The political event that caused the greatest sensation when I was a girl was the murder of Mr. Burke and Lord Frederick Cavendish on May 6, 1882. We were in London at the time; and the news came through on a Sunday. Alfred Lyttelton told me that Lady Frederick Cavendish's butler had broken it to her by rushing into the room saying:
"They have knifed his lordship!"
The news spread from West to East and North to South; groups of people stood talking in the middle of the streets without their hats and every one felt that this terrible outrage was bound to have consequences far beyond the punishment of the criminals.
These murders in the Phoenix Park tended to confirm Gladstone in his belief that the Irish were people whom we did not understand and that they had better be encouraged to govern themselves. He hoped to convert his colleagues to a like conviction, but Mr. Chamberlain and he disagreed.
Just as I ask myself what would have been the outcome of the Paris Conference if the British had made the League of Nations a genuine first plank in their programme instead of a last postscript, so I wonder what would have happened if Chamberlain had stuck to Gladstone at that time. Gladstone had all the playing cards—as President Wilson had—and was not likely to under-declare his hand, but he was a much older man and I cannot but think that if they had remained together Chamberlain would not have been thrown into the arms of the Tories and the reversion of the Premiership must have gone to him. It seems strange to me that the leaders of the great Conservative party have so often been hired bravos or wandering minstrels with whom it can share no common conviction. I never cease wondering why it cannot produce a man of its own faith. There must be something inherent in its creed that produces sterility.
When Mr. Gladstone went in for Home Rule, society was rent from top to bottom and even the most devoted friends quarrelled over it. Our family was as much divided as any other.
One day, when Lord Spencer was staying at Glen, I was sent out of the room at dinner for saying that Gladstone had made a Balaclava blunder with his stupid Home Rule; we had all got so heated over the discussion that I was glad enough to obey my papa. A few minutes later he came out full of penitence to see if he had hurt my feelings; he found me sitting on the billiard-table smoking one of his best cigars. I gave him a good hug, and told him I would join him when I had finished smoking; he said he was only too glad that his cigars were appreciated and returned to the dining-room in high spirits.
Events have proved that I was quite wrong about Home Rule. Now that we have discovered what the consequences are of withholding from Ireland the self-government which for generations she has asked for, can we doubt that Gladstone should have been vigorously backed in his attempt to still the controversy? As it is, our follies in Ireland have cursed the political life of this country for years. Some one has said, "L'Irlande est une maladie incurable mais jamais mortelle"; and, if she can survive the present regime, no one will doubt the truth of the saying.
In May, June and July, 1914, within three months of the war, every donkey in London was cutting, or trying to cut us, for wishing to settle this very same Irish question. My presence at a hall with Elizabeth—who was seventeen—was considered not only provocative to others but a danger to myself. All the brains of all the landlords in Ireland, backed by half the brains of half the landlords in England, had ranged themselves behind Sir Edward Carson, his army and his Covenant. Earnest Irish patriots had turned their fields into camps and their houses into hospitals; aristocratic females had been making bandages for months, when von Kuhlmann, Secretary of the German Embassy in London, went over to pay his first visit to Ireland. On his return he told me with conviction that, from all he had heard and seen out there during a long tour, nothing but a miracle could avert civil war, to which I replied:
"Shocking as that would be, it would not break England."
Our follies in Ireland have cursed not only the political but the social life of this country.
It was not until the political ostracisms over Home Rule began all over again in 1914 that I realised how powerful socially my friends and I were in the 'eighties.
Mr. Balfour once told me that, before our particular group of friends—generally known as the Souls—appeared in London, prominent politicians of opposite parties seldom if ever met one another; and he added:
"No history of our time will be complete unless the influence of the Souls upon society is dispassionately and accurately recorded."
The same question of Home Rule that threw London back to the old parochialisms in 1914 was at its height in 1886 and 1887; but at our house in Grosvenor Square and later in those of the Souls, everyone met—Randolph Churchill, Gladstone, Asquith, Morley, Chamberlain, Balfour, Rosebery, Salisbury, Hartington, Harcourt and, I might add, jockeys, actors, the Prince of Wales and every ambassador in London. We never cut anybody—not even our friends —or thought it amusing or distinguished to make people feel uncomfortable; and our decision not to sacrifice private friendship to public politics was envied in every capital in Europe. It made London the centre of the most interesting society in the world and gave men of different tempers and opposite beliefs an opportunity of discussing them without heat and without reporters. There is no individual or group among us powerful enough to succeed in having a salon of this kind to-day.
The daring of that change in society cannot be over-estimated. The unconscious and accidental grouping of brilliant, sincere and loyal friends like ourselves gave rise to so much jealousy and discussion that I shall devote a chapter of this book to the Souls.
It was at No. 40 Grosvenor Square that Gladstone met Lord Randolph Churchill. The latter had made himself famous by attacking and abusing the Grand Old Man with such virulence that every one thought it impossible that they could ever meet in intimacy again. I was not awed by this, but asked them to a luncheon party; and they both accepted. I need hardly say that when they met they talked with fluency and interest, for it was as impossible for Gladstone to be gauche or rude as it was for any one to be ill at ease with Randolph Churchill. The news of their lunching with us spread all over London; and the West-end buzzed round me with questions: all the political ladies, including the Duchess of Manchester, were torn with curiosity to know whether Randolph was going to join the Liberal Party. I refused to gratify their curiosity, but managed to convey a general impression that at any moment our ranks, having lost Mr. Chamberlain, were going to be reinforced by Lord Randolph Churchill.
The Duchess of Manchester (who became the late Duchess of Devonshire) was the last great political lady in London society as I have known it. The secret of her power lay not only in her position—many people are rich and grand, gay and clever and live in big houses—but in her elasticity, her careful criticisms, her sense of justice and discretion. She not only kept her own but other people's secrets; and she added to a considerable effrontery and intrepid courage, real kindness of heart. I have heard her reprove and mildly ridicule all her guests, both at Compton Place and at Chatsworth, from the Prince of Wales to the Prime Minister. I asked her once what she thought of a certain famous lady, whose arrogance and vulgarity had annoyed us all, to which she answered:
"I dislike her too much to be a good judge of her."
One evening, many years after the time of which I am writing, she was dining with us, and we were talking tete-a-tete.
"Margot," she said, "you and I are very much alike."
It was impossible to imagine two more different beings than myself and the Duchess of Devonshire—morally, physically or intellectually—so I asked her what possible reason she had for thinking so, to which she answered:
"We have both married angels; when Hartington dies he will go straight to Heaven"—pointing her first finger high above her head—"and when Mr. Asquith dies he will go straight there, too; not so Lord Salisbury," pointing her finger with a diving movement to the floor.
You met every one at her house, but she told me that before 1886- 1887 political opponents hardly ever saw one another and society was much duller.
One day in 1901 my husband and I were staying at Chatsworth. There was a huge house-party, including Arthur Balfour and Chamberlain. Before going down to dinner, Henry came into my bedroom and told me he had had a telegram to say that Queen Victoria was very ill and he feared the worst; he added that it was a profound secret and that I was to tell no one. After dinner I was asked by the Duchess' granddaughters—Lady Aldra and Lady Mary Acheson—to join them at planchette, so, to please them, I put my hand upon the board. I was listening to what the Duchess was saying, and my mind was a blank. After the girls and I had scratched about for a little time, one of them took the paper off the board and read out loud:
"The Queen is dying." She added, "What Queen can that be?"
We gathered round her and all looked at the writing; and there I read distinctly out of a lot of hieroglyphics:
"The Queen is dying."
If the three of us had combined to try to write this and had poked about all night, we could not have done it.
I have had many interesting personal experiences of untraceable communication and telepathy and I think that people who set themselves against all this side of life are excessively stupid; but I do not connect them with religion any more than with Marconi and I shall always look upon it as a misfortune that people can be found sufficiently material to be consoled by the rubbish they listen to in the dark at expensive seances.
At one time, under the influence of Mr. Percy Wyndham, Frederic Myers and Edmund Gurney (the last-named a dear friend with whom I corresponded for some months before he committed suicide), Laura and I went through a period of "spooks." There was no more delightful companion than Mr. Percy Wyndham; he adored us and, though himself a firm believer in the spirit world, he did not resent it if others disagreed with him. We attended every kind of seance and took the matter up quite seriously.
Then, as now, everything was conducted in the dark. The famous medium of that day was a Russian Jewess, Madame Blavatsky by name. We were asked to meet her at tea, in the dining-room of a private house in Brook Street, a non-professional affair, merely a little gathering to hear her views upon God. On our arrival I had a good look at her heavy, white face, as deeply pitted with smallpox as a solitaire board, and I wondered if she hailed from Moscow or Margate. She was tightly surrounded by strenuous and palpitating ladies and all the blinds were up. Seeing no vacant seat near her, I sat down upon a low, stuffed chair in the window. After making a substantial tea, she was seen to give a sobbing and convulsive shudder, which caused the greatest excitement; the company closed up round her in a circle of sympathy and concern. When pressed to say why her bust had heaved and eyelids flickered, she replied:
"A murderer has passed below our windows." The awe-struck ladies questioned her reverently but ardently as to how she knew and what she felt. Had she visualised him? Would she recognise the guilty one if she saw him and, after recognising him, feel it on her conscience if she did not give him up to the law? One lady proposed that we should all go round to the nearest police-station and added that a case of this kind, if proved, would do more to dispell doubts on spirits than all the successful raps, taps, turns and tables. Being the only person in the window at the time, I strained my eyes up and down Brook Street to see the murderer, but there was not a creature in sight.
Madame Blavatsky turned out to be an audacious swindler.
To return to Chatsworth: our host, the Duke of Devonshire, was a man whose like we shall never see again; he stood by himself and could have come from no country in the world but England. He had the figure and appearance of an artisan, with the brevity of a peasant, the courtesy of a king and the noisy sense of humour of a Falstaff. He gave a great, wheezy guffaw at all the right things, and was possessed of endless wisdom. He was perfectly disengaged from himself, fearlessly truthful and without pettiness of any kind.
Bryan, the American politician, who came over here and heard all our big guns speak—Rosebery, Chamberlain, Asquith, etc.—when asked what he thought, said that a Chamberlain was not unknown to them in America, and that they could produce a Rosebery or an Asquith, but that a Hartington no man could find. His speaking was the finest example of pile-driving the world had ever seen.
After the Prince and Princess of Wales, the Duke and his wife were the great social, semi-political figures of my youth. One day they came to pay us a visit in Cavendish Square, having heard that our top storey had been destroyed by fire. They walked round the scorched walls of the drawing-room, with the blue sky overhead, and stopped in front of a picture of a race-horse, given to me on my wedding day by my habit-maker, Alexander Scott (a Scotchman who at my suggestion had made the first patent safety riding-skirt). The Duke said:
"I am sorry that your Zoffany and Longhi were burnt, but I myself would far rather have the Herring." [Footnote: A portrait by J. F. Herring, sen., of Rockingham, winner of the St. Leger Stakes, 1833, ridden by Sam Darling.]
The Duchess laughed at this and asked me if my baby had suffered from shock, adding:
"I should be sorry if my little friend, Elizabeth, has had a fright."
I told her that luckily she was out of London at the time of the fire. When the Duchess got back to Devonshire House, she sent Elizabeth two tall red wax candles, with a note in which she said:
"When you brought your little girl here, she wanted the big red candles in my boudoir and I gave them to her; they must have melted in the fire, so I send her these new ones."
I was walking alone on the high road at Chatsworth one afternoon in winter, while the Duchess was indoors playing cards, when I saw the family barouche, a vast vehicle which swung and swayed on C- springs, stuck in the middle of a ploughed field, the horses plunging about in unsuccessful efforts to drag the wheels out of the mud. The coachman was accompanied by a page, under life size. Observing their dilemma, I said:
"Hullo, you're in a nice fix! What induced you to go into that field?"
The coachman, who knew me well, explained that they had met a hearse in the narrow part of the road and, as her Grace's orders were that no carriage was to pass a funeral if it could be avoided, he had turned into the field, where the mud was so deep and heavy that they were stuck. It took me some time to get assistance; but, after I had unfastened the bearing-reins and mobilised the yokels, the coachman, carriage and I returned safely to the house.
Death was the only thing of which I ever saw the Duchess afraid and, when I referred to the carriage incident and chaffed her about it, she said:
"My dear child, do you mean to tell me you would not mind dying?What do you feel about it?"
I answered her, in all sincerity, that I would mind more than anything in the world, but not because I was afraid, and that hearses did not affect me in the least.
She asked me what I was most interested in after hunting and I said politics. I told her I had always prophesied I would marry a Prime Minister and live in high political circles. This amused her and we had many discussions about politics and people. She was interested in my youth and upbringing and made me tell her about it.
As I have said before, we were not popular in Peeblesshire. My papa and his vital family disturbed the country conventions; and all Liberals were looked upon as aliens by the Scottish aristocracy of those days. At election times the mill-hands of both sexes were locked up for fear of rows, but in spite of this the locks were broken and the rows were perpetual. When my father turned out the sitting Tory, Sir Graham Montgomery, in 1880, there were high jinks in Peebles. I pinned the Liberal colours, with the deftness of a pick-pocket, to the coat-tails of several of the unsuspecting Tory landlords, who had come from great distances to vote. This delighted the electors, most of whom were feather- stitching up and down the High Street, more familiar with drink than jokes.
The first politicians of note that came to stay with us when I was a girl were Chamberlain and Sir Charles Dilke. Just as, later on, my friends (the Souls) discussed which would go farthest, George Curzon, George Wyndham or Harry Cust, so in those days people were asking the same question about Chamberlain and Dilke. To my mind it wanted no witch to predict that Chamberlain would beat not only Dilke but other men; and Gladstone made a profound mistake in not making him a Secretary of State in his Government of 1885.
Mr. Chamberlain never deceived himself, which is more than could be said of some of the famous politicians of that day. He also possessed a rare measure of intellectual control. Self-mastery was his idiosyncrasy; it was particularly noticeable in his speaking; he encouraged in himself such scrupulous economy of gesture, movement and colour that, after hearing him many times, I came to the definite conclusion that Chamberlain's opponents were snowed under by his accumulated moderation. Whatever Dilke's native impulses were, no one could say that he controlled them. Besides a defective sense of humour, he was fundamentally commonplace and had no key to his mind, which makes every one ultimately dull. My father, being an ardent Radical, with a passion for any one that Gladstone patronised, had made elaborate preparations for Dilke's reception; when he arrived at Glen he was given a warm welcome; and we all sat down to tea. After hearing him talk uninterruptedly for hours and watching his stuffy face and slow, protruding eyes, I said to Laura:
"He may be a very clever man, but he has not a ray of humour and hardly any sensibility. If he were a horse, I would certainly not buy him!"
With which she entirely agreed.
On the second night of his visit, our distinguished guest metLaura in the passage on her way to bed; he said to her:
"If you will kiss me, I will give you a signed photograph of myself."
To which she answered:
"It is awfully good of you, Sir Charles, but I would rather not, for what on earth should I do with the photograph?"
Mr. Gladstone was the dominating politician of the day, and excited more adoration and hatred than any one.
After my first visit to Hawarden, he sent me the following poem, which he had written the night before I left:
When Parliament ceases and comes the recess,And we seek in the country rest after distress,As a rule upon visitors place an embargo,But make an exception in favour of Margot.
For she brings such a treasure of movement and life,Fun, spirit and stir, to folk weary with strife.Though young and though fair, who can hold such a cargoOf all the good qualities going as Margot?
Up hill and down dale,'tis a capital nameTo blossom in friendship, to sparkle in fame;There's but one objection can light upon Margot,Its likeness in rhyming, not meaning, to argot.
Never mind, never mind, we will give it the slip,'Tis not argot, the language, but Argo, the ship;And by sea or by land, I will swear you may far goBefore you can hit on a double for Margot.
W. E. G. December 17th, 1889.
I received this at Glen by the second post on the day of my arrival, too soon for me to imagine my host had written it, so I wrote to our dear old friend, Godfrey Webb—always under suspicion of playing jokes upon us—to say that he had overdone it this time, as Gladstone had too good a hand-writing for him to caricature convincingly. When I found that I was wrong, I wrote to my poet:
Dec. 19th, 1889. VERY DEAR AND HONOURED MR. GLADSTONE,
At first I thought your poem must have been a joke, written by some one who knew of my feelings for you and my visit to Hawarden; but, when I saw the signature and the post-mark, I was convinced it could be but from you. It has had the intoxicating effect of turning my head with pleasure; if I began I should never cease thanking you. Getting four rhymes to my name emphasizes your uncommon genius, I think! And Argo the ship is quite a new idea and a charming one. I love the third verse; that Margot is a capital name to blossom in friendship and sparkle in fame. You must allow me to say that you are ever such a dear. It is impossible to believe that you will be eighty to-morrow, but I like to think of it, for it gives most people an opportunity of seeing how life should be lived without being spent.
There is no blessing, beauty or achievement that I do not wish you.
In truth and sincerity, Yours,
A propos of this, twelve years later I received the following letter from Lord Morley:
July 18th, 1901.
I have just had such a cheerful quarter-of-an-hour—a packet of YOUR letters to Mr. G. Think—! I've read them all!—and they bring the writer back to me with queer and tender vividness. Such a change from Bishops!!! Why do you never address me as "Very dear and honoured Sir"? I'm not quite eighty-five yet, but I soon shall be.
Ever yours, JOHN MORLEY.
I have heard people say that the Gladstone family never allowed him to read a newspaper with anything hostile to himself in it; all this is the greatest rubbish; no one interfered with his reading. The same silly things were said about the great men of that day as of this and will continue to be said; and the same silly geese will believe them. I never observed that Gladstone was more easily flattered than other men. He WAS more flattered and by more people, because he was a bigger man and lived a longer life; but he was remarkably free from vanity of any kind. He would always laugh at a good thing, if you chose the right moment in which to tell it to him; but there were moods in which he was not inclined to be amused.
Once, when he and I were talking of Jane Welsh Carlyle, I told him that a friend of Carlyle's, an old man whom I met at Balliol, had told me that one of his favourite stories was of an Irishman who, when asked where he was driving his pig to, said:
"Cark. …" (Cork.)
"But," said his interlocutor, "your head is turned to Mullingar … !"
To which the man replied:
"Whist! He'll hear ye!"
This delighted Mr. Gladstone. I also told him one of Jowett's favourite stories, of how George IV. went down to Portsmouth for some big function and met a famous admiral of the day. He clapped him on the back and said in a loud voice:
"Well, my dear Admiral, I hear you are the greatest blackguard inPortsmouth!"
At which the Admiral drew himself up, saluted the King and said:
"I hope, Sir, YOU have not come down to take away my reputation."
I find in an old diary an account of a drive I had with Gladstone after my sister Laura died. This is what I wrote:
"On Saturday, 29th May, 1886, Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone came to pay us a visit at 40 Grosvenor Square. Papa had been arranging the drawing-room preparatory to their arrival and was in high spirits. I was afraid he might resent my wish to take Mr. Gladstone up to my room after lunch and talk to him alone. However, Aunty Pussy—as we called Mrs. Gladstone—with a great deal of winking, led papa away and said to mamma:
"'William and Margot are going to have a little talk!'
"I had not met or seen Mr. Gladstone since Laura's death.
"When he had climbed up to my boudoir, he walked to the window and admired the trees in the square, deploring their uselessness and asking whether the street lamp—which crossed the square path in the line of our eyes—was a child.
"I asked him if he would approve of the square railings being taken away and the glass and trees made into a place with seats, such as you see in foreign towns, not merely for the convenience of sitting down, but for the happiness of invalids and idlers who court the shade or the sun. This met with his approval, but he said with some truth that the only people who could do this—or prevent it—were 'the resident aristocracy.'
"He asked if Laura had often spoken of death. I said yes and that she had written about it in a way that was neither morbid nor terrible. I showed him some prayers she had scribbled in a book, against worldliness and high spirits. He listened with reverence and interest. I don't think I ever saw his face wear the expression that Millais painted in our picture as distinctly as when, closing the book, he said to me:
"'It requires very little faith to believe that so rare a creature as your sister Laura is blessed and with God.'
"Aunty Pussy came into the room and the conversation turned to Laurence Oliphant's objection to visiting the graves of those we love. They disagreed with this and he said:
"'I think, on the contrary, one should encourage oneself to find consolation in the few tangible memories that one can claim; it should not lessen faith in their spirits; and there is surely a silent lesson to be learnt from the tombstone.'
"Papa and mamma came in and we all went down to tea. Mr. G., feeling relieved by the change of scene and topic, began to talk and said he regretted all his life having missed the opportunity of knowing Sir Walter Scott, Dr. Arnold and Lord Melbourne. He told us a favourite story of his. He said:
"'An association of ladies wrote and asked me to send them a few words on that unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots. In the penury of my knowledge and the confusion arising from the conflicting estimates of poor Mary, I thought I would write to Bishop Stubbs. All he replied was, "Mary is looking up."'
"After this I drove him back to Downing Street in my phaeton, round the Park and down Knights bridge. I told him I found it difficult to judge of people's brains if they were very slow.
"MR. GLADSTONE: "I wish, then, that you had had the privilege of knowing Mr. Cobden; he was at once the slowest and quite one of the cleverest men I ever met. Personally I find it far easier to judge of brains than character; perhaps it is because in my line of life motives are very hard to fathom, and constant association with intelligence and cultivation leads to a fair toleration and criticism of all sorts and conditions of men.'
"He talked of Bright and Chamberlain and Lord Dalhousie,[Footnote: The late Earl of Dalhousie.] who, he said, was one of the best and most conscientious men he had ever known. He told me that, during the time he had been Prime Minister, he had been personally asked for every great office in the State, including the Archbishopric of Canterbury, and this not by maniacs but by highly respectable men, sometimes even his friends. He said that Goschen's critical power was sound and subtle, but that he spoilt his speeches by a touch of bitterness. Mr. Parnell, he said, was a man of genius, born to great things. He had power, decision and reserve; he saw things as they were and had confidence in himself. (Ten days after this drive, Mr. Gladstone made his last great speech on Irish Home Rule.)
"I made him smile by telling him how Lord Kimberley told me that, one day in Dublin, when he was Viceroy, he had received a letter which began:
"'My Lord, To-morrow we intend to kill you at the corner of Kildare Street; but we would like you to know there is nothing personal in it!'
"He talked all the way down Piccadilly about the Irish character, its wit, charm, grace and intelligence. I nearly landed my phaeton into an omnibus in my anxiety to point out the ingratitude and want of purpose of the Irish; but he said that in the noblest of races the spirit of self-defence had bred mean vices and that generation after generation were born in Ireland with their blood discoloured by hatred of the English Governments.
"'Tories have no hope, no faith,' he continued, 'and the best of them have class-interest and the spirit of antiquity, but the last has been forgotten, and only class-interest remains. Disraeli was a great Tory. It grieves me to see people believing in Randolph Churchill as his successor, for he has none of the genius, patience or insight which Dizzy had in no small degree.'
"Mr. Gladstone told me that he was giving a dinner to the Liberal party that night, and he added:
"'If Hartington is in a good humour, I intend to say to him, "Don't move a vote of want of confidence in me after dinner, or you will very likely carry it."'
"'He laughed at this, and told me some days after that LordHartington had been delighted with the idea.
"He strongly advised me to read a little book by one Miss Tollet, called Country Conversations, which had been privately printed, and deplored the vast amount of poor literature that was circulated, 'when an admirable little volume like this cannot be got by the most ardent admirers now the authoress is dead.'" (In parenthesis, I often wish I had been able to tell Mr. Gladstone that Jowett left me this little book and his Shakespeare in his will.)
"We drove through the Green Park and I pulled up on the Horse Guards Parade at the garden-gate of 10 Downing Street. He got out of the phaeton, unlocked the gate and, turning round, stood with his hat off and his grey hair blowing about his forehead, holding a dark, homespun cape close round his shoulders. He said with great grace that he had enjoyed his drive immensely, that he hoped it would occur again and that I had a way of saying things and a tone of voice that would always remind him of my sister Laura. His dear old face looked furrowed with care and the outline of it was sharp as a profile. I said good-bye to him and drove away; perhaps it was the light of the setting sun, or the wind, or perhaps something else, but my eyes were full of tears."
My husband, in discussing with me Gladstone's sense of humour, told me the following story:
"During the Committee Stage of the Home Rule Bill in the session of 1893, I was one evening in a very thin House, seated by the side of Mr. Gladstone on the Treasury Bench, of which we were the sole occupants. His eyes were half-closed, and he seemed to be absorbed in following the course of a dreary discussion on the supremacy of Parliament. Suddenly he turned to me with an air of great animation and said, in his most solemn tones, 'Have you ever considered who is the ugliest man in the party opposite?
"MR. ASQUITH: 'Certainly; it is without doubt X' (naming a famousAnglo-Indian statesman).
"MR. GLADSTONE: 'You are wrong. X is no doubt an ugly fellow, but a much uglier is Y' (naming a Queen's Counsel of those days).
"MR. ASQUITH: 'Why should you give him the preference?'
"MR. GLADSTONE: 'Apply a very simple test. Imagine them both magnified on a colossal scale. X's ugliness would then begin to look dignified and even impressive, while the more you enlarged Y the meaner he would become.'"
I have known seven Prime Ministers—Gladstone, Salisbury, Rosebery, Campbell-Bannerman, Arthur Balfour, Asquith and Lloyd George—every one of them as different from the others as possible. I asked Arthur Balfour once if there was much difference between him and his uncle. I said:
"Lord Salisbury does not care fanatically about culture or literature. He may like Jane Austen, Scott or Sainte-Beuve, for all I know, BUT HE IS NOT A SCHOLAR; he does not care for Plato, Homer, Virgil or any of the great classics. He has a wonderful sense of humour and is a beautiful writer, of fine style; but I should say he is above everything a man of science and a Churchman. All this can be said equally well of you."
To which he replied:
"There is a difference. My uncle is a Tory… and I am a Liberal."
I delighted in the late Lord Salisbury, both in his speaking and in his conversation. I had a kind of feeling that he could always score off me with such grace, good humour and wit that I would never discover it. He asked me once what my husband thought of his son Hugh's speaking, to which I answered:
"I will not tell you, because you don't know anything about my husband and would not value his opinion. You know nothing about our House of Commons either, Lord Salisbury; only the other day you said in public that you had never even seen Parnell."
LORD SALISBURY (pointing to his waistcoat): "My figure is not adapted for the narrow seats in your peers' gallery, but I can assure you you are doing me an injustice. I was one of the first to predict, both in private and in public, that Mr. Asquith would have a very great future. I see no one of his generation, or even among the younger men, at all comparable to him. Will you not gratify my curiosity by telling me what he thinks of my son Hugh's speaking?"
I was luckily able to say that my husband considered Lord Hugh Cecil the best speaker in the House of Commons and indeed anywhere, at which Lord Salisbury remarked:
"Do you think he would say so if he heard him speak on subjects other than the Church?"
I assured him that he had heard him on Free Trade and many subjects and that his opinion remained unchanged. He thought that, if they could unknot themselves and cover more ground, both he and his brother, Bob Cecil, had great futures.
I asked Lord Salisbury if he had ever heard Chamberlain speak(Chamberlain was Secretary of State for the Colonies at the time).
LORD SALISBURY: "It is curious you should ask me this. I heard him for the first time this afternoon."
MARGOT: "Where did you hear him? And what was he speaking about?"
LORD SALISBURY: "I heard him at Grosvenor House. Let me see…what was he speaking about? … (reflectively) Australian washer- women? I think…or some such thing. …"
MARGOT: "What did you think of it?"
LORD SALISBURY: "He seems a good, business-like speaker."
MARGOT: "I suppose at this moment Mr. Chamberlain is as much hated as Gladstone ever was?"
LORD SALISBURY: "There is a difference. Mr. Gladstone was hated, but he was very much loved. Does any one love Mr. Chamberlain?"
One day after this conversation he came to see me, bringing with him a signed photograph of himself. We of the Liberal Party were much exercised over the shadow of Protection which had been presented to us by Mr. Ritchie, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, putting a tax upon corn; and the Conservative Party, with Mr. Balfour as its Prime Minister, was not doing well. We opened the conversation upon his nephew and the fiscal question.
I was shocked by his apparent detachment and said:
"But do you mean to tell me you don't think there is any danger ofEngland becoming Protectionist?"
LORD SALISBURY (with a sweet smile): "Not the slightest! There will always be a certain number of foolish people who will be Protectionists, but they will easily be overpowered by the wise ones. Have you ever known a man of first-rate intellect in this country who was a Protectionist?"
MARGOT: "I never thought of it, but Lord Milner is the only one I can think of for the moment."
He entirely agreed with me and said:
"No, you need not be anxious. Free Trade will always win against Protection in this country. This will not be the trouble of the future."
MARGOT: "Then what will be?"
LORD SALISBURY: "The House of Lords is the difficulty that I foresee."
I was surprised and incredulous and said quietly:
"Dear Lord Salisbury, I have heard of the House of Lords all my life! But, stupid as it has been, no one will ever have the power to alter it. Why do you prophesy that it will cause trouble?"
LORD SALISBURY: "You may think me vain, Mrs. Asquith, but, as long as I am there, nothing will happen. I understand my lords thoroughly; but, when I go, mistakes will be made: the House of Lords will come into conflict with the Commons."
MARGOT: "You should have taught it better ways! I am afraid it must be your fault!"
LORD SALISBURY (smiling): "Perhaps; but what do YOU think will be the next subject of controversy?"
MARGOT: "If what you say is true and Protection IS impossible in this country, I think the next row will be over the Church of England; it is in a bad way."
I proceeded to denounce the constant building of churches while the parsons' pay was so cruelly small. I said that few good men could afford to go into the Church at all; and the assumed voices, both in the reading and in the preaching, got on the nerves of every one who cared to listen to such a degree that the churches were becoming daily duller and emptier.
He listened with patience to all this and then got up and said:
"Now I must go; I shall not see you again."
Something in his voice made me look at him.
"You aren't ill, are you?" I asked with apprehension.
To which he replied:
"I am going into the country."
I never saw him again and, when I heard of his death, I regrettedI had not seen him oftener.
The next Prime Minister, whom I knew better than either Mr.Gladstone or Lord Salisbury, was Lord Rosebery.
When I was a little girl, my mother took us to stay at Thomas's Hotel, Berkeley Square, to have a course of dancing lessons from the fashionable and famous M. d'Egville. These lessons put me in high spirits, because my master told me I could always make a living on the stage. His remarks were justified by a higher authority ten years later: the beautiful Kate Vaughan of the Gaiety Theatre.
I made her acquaintance in this way: I was a good amateur actress and with the help of Miss Annie Schletter, a friend of mine who is on the English stage now, I thought we might act Moliere's Precieuses ridicules together for a charity matinee. Coquelin—the finest actor of Moliere that ever lived—was performing in London at the time and promised he would not only coach me in my part but lend his whole company for our performance. He gave me twelve lessons and I worked hard for him. He was intensely particular; and I was more nervous over these lessons than I ever felt riding over high timber. My father was so delighted at what Coquelin said to him about me and my acting that he bought a fine early copy of Moliere's plays which he made me give him. I enclose his letter of refusal:
Je suis tres mecontent de vous. Je croyais que vous me traitiez tout a fait en ami, car c'etait en ami que j'avais accepte de vous offrir quelques indications sur les Precieuses…et voila que vous m'envoyez un enorme cadeau…imprudence d'abord parce que j'ai tous les beaux Moliere qui existent et ensuite parce qu'il ne fallait pas envoyer ombre de quoi que ce soit a votre ami Coq.
Je vais tout faire, malgre cela, pour aller vous voir un instant au'jourd'hui, mais je ne suis pas certain d'y parvenir.
Remerciez votre amie Madelon et dites-lui bien qu'elle non plus ne me doit absolument rien.
J'aime mieux un tout petit peu de la plus legere gratitude que n'importe quoi. Conservez, ma chere Margot, un bon souvenir de ce petit travail qui a du vous amuser beaucoup et qui nous a reunis dans les meilleurs sentiments du monde; continuons nous cette sympathie que je trouve moi tout a fait exquise—et croyez qu'en la continuant de votre cote, vous serez mille fois plus que quitte envers votre tres devoue
Coquelin the younger was our stage-manager, and acted the principal part. When it was over and the curtain went down, "Freddy Wellesley's [Footnote: The Hon. F. Wellesley, a famous bean and the husband of Kate Vaughan.] band" was playing Strauss valses in the entr'acve, while the audience was waiting for Kate Vaughan to appear in a short piece called The Dancing Lesson, the most beautiful solo dance ever seen. I was alone on the stage and, thinking that no one could see me, I slipped off my Moliere hoop of flowered silk and let myself go, in lace petticoats, to the wonderful music. Suddenly I heard a rather Cockney voice say from the wings:
"My Lord! How you can dance! Who taught you, I'd like to know?"
I turned round and saw the lovely face of Kate Vaughan. She wore a long, black, clinging crepe-de-chine dress and a little black bonnet with a velvet bow over one ear; her white throat and beautiful arms were bare.
"Why," she said, "you could understudy me, I believe! You come round and I'll show you my parts and YOU will never lack for goldie boys!"
I remember the expression, because I had no idea what she meant by it. She explained that, if I became her under-study at the Gaiety, I would make my fortune. I was surprised that she had taken me for a professional, but not more so than she was when I told her that I had never had a lesson in ballet-dancing in my life.
My lovely coach, however, fell sick and had to give up the stage. She wrote me a charming letter, recommending me to her own dancing-master, M. d'Auban, under whom I studied for several years.
One day, on returning from my early dancing-lesson to Thomas's Hotel, I found my father talking to Lord Rosebery. He said I had better run away; so, after kissing him and shaking hands with the stranger I left the room. As I shut the door, I heard Lord Rosebery say:
"Your girl has beautiful eyes."
I repeated this upstairs, with joy and excitement, to the family, who, being in a good humour, said they thought it was true enough if my eyes had not been so close together. I took up a glass, had a good look at myself and was reluctantly compelled to agree.
I asked my father about Lord Rosebery afterwards, and he said:
"He is far the most brilliant young man living and will certainly be Prime Minister one day."
Lord Rosebery was born with almost every advantage: he had a beautiful smile, an interesting face, a remarkable voice and natural authority. When at Oxford, he had been too much interested in racing to work and was consequently sent down—a punishment shared at a later date and on different grounds by another distinguished statesman, the present Viscount Grey—but no one could say he was not industrious at the time that I knew him and a man of education. He made his fame first by being Mr. Gladstone's chairman at the political meetings in the great Midlothian campaign, where he became the idol of Scotland. Whenever there was a crowd in the streets or at the station, in either Glasgow or Edinburgh, and I enquired what it was all about, I always received the same reply:
"Rozbury!"
I think Lord Rosebery would have had a better nervous system and been a happier man if he had not been so rich. Riches are over- estimated in the Old Testament: the good and successful man receives too many animals, wives, apes, she-goats and peacocks. The values are changed in the New: Christ counsels a different perfection and promises another reward. He does not censure the man of great possessions, but He points out that his riches will hamper him in his progress to the Kingdom of Heaven and that he would do better to sell all; and He concludes with the penetrating words:
"Of what profit is it to a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"
The soul here is freedom from self.
Lord Rosebery was too thin-skinned, too conscious to be really happy. He was not self-swayed like Gladstone, but he was self- enfolded. He came into power at a time when the fortunes of the Liberal party were at their lowest; and this, coupled with his peculiar sensibility, put a severe strain upon him. Some people thought that he was a man of genius, morbidly sensitive shrinking from public life and the Press, cursed with insufficient ambition, sudden, baffling, complex and charming. Others thought that he was a man irresistible to his friends and terrible to his enemies, dreaming of Empire, besought by kings and armies to put countries and continents straight, a man whose notice blasted or blessed young men of letters, poets, peers or politicians, who at once scared and compelled every one he met by his freezing silence, his playful smile, or the weight of his moral indignation: the truth being that he was a mixture of both.
Lord Salisbury told me he was the best occasional speaker he had ever heard; and certainly he was an exceptionally gifted person. He came to Glen constantly in my youth and all of us worshipped him. No one was more alarming to the average stranger or more playful and affectionate in intimacy than Lord Rosebery.
An announcement in some obscure paper that he was engaged to be married to me came between us in later years. He was seriously annoyed and thought I ought to have contradicted this. I had never even heard the report till I got a letter in Cairo from Paris, asking if I would not agree to the high consideration and respectful homages of the writer and allow her to make my chemises. After this, the matter went completely out of my head, till, meeting him one day in London, I was greeted with such frigid self-suppression that I felt quite exhausted. A few months later, our thoughtful Press said I was engaged to be married to Arthur Balfour. As I had seen nothing of Lord Rosebery since he had gone into a period of long mourning, I was acclimatised to doing without him, but to lose Arthur's affection and friendship would have been an irreparable personal loss to me. I need not have been afraid, for this was just the kind of rumour that challenged his insolent indifference to the public and the Press. Seeing me come into Lady Rothschild's ball-room one night, he left the side of the man he was conversing with and with his elastic step stalked down the empty parquet floor to greet me. He asked me to sit down next to him in a conspicuous place; and we talked through two dances. I was told afterwards that some one who had been watching us said to him:
"I hear you are going to marry Margot Tennant."
To which he replied:
"No, that is not so. I rather think of having a career of my own."
Lord Rosebery's two antagonists, Sir William Harcourt and SirHenry Campbell-Bannerman, were very different men.
Sir William ought to have lived in the eighteenth century. To illustrate his sense of humour: he told me that women should be played with like fish; only in the one case you angle to make them rise and in the other to make them fall. He had a great deal of wit and nature, impulsive generosity of heart and a temperament that clouded his judgment. He was a man to whom life had added nothing; he was perverse, unreasonable, brilliant, boisterous and kind when I knew him; but he must have been all these in the nursery.
At the time of the split in our party over the Boer War, when we were in opposition and the phrase "methods of barbarism" became famous, my personal friends were in a state of the greatest agitation. Lord Spencer, who rode with me nearly every morning, deplored the attitude which my husband had taken up. He said it would be fatal to his future, dissociating himself from the Pacifists and the Pro-Boers, and that he feared the Harcourts would never speak to us again. As I was devoted to the latter, and to their son Lulu [Footnote: The present Viscount Harcourt.] and his wife May—still my dear and faithful friends—I felt full of apprehension. We dined with Sir Henry and Lady Lucy one night and found Sir William and Lady Harcourt were of the company. I had no opportunity of approaching either of them before dinner, but when the men came out of the dining-room, Sir William made a bee-line for me. Sitting down, he took my hand in both of his and said:
"My dear little friend, you need not mind any of the quarrels! The Asquith evenings or the Rosebery afternoons, all these things will pass; but your man is the man of the future!"
These were generous words, for, if Lord Morley, my husband and others had backed Sir William Harcourt instead of Lord Rosebery when Gladstone resigned, he would certainly have become Prime Minister.
I never knew Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman well, but whenever we did meet we had great laughs together. He was essentially a bon vivant, a boulevardier and a humorist. At an official luncheon given in honour of some foreign Minister, Campbell-Bannerman, in an admirable speech in French—a language with which he was familiar—described Arthur Balfour, who was on one side of him, as l'enfant gate of English politics and Chamberlain, who was also at the lunch, as l'enfant terrible.
On the opening day of Parliament, February the 14th, 1905, he made an amusing and telling speech. It was a propos of the fiscal controversy which was raging all over England and which was destined to bring the Liberal party into power at the succeeding two general elections. He said that Arthur Balfour was "like a general who, having given the command to his men to attack, found them attacking one another; when informed of this, he shrugs his shoulders and says that he can't help it if they will misunderstand his orders!"
In spite of the serious split in the Liberal Party over the BoerWar, involving the disaffection of my husband, Grey and Haldane,Campbell-Bannerman became Prime Minister in 1905.
He did not have a coupon election by arrangement with the Conservative Party to smother his opponents, hut asked Henry, before he consulted any one, what office he would take for himself and what he thought suitable for other people in his new Cabinet. Only men of a certain grandeur of character can do these things, but every one who watched the succeeding events would agree that Campbell-Bannerman's generosity was rewarded.
When C.B.—as he was called—went to Downing Street, he was a tired man; his wife was a complete invalid and his own health had been undermined by nursing her. As time went on, the late hours in the House of Commons began to tell upon him and he relegated more and more of his work to my husband.
One evening he sent for Henry to go and see him at 10 Downing Street and, telling him that he was dying, thanked him for all he had done, particularly for his great work on the South African constitution. He turned to him and said:
"Asquith, you are different from the others, and I am glad to have known you … God bless you!"
C.B. died a few hours after this.
I now come to another Prime Minister, Arthur Balfour.
When Lord Morley was writing the life of Gladstone, Arthur Balfour said to me:
"If you see John Morley, give him my love and tell him to be bold and indiscreet."
A biography must not be a brief either for or against its client and it should be the same with an autobiography. In writing about yourself and other living people you must take your courage in both hands. I had thought of putting as a motto on the title-page of this book, "As well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb"; but I gave it up when my friends gave me away and I saw it quoted in the newspapers; and I chose Blake and the Bible.
If I have written any words here that wound a friend or an enemy, I can only refer them to my general character and ask to be judged by it. I am not tempted to be spiteful and have never consciously hurt any one in my life; but in this book I must write what I think without fear or favour and with a strict regard to unmodelled truth.
Arthur Balfour was never a standard-bearer. He was a self- indulgent man of simple tastes. For the average person he was as puzzling to understand and as difficult to know as he was easy for me and many others to love. You may say that no average man can know a Prime Minister intimately; but most of us have met strangers whose minds we understood and whose hearts we reached without knowledge and without effort; and some of us have had an equally surprising and more painful experience when, after years of love given and received, we find the friend upon whom we had counted has become a stranger.
He was difficult to understand, because I was never sure that he needed me; and difficult to know intimately, because of his formidable detachment. The most that many of us could hope for was that he had a taste in us as one might have in clocks or furniture.
Balfour was blessed or cursed at his birth, according to individual opinion, by two assets: charm and wits. The first he possessed to a greater degree than any man, except John Morley, that I have ever met. His social distinction, exquisite attention, intellectual tact, cool grace and lovely bend of the head made him not only a flattering listener, but an irresistible companion. The disadvantage of charm—which makes me say cursed or blessed—is that it inspires every one to combine and smooth the way for you throughout life. As the earnest housemaid removes dust, so all his friends and relations kept disagreeable things from his path; and this gave him more leisure in his life than any one ought to have.
His wits, with which I say that he was also cursed or blessed— quite apart from his brains—gave him confidence in his improvisings and the power to sustain any opinion on any subject, whether he held the opinion or not, with equal brilliance, plausibility and success, according to his desire to dispose of you or the subject. He either finessed with the ethical basis of his intellect or had none. This made him unintelligible to the average man, unforgivable to the fanatic and a god to the blunderer.
On one occasion my husband and I went to a lunch, given by old Mr. McEwan, to meet Mr. Frank Harris. I might have said what my sister Laura did, when asked if she had enjoyed herself at a similar meal. "I would not have enjoyed it if I hadn't been there," as, with the exception of Arthur Balfour, I did not know a soul in the room. He sat like a prince, with his sphinx-like imperviousness to bores, courteous and concentrated on the languishing conversation. I made a few gallant efforts and my husband, who is particularly good on these self-conscious occasions, did his best … but to no purpose.
Frank Harris, in a general disquisition to the table, at last turned to Arthur Balfour and said, with an air of finality:
"The fact is, Mr. Balfour, all the faults of the age come fromChristianity and journalism."
To which Arthur replied with rapier quickness and a child-like air:
"Christianity, of course … but why journalism?"
When men said, which they have done now for over thirty years, that Arthur Balfour was too much of a philosopher to be really interested in politics, I always contradicted them. With his intellectual taste, perfect literary style and keen interest in philosophy and religion, nothing but a great love of politics could account for his not having given up more of his time to writing. People thought that he was not interested because he had nothing active in his political aspirations; he saw nothing that needed changing. Low wages, drink, disease, sweating and overcrowding did not concern him; they left him cold, and he had not the power to express moral indignation which he was too detached to feel.
He was a great Parliamentarian, a brilliant debater and a famous Irish Secretary in difficult times, but his political energies lay in tactics. He took a Puck-like pleasure in watching the game of party politics, not in the interests of any particular political party, nor from esprit de corps, but from taste. This was very conspicuous in the years 1903 to 1906, during the fiscal controversy; but any one with observation could watch this peculiarity carried to a fine art wherever and whenever the Government to which he might be attached was in a tight place.
Politically, what he cared most about were problems of national defence. He inaugurated the Committee of Defence and appointed as its permanent Chairman the Prime Minister of the day; everything connected with the size of the army and navy interested him. The size of your army, however, must depend on the aims and quality of your diplomacy; and, if you have Junkers in your Foreign Office and jesters on your War Staff, you must have permanent conscription. It is difficult to imagine any one in this country advocating a large standing army plus a navy, which is vital to us; but such there were and such there will always be. With the minds of these militarists, protectionists and conscriptionists, Arthur Balfour had nothing in common at any time. He and the men of his opinions were called the Blue Water School; they deprecated fear of invasion and in consequence were violently attacked by the Tories. But, in spite of an army corps of enthusiasts kept upon our coasts to watch the traitors with towels signalling to the sea with full instructions where to drive the county cows to, no German army during the great War attempted to land upon our shores, thus amply justifying Arthur Balfour's views.
The artists who have expressed with the greatest perfection human experience, from an external point of view, he delighted in. He preferred appeals to his intellect rather than claims upon his feelings. Handel in music, Pope in poetry, Scott in narration, Jane Austen in fiction and Sainte-Beuve in criticism supplied him with everything he wanted. He hated introspection and shunned emotion.
What interested me most and what I liked best in Arthur Balfour was not his charm or his wit—and not his politics—but his writing and his religion.
Any one who has read his books with a searching mind will perceive that his faith in God is what has really moved him in life; and no one can say that he has not shown passion here. Religious speculation and contemplation were so much more to him than anything else that he felt justified in treating politics and society with a certain levity.
His mother, Lady Blanche Balfour, was a sister of the late Lord Salisbury and a woman of influence. I was deeply impressed by her character as described in a short private life of her written by the late minister of Whittingehame, Mr. Robertson. I should be curious to know, if it were possible, how many men and women of mark in this generation have had religious mothers. I think much fewer than in mine. My husband's mother, Mr. McKenna's and Lord Haldane's were all profoundly religious.
This is part of one of Lady Blanche Balfour's prayers, written at the age of twenty-six:
From the dangers of metaphysical subtleties and from profitless speculation on the origin of evil—Good Lord deliver me.
From hardness of manner, coldness, misplaced sarcasm, and all errors and imperfections of manner or habit, from words and deeds by which Thy good may be evil-spoken, of through me, or not promoted to the utmost of my ability—Good Lord deliver me.
Teach me my duties to superiors, equals and inferiors. Give me gentleness and kindliness of manner and perfect tact; a thoughtful heart such as Thou lovest; leisure to care for the little things of others, and a habit of realising in my own mind their positions and feelings.
Give me grace to trust my children—with the peace that passeth all understanding—to Thy love and care. Teach me to use my influence over each and all, especially children and servants, aright, that I may give account of this, as well as of every other talent, with joy—and especially that I may guide with the love and wisdom which are far above the religious education of my children.
By Lady Blanche Balfour, 1851.
Born and bred in the Lowlands of Scotland, Arthur Balfour avoided the narrowness and materialism of the extreme High Church; but he was a strong Churchman. I wrote in a very early diary: "I wish Arthur would write something striking on the Established Church, as he could express better than any one living how much its influence for good in the future will depend on the spirit in which it is worked."
His mind was more critical than constructive; and those of his religious writings which I have read have been purely analytical. My attention was first arrested by an address he delivered at the Church Congress at Manchester in 1888. The subject which he chose was Positivism, without any special reference to the peculiarities of Comte's system. He called it The Religion of Humanity. [Footnote: An essay delivered at the Church Congress, Manchester, and printed in a pamphlet] In this essay he first dismisses the purely scientific and then goes on to discuss the Positivist view of man. The following passages will give some idea of his manner and style of writing:
Man, so far as natural science itself is able to teach us, is no longer the final cause of the universe, the heaven-descended heir of all the ages. His very existence is an accident, his history a brief and discreditable episode in the life of one of the meanest of the planets. Of the combination of causes which first converted a piece or pieces of unorganised jelly into the living progenitors of humanity, science indeed, as yet, knows nothing. It is enough that from such beginnings, Famine, Disease, and Mutual Slaughter, fit nurses of the future lord of creation, have gradually evolved, after infinite travail, a race with conscience enough to know that it is vile, and intelligence enough to know that it is insignificant. We survey the past and see that its history is of blood and tears, of helpless blundering, of wild revolt, of stupid acquiescence, of empty aspirations. We sound the future, and learn that after a period, long compared with the individual life, but short indeed compared with the divisions of time open to our investigation, the energies of our system will decay, the glory of the sun will be dimmed, and the earth, tideless and inert, will no longer tolerate the race which has for a moment disturbed its solitude. Man will go down into the pit, and all his thoughts will perish. The uneasy consciousness, which in this obscure corner has for a brief space broken the contented silence of the Universe, will be at rest. Matter will know itself no longer. Imperishable monuments and immortal deeds, death itself, and love stronger than death, will be as though they had never been. Nor will anything that is be better or be worse for all that the labour, genius, devotion, and suffering of man have striven through countless generations to effect.
He continues on Positivism as an influence that cannot be disregarded:
One of the objects of the "religion of humanity," and it is an object beyond all praise, is to stimulate the imagination till it lovingly embraces the remotest fortunes of the whole human family. But in proportion as this end is successfully attained, in proportion as we are taught by this or any other religion to neglect the transient and the personal, and to count ourselves as labourers for that which is universal and abiding, so surely must be the increasing range which science is giving to our vision over the time and spaces of the material universe, and the decreasing importance of the place which man is seen to occupy in it, strike coldly on our moral imagination, if so be that the material universe is all we have to do with. My contention is that every such religion and every such philosophy, so long as it insists on regarding man as merely a phenomenon among phenomena, a natural object among other natural objects, is condemned by science to failure as an effective stimulus to high endeavour. Love, pity, and endurance it may indeed leave with us; and this is well. But it so dwarfs and impoverishes the ideal end of human effort, that though it may encourage us to die with dignity, it hardly permits us to live with hope.
Apart from the unvarying love I have always had for Arthur Balfour, I should be untrue to myself if I did not feel deeply grateful for the unchanging friendship of a man who can think and write like this.
Of the other two Prime Ministers I cannot write, though no one knows them better than I do. By no device of mine could I conceal my feelings; both their names will live with lustre, without my conscience being chargeable with frigid impartiality or fervent partisanship, and no one will deny that all of us should be allowed some "private property in thought."