill with a chief who has tact without force. He feels that he is unsupported and not much appreciated. A few friendly words from above would set him up wonderfully.
Although Chamberlain is not the only source of weakness in the Government, he will be the cause of dissolution if your threat is executed at Easter! I really must come over and make myself very disagreeable if that goes on. It is time to play the last card in one's hand, for one year more of office and power, for the sake of the indefinite future. But perhaps the Vyner Cottage[250] may give me the desired opportunity.
For this is a very central part of Europe. I have had Dilke and Ripon; I saw Salisbury yesterday; and Scherer dines here on Saturday.
Cross is coming with his book[251] next week.
*****
Athenæum Club Pall Mall Feb. 26, 1885
I shall be delighted to dine in bad company on Thursday. Goschen will speak against Government to-morrow, but will vote for them. I dined there yesterday with Morier, Milner,[252] and Albert Grey;[253] and the same party dines with Morier this evening as soon as the P.M. sits down. Several Ministers (Hartington, Spencer, and others) have said too much that they wish to be beaten.
A very strong speech to-night would retrieve theposition. If the enemy came in now, England would soon become no better than the Continental powers, and our true greatness and prosperity would depart from us.
Athenæum March 3
I am so glad to know that he is getting better.
If you will burn my letters there will be less difficulty in voting for Government. Certainly a peer cannot vote absolutely only as he approves or disapproves—or I must have voted on the other side. I shall be delighted to call at 12, and also to be your escort.
*****
La Madeleine April 9, 1885
The book[254] reveals a mental flaw I had not suspected. Because Newman, or some of Newman's set, Faber, Ward, Morris, were narrow and fanatical, he concludes that their doctrine is that of narrow-minded fanatics. This is stumbling at the Ass's bridge. Scientific thought begins with the separation between the idea and its exponent, just as much as religious thought; and our peculiar difficulty in keeping them apart is notoriously the great elementary defect of the English—not the Scottish—mind.
Pattison himself suffers from the extreme narrowness of the Oxford horizon in his time. He knows nothing about the other side of the hill; and when he came to know, in later years, his religious spirit was extinct. Newman had unfitted him for Rothe. A strong mind cannot rest without thinking out its thoughts. But Pattison rests without caring to explain which of the several systems which exist outside of the churchessatisfied his conscience. He grew impatient of theology. He does not recognise the great importance of Casaubon in religious history, or of Milton's theological treatise on the progress of his mind. Once, having reviewed Pascal, he said to me that he thought, after all, the Jesuits were in the right. I disagreed, but I remember that I was delighted at the openness of his mind. But now I again find him hooded with prejudice. He rightly discerned that the French Protestants created independent scientific learning, and glorifies Scaliger as the type of them: and then he treats Petavius as an impostor, got up by the Jesuits in defiance of Scaliger. Whereas the Jesuit was one of the most deeply learned men that ever lived, by no means inferior to Grotius or Ussher or Selden.
Every year some zealous Frenchman exposes the iniquities of the Tudors, hoping to discredit the Church of England; and Taine fancies that to show the horrors of the Revolution is a good argument against democracy. Pattison must have stood, as to his inner man, nearly on the same level of logic.
*****
*****
Cannes April 22, 1885
Scherer writes that he is going to publish a new volume, in which his recent essay on the Life of George Eliot will be included. You will read it with interest and surprise at the moral judgment.
He is also the great patron of Amiel, whom I read with delight as having a savour of Vinet—with more serious culture and curiosity, and inferior understanding for religion. There is a plot in Arnold's circle to make him known and popular in England. Nobody thought anything of him in his lifetime, at Geneva.
A careful study of myPall Mallhas left me quite in the dark as to Zulfikar, &c.[255] I thought there was a deliberate intention to force us into war, and I did not imagine that there was any way out of it. To my cheap and pacific mind it seemed a disaster not only without remedy, but without even a remote compensation or consolation, in which victory could do us no good, and in which the mere conflict would degrade us to the brutal level of continental powers.
Nothing has so completely puzzled me for the last two years as the hesitation of Russia to re-open the San Stefano question, while we are not only at Cyprus, but in Egypt, and without any moral vantage ground from which we can resist the overthrow of the European Turk. I would willingly give up the whole country from Bulgaria to the Ægean for a few miles of Afghan desert.
But it would be bad policy to give up both and have to fight for existence in India whenever a capricious bell rings at Petersburgh.
*****
*****
Cannes April 27, 1885
I cannot imagine Russia drawing back in so supremely favourable a position. What is hard to understand is her having gone so far, and deliberately resolved on war. But I see that there is something in all this that has entirely escaped me. It seems so clear that our policy is to restore Russia to the position she had attained before the Congress of Berlin, that, therefore, we are not only her best, but her only friends—that I am quite bewildered, and halfsuspect that there has been some tremendous mistake in our management. I should like to have the chance of distracting Mr. Gladstone with various talk, in all this anxiety. Probably I shall be at Carlton H. Terrace on Friday week. Will you tell me there when we can meet? ... Tennyson's really profound animosity[256] against the P.M. has long been known to people in his confidence, and has come out at last. It was one reason, but not the only one, of my dislike to his peerage.
*****
Maine, whose series of articles form in reality an assault on the Government, promises to adopt all my remonstrances in the reprinting of them. These filled twenty-six of my pages, in all; so I count on a considerable modification of the text.
I hope there will be a possible play ... when we come to town.
—— is very intelligent, agreeable, amiable, a little complex in design; accurate calculation sometimes resides in the corner of her eye, and she knows how to regulate to a hair's breadth, when she smiles, the thin red line of her lips.
Prince's Gate June 20, 1885
No one ever saw Mr. Gladstone in better spirits than he was at dinner yesterday. I hope it was the hitch.[257] It is a bore to be away when the thing is to be decided. May agrees with me, and with that other Radical[258] from Cambridge, that even the ingeniously remodelled assurances ought not to be given; when wehave preserved peace with so much difficulty, no concession not absolutely required should be made to these dangerous successors.[259] But it will need great fortitude, and I do not seriously hope for success against the strong wish of so many colleagues.
*****
*****
April, 1885
I have said that I am divided from G. Eliot by the widest of all political and religious differences, and that political differences essentially depend on disagreement in moral principles. Therefore I cannot be suspected of blindness to her faults. More particularly because I have insisted on another grave delinquency which has struck few persons, her tolerance for Mazzini. That is a criminal matter, independent of the laws of states and churches, which no variety of theological opinion can by any means affect. We must never judge the quality of a teaching by the quality of the Teacher, or allow the spots to shut out the sun. It would be unjust, and it would deprive us of nearly all that is great and good in this world. Let me remind you of Macaulay. He remains to me one of the greatest of all writers and masters, although I think him utterly base, contemptible and odious for certain reasons which you know. And I might say as much of many other men. To be truly impartial, that is, to be truly conscientious and sincere, we must be open equally to the good and evil of character....
Cannes Nov. 11, 1885
I wish I had been with you in Norway or could have seen Hawarden during this most interesting time. Other trouble and travel have made havoc of my correspondence, and when you receive these superfluous lines, the die will have been cast in Midlothian. For I fancy that the enemy's only hope now is that Mr. Gladstone will not be able to address his audience.
Lord Granville has kept me up to the mark as to important matters, and announced the manifesto[260] in very warm terms; but his abrupt style of composition is not favourable to the more delicate shades of party division. One makes out, from afar, that Chamberlain is going off from the X.P.M.[261] while Goschen is elaborately advancing towards him; also that he, in fact, agrees better with Chamberlain, whilst the policy of the moment draws him to Goschen.
Our Joe ought to know how to bide his time. I suppose he thinks that something must be offered to the new voters that they care for. I imagine that the Church question forms a very real cause of division. Mr. Gladstone's authority will be able to keep it down for the time, and no more.
Let us hope for an utterly overwhelming victory, in spite of some perceptible progress on the part of the Tories. Through a friend I have explained to Bismarck that he must be prepared for this, if only the voice holds. Tories here tell me that they have no real hope. Selborne's name being on the Grey manifesto, I conclude that he will not be Chancellor. It will be possible to strengthen the new Government immensely with new men, but I am afraid a certainfriend of ours will claim the Woolsack. The Eastern question makes me very impatient to see Mr. Gladstone in Downing Street again.
If Morier only came to luncheon, you hardly can have seen the change in him. He is a strong man, resolute, ready, well-informed and with some amount of real resource. But ambition long deferred, activity long restrained, a certain coarseness of grain which is coming to the surface, have turned him into a bully, quarrelsome and dangerous. A dexterous Muscovite will always be able to provide an opportunity of putting him in the wrong and getting up an ugly fracas. It is extraordinary what dull men make sufficient diplomatists. Arnold Morley is new to me; I gather from what you say that Russell[262] is sure of his seat. I was disturbed to find the Duke so hard on him, and so little support on the more amiable side of the family.
I quite agree with Chamberlain, that there is latent Socialism in the Gladstonian philosophy. What makes me uncomfortable is his inattention to the change which is going on in those things. I do not mean in European opinion, but in the strict domain of science. A certain conversation that you remember, when Stuart, fresh from the horny hands of Democracy,[263] produced his heresies, was very memorable to me. But it is not the popular movement, but the travelling of the minds of men who sit in the seat of Adam Smith that is really serious and worthy of all attention. Maine tells me that his book, a Manual of unacknowledged Conservatism, is selling well. It is no doubt meant to help theenemy's cause, and more hostile to us than the author cares to appear. For he requested me not to review it. You know that the new Hatzfeldt is the son of the lady who protected Lassalle, and that it is desirable to speak of his wife as little as of his mother. He is a Berlin bureaucrat,pur sang. I have something to write against time, which keeps me at work during the night until the end of November. Don't mind it, but please tell me what happens, and whether I may come and see you re-installed.
Fancy my disappointment: Paget[264] passed under our windows, and Liddon—as he told the World—was at Tegernsee, and I missed them both. The Pagets have set up a delightful daughter-in-law, and a near relation of hers, a Balliol man, son, I believe, of the chief Tory wire-puller in Shropshire, has just come out here....
*****
La Madeleine Nov. 28, 1885
It was a serious blow to find in your letter that you had no confidence in the election,[265] but I am glad now to think that you were so much better prepared to lose than I was, in spite of what I had also heard about Bright's despondency. I only hope that it has not been a bad time, otherwise, at Dalmeny, and that Mr. Gladstone has not suffered from so much effort.
At this moment I know only the result of the first three days, and have no Scottish news since Goschen got in. I conclude that we are beaten past recovery, and wonder whether the Dark Horse[266] will make theGovernment independent of their Irish supporters. If not, the rift in the lute will betray itself any time after the first Session.
As I am the only Englishman still so besotted as to feel Salisbury's presence in Downing Street exactly as I should feel Bradlaugh's at Lambeth, I will say nothing about my own sensations to a correspondent necessarily unsympathetic. What strikes me most strongly is the probability of Mr. Gladstone thinking that his release has come, and that he is not bound to embark on a voyage which is very unlikely to lead back to power until he is in his seventy-eighth year. For I suppose that the secret of the situation is that Chamberlain has so far played false, played, I mean, a private game, that he looked far ahead, and did not care to come back to office in the old combination, especially with the prospect of losing Dilke at first. So that, in fact, the Gladstonian influence, which would be unshaken in the country at large, was unable to control his own colleagues, and the old inferiority in the management of men, compared with the management of masses, which Goschen exemplified before, has appeared in the direction of the Radical wing.
As I know his characteristic of caring for measures much more than for the organisation which is to carry them, I conjecture he will say that he is not harnessed for ever to the coach, that he will be grievously tempted to give up leading an active opposition. Of course I should deeply deplore such a decision, but my old arguments, which circumstances did so much to impress, will be weaker now.
Three legitimate causes have told in favour of the Tories. They have not done much to make them odious, and the position abroad is easier, very decidedly,though not very considerably, easier. Then, the case against us in the Soudan is a very strong one. I may say so now that Mr. Gladstone does not really resist it; and you, at any rate, know how strongly I thought so before. That is not a positive recommendation of the Tories, but it does weaken us, and the reproach is not met, in the judgment of impartial men, by saying that the Tories did nothing to restrain or to correct us. Thirdly, the Church argument is logically against us. Mr. Gladstone's attitude gave no security that the Liberals, if they returned strengthened from the poll, would not eventually employ their increased strength to pave the way for disestablishment.
What you say of a flaw in his reckoning is very true indeed. In his literary occupations it appears still more strongly. The grasp is often more remarkable than the horizon. I do not think that it has been much of a drawback in politics, and the minds it would estrange are very few.
You would have written a capital review of Greville.[267] It is very odd that a man should be so shrewd, and so full of experience, and yet so destitute of positive ideas. I see that I thought too much of him, having known him before I knew the difference between common sense and capacity. My friend Maine certainly did not fear that I should spoil his effects, for I should never have found a point of contact with the views of the general reader. I don't think he likes to admit that one can have gone over the same ground, and have come impartially to opposite conclusions. His book is a symptom of the change which is so remarkable in theTimes.
Cannes Jan. 1, 1886
It would have been a very great pleasure to be at Hawarden during these festive days; and only very strong local ties oblige me to say that it is impossible. There has never been a time when I was more anxious to learn what is really going on, and to see things from the centre, and it is therefore a disappointment to be away. But there is nothing that I could say or do that would contribute an element to the momentous decisions to be formed. That Mr. Gladstone will, in this great and perhaps final crisis, put himself into the position of Irishmen and view things not only from the point of their present wishes, but with their historic eyes, and that he will hold that the ends of liberty are the true ends of politics, that is the one thing certain and known to all men, and it is the whole of the political baggage with which I set out on the Irish expedition.
I know neither how to resist the claim of the Irish nation to govern themselves nor even their claim to possess the land, and nobody really familiar with the events of this century can say that the one is beyond the resources of political, or the other, of economic science. They are problems which have been solved repeatedly within the experience of two generations. Many experiments have been made, and it is not difficult to determine which solutions have failed, which have succeeded, and to tell the reason why.
I have thought so for twenty years, and now that the question has become perforce a practical one, nobody can be more heartily than I am on the side which I understand to be Mr. Gladstone's, or, to speak definitely, on the Irish side. The claim of duty exactly coincides with the claim of necessity, andthat is all about it that one can say from a distance, without having seen what is on paper, or felt pulses all round.
Duty and necessity settle the question, but not as to policy in detail, which I have no right to talk about without hearing more what is said by people on the spot. Only let me say that I would not be influenced by hope of a very brilliant success, even if it is possible to do what would satisfy the better part of the Irish party. The people are so demoralised, both laity and clergy, that we must be prepared to see the best scheme fail. No Irish failure is so bad as the breakdown of parliamentary government, so that even from a sordid point of view that is not insuperable. But I would arm myself against disappointment. There is another point of view from which I see much to apprehend and prepare for. The elections send back Mr. Gladstone to Westminster, and even to Downing Street, with some loss of influence. I see it not only in the reduced majority, but still more in the increase of Conservative minorities at the poll, the infidelity of most important colleagues, and the reluctance with which he will be followed by members under pressure from their constituencies.
We saw the centrifugal forces at work last Session in the Ministry itself. Mr. Gladstone only retained office after the Egyptian vote by the neutrality of Rosebery, and in the question of concession to Parnell he had to yield to the Lords in the Cabinet.
How can they stand by him now, to support measures much more formidable, probably, than that which they rejected last spring? And could not Salisbury dexterously put the question in such a waythat their vote then given should disable them altogether?
One sees the danger that Mr. Gladstone would be almost isolated among his friends, even if there is a majority in the House, and I can imagine no way of getting any considerable scheme through the Lords. I wish you would tell me that all this has been provided for, and that very careful negotiations have been carried on. Taking the question grossly, in outline, I can only say that I hope fervently that he will have strength to accomplish the only scheme of policy I can think worthy of his fame.
It seems obvious that, in the mass of letters that afflict your postman, there have been plenty of communications from good men of all sorts in Ireland. I speak of that from a slight, a remote, fear that the study of details, of conflicting and undigested suggestions, may have become distasteful to him. Writing to Lord Granville the other day in answer to a question, I proposed that his former private secretary, Wetherell, should make a tour in Ireland, as he has a very large acquaintance among people who do not clamour in the street. He would bring valuable information to bear. But I hope that there is no lack of information or of advisers.
One has to think of people in the background just because they are the minority. That may justify me in sending you the enclosed letter from a man who had, I think, a good deal of Spencer's confidence and good-will. I would not send it if I thought it could discourage, but Mr. Gladstone has faced heavier artillery every day since Christmas. Happy New Year never meant so much as to-day!...
P.S.—A frightened and discontented voice says, by this day's post, "If there is a vote of censure we must join in it and take the consequences of a majority, for we have no other mandate from our constituents but to bring back Gladstone, and if we abstained from voting we should lose our seats."
FOOTNOTES
[1] Jules Ferry, seep. 7.
[2] Duc de Broglie, statesman and historian (1821-1901).
[3] Dr. Döllinger.
[4] Sir Louis.
[5] Minghetti and Bonghi.
[6] On Mr. Gladstone.
[7] Mr. Gladstone was an unsuccessful candidate for South-West Lancashire in 1868. He was at the same time elected for Greenwich.
[8] The Reverend Mark Pattison, then Rector of Lincoln.
[9] The book on which Lord Acton was then at work, and for which he amassed vast hoards of material.
[10] "The Expansion of England."
[11] For the expulsion of the Jesuits and other unauthorised congregations from French schools.
[12] "History of Liberty."
[13] Thorold Rogers, sometime M.P. for Southwark, and Professor of Political Economy at Oxford.
[14] Herbert Gladstone.
[15] He stood for Middlesex.
[16] The late Duke of Devonshire, who lived till 1891.
[17] In 1866, Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Lowe took opposite sides on the question of Parliamentary Reform.
[18] Mr. Lowe, on hearing one of Mr. Herbert Gladstone's speeches during the Middlesex election, declared that in the pure gift of eloquence, there was nothing to choose between him and his father.
[19] In Middlesex.
[20]i.e., by Lord Granville.
[21] See p.49, note54.
[22] The Zulu.
[23] Lord Granville.
[24] An allusion to expeditions at Tegernsee.
[25] Evening parties in Downing Street.
[26] Sir John Strachey had seriously under-estimated the cost of the Afghan War.
[27] Mr. O'Donnell, an Irish member, moved the adjournment of the House for the purpose of attacking the new French Ambassador, M. Challemel Lacour. Mr. Gladstone moved that he be not heard, and the debate on this motion occupied the whole sitting.
[28] Then Postmaster-General.
[29] House of Lords, not "History of Liberty."
[30] That any member claiming the right to affirm instead of taking an oath should be allowed to do so, subject to any liability imposed on him by statute. Under this motion Mr. Bradlaugh took his seat provisionally for Northampton.
[31] Littleberries, rented by Lord Aberdeen.
[32] Trench.
[33] Herbert Spencer.
[34] M. Tachard.
[35] Mr. Gladstone had just then a short, but serious illness.
[36] On the Compensation for Disturbance Bill, intended to protect the Irish tenants from eviction during the winter.
[37] The majority against the Bill was 230, of whom 51 were Liberals.
[38] Granville.
[39] Lowell.
[40] Non equidem invideo; miror magis.
[41] See p.28, note36.
[42] Lord Arthur Russell.
[43] The reference is to the Ground Game Bill, which enabled tenants to shoot hares and rabbits on their farms; and to the Burials Bill, which permitted the interment of Dissenters in parish churchyards with their own religious rites.
[44] Mr. Gladstone's voyage in theGrantully Castle.
[45] "History of Our Own Times."
[46] Shakespeare's Sonnets, pocket edition.
[47] Now Lady Battersea.
[48] Richard Simpson (1820-1876), author of an "Introduction to the Philosophy of Shakespeare's Sonnets" (1868) and "The School of Shakespeare" (1872).
[49] A letter from Mr. Gladstone on the choice of a profession.
[50] Mr. Ruskin.
[51] George Eliot lived in St. John's Wood.
[52] Agrarian Laws and Ecclesiastical Establishments.
[53] He stood by Ireland to the end, and his last letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe reaffirms the principles of his youth.
[54] "And to party gave up what was meant for mankind."
[55] The editor of theQuarterly Review.
[56] Lord Beaconsfield's "Endymion," in which Nigel Penruddocke is one of the characters.
[57] Lord Macaulay.
[58] George Otto Trevelyan.
[59] "Life of Panizzi."
[60] "Julian the Apostate." By the Rev. the Hon. Arthur Lyttelton, afterwards Bishop of Southampton.
[61] Charles Stewart Parker, then M.P. for Perth.
[62] "English Land and English Landlords." By the Honble. George Brodrick, late Warden of Merton.
[63] An allusion to Mr. Gladstone's speech on the Reform Bill of 1866.
[64] George Eliot's death.
[65] "Democracy," a political novel, published anonymously, which made much noise at the time.
[66] Arthur Lyttelton's. See his "Modern Poets of Faith, Doubt and Paganism, and other Essays" (Murray).
[67] This refers to the inscription Lord Acton inserted in Ruskin's "Arrows of the Chace"—"From a False Believer."
[68] Speech on introducing the Peace Preservation Bill.
[69] Dublin Castle.
[70] George Eliot's husband.
[71] On the introduction of the new rules of Procedure after the expulsion of the Irish Members.
[72] The late Lord Stanley of Alderley.
[73] The Editor of theEdinburgh Review.
[74] Trevelyan.
[75] In "Endymion."
[76] The obstruction of the Peace Preservation Bill, which ended in the autocratic intervention of the Speaker, and the removal of the Irish Members from the House.
[77] Sir Arthur Godley, at that time private secretary to Mr. Gladstone.
[78] Sir Erskine May.
[79] The Jacobite description of the mole whose burrowings caused the death of William the Third by making his horse stumble.
[80] The Comte de Serre was a Minister under Louis XVIII., and a leader of the Moderate Royalists after the Restoration.
[81] Sir John Lubbock's.
[82] For closing debate.
[83] At this period shadowing Mr. Gladstone's movements.
[84] Sir John Lubbock, in conversation with Miss Gladstone, complained of the lack of a guide or supreme authority in the choice of books. She suggested Lord Acton, and mentioned this talk in writing to him.
[85] Harold Browne.
[86] Lightfoot.
[87] Sir James Paget, the great surgeon.
[88] By Robert Wallace, afterwards M.P. for East Edinburgh. The definition, "trust in the people, tempered by prudence," was laid down by Mr. Gladstone himself in a speech at Oxford in 1877.
[89] Of Liberty.
[90] On the Peace Preservation Bill.
[91] Mr. Brand, afterwards Lord Hampden.
[92] Carlyle's.
[93] See page40.
[94] John K. Ingram, Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, and author of the article on Political Economy in theEncyclopædia Britannica.
[95] Mr. Gladstone fell on the ice as he entered the gardens of Downing Street, and cut open the back of his head.
[96] Sir Bartle Frere, then Governor of Cape Colony.
[97] Miss Dempster.
[98] "Sermons in a College Chapel," by J. R. Illingworth.
[99] George Sand.
[100] Gladstone, Tennyson, and Paget.
[101] Leo XIII.
[102] Dublin Castle.
[103] Minghetti and Bonghi.
[104] Dr. Döllinger.
[105]i.e., of Mr. Gladstone.
[106] Lord Acton said elsewhere of Lee—"The greatest general the world has ever seen, with the possible exception of Napoleon."
[107] Mr. Gladstone's.
[108] At Cannes.
[109] Scartazzini's.
[110] Illingworth's "In a College Chapel."
[111] Of George Eliot.
[112] George Sand.
[113] Meaning the Irish Land Bill. The reference is to the agrarian laws of Tib. and C. Sempronius Gracchus.
[114] On Carlyle.
[115] Midhat Pacha was the head of the reforming party in Turkey at that time.
[116] Leo XIII.
[117] November 15, 1848. After the murder of Count Rossi, his Liberal Minister of the Interior, Pius IX. left Rome, and fled to Gaeta, from which he only returned under the protection of French bayonets.
[118] The introduction of the Irish Land Bill.
[119] The late Duke of Argyll's resignation.
[120] Lord Carlingford succeeded him.
[121] Mr. Gladstone's eleventh.
[122] To the Academy.
[123] See p.48.
[124] The first Lord Cairns.
[125] "It is true, Holy Father, I have failed.
[126] Lord Beaconsfield.
[127] The Sultan's.
[128] See Diary in Ruskin's "Letters to M. and H. G." (privately printed).
[129] For burial in the Abbey.
[130] Lord Lansdowne's and Lord Listowel's.
[131] Judah Philip Benjamin, Q.C., author of "Benjamin on Sales." He left America after the defeat of the South, and attained great distinction at the English Bar.
[132] Mr. Gladstone did not arrive in time after the Easter recess to give notice of his own motion for a public memorial to Lord Beaconsfield, who died on the 19th of April 1881. The notice was given on Mr. Gladstone's behalf by Lord Richard Grosvenor, now Lord Stalbridge.
[133] Convicted at the Old Bailey for incitement to the murder of the German Emperor.
[134] Mr. Gladstone's.
[135] Of the Irish Land Bill.
[136] Mr. Gladstone predicted that, if the Conservatives defeated the Bill and came into office, they would themselves introduce not a smaller, but a larger measure.
[137] Sir John Skelton, K.C.B., author of "Thalassa," Scottish disciple of Disraeli, a brilliant and scholarly writer.
[138] Canon Maccoll.
[139] The death of a little daughter.