1870
These digressions are, I suppose, inartistic, but the death of Lord
Clarendon led me to speak of his successor, and so I have wandered
on—carried by memories that will not be denied. Gratefully and reverently
I wish to lay my humble wreath upon Lord Granville’s tomb.
Let me hark back, then, to 1870. On the 19th of July the storm burst
and war was declared. It is not for me to deal with the story of the
tragedies by which the world was shocked. I only touch upon history where
it is necessary, in order to throw light upon my personal sketches.
Towards the end of the summer the Prince of Wales invited me to go and
stay with him at Abergeldie. We arrived there, if I remember right, on
the 11th of August, and I remained among those lovely Scottish mountains
for nearly a month. It was quite a small, intimate party, for the
picturesque castle has not much accommodation. The romantic tower by the
Deeside is just such an old Scottish stronghold as Sir Walter Scott would
have loved to describe as the home of a Baron of Bradwardine, standing in
a very old-fashioned, unsophisticated garden, bright with late flowers,
distributed in Scottish fashion among fruit trees and kitchen requisites,
that it would be a crime to attempt to bring under the rule of a modern
gardener. On a small lawn there was one old tree—a plane, if I remember
right—under which I can still see the great Queen sitting when she came
to drink tea with the Prince and Princess, and insisted on having my
Chinese servant, Lin Fu, produced for her to see.
I have spoken of the Prince’s insensibility to fatigue. One night, or
rather in the small hours of the morning, the Prince told me that he
would be starting for the hill at 8.30 and bade me be ready to go with
him. Very sleepy I was when Lin Fu came to me at seven o’clock and very
unwilling to get up. However, by 8.30 I had breakfasted and was ready.
No Prince! 9 o’clock, still no Prince! Another hour and a half’s drowsy
waiting—at last down His Royal Highness came, full of apologies. For
once nature had taken her revenge; he had overslept himself. We started
off and had a capital day, the Prince killing a small Royal. We were,
of course, belated, reaching home long after dark, and were met by a
footman, saying that the Queen had sent for their Royal Highnesses to
dine at Balmoral, and I was to accompany them. The Princess had already
left, and it was evident that we should be long behind time; however,
we dressed with lightning speed and drove off. The Queen was already at
dinner. It was rather a trying ordeal for me, but her Majesty was most
gracious and put me at my ease. It was quite a small party; only ten
in all, at a round table, and the conversation was general. Naturally,
the chief subject was the war. The Queen constantly received letters
from the Crown Prince Frederick, which she used to send over to the
Prince of Wales, and he would read them out loud after dinner. They
were wonderful: the letters of a simple, chivalrous knight, without any
of that spirit of Junkerism which has eaten into the marrow of modern
Germany. He was a hero. And what a grand specimen of humanity he was
the last time I saw him at one of the royal weddings at Windsor—a noble
figure, resplendent in his white cuirassier’s uniform, carrying in his
hand the Field-Marshal’s baton, not inherited, not given, but won on many
a stricken field of battle. With him the proud old motto: “Allweg gut
zollern” lived.
After dinner everyone in turn was taken up to the Queen for a more
special talk. With the others whom she saw daily, the interview was
brief. She kept me longer. It was soon after the massacre of Christians
at Tientsing, and she was anxious to talk about it. I was able, of
course, to tell her a good deal that was outside of what was contained in
dispatches; but her knowledge of those was marvellous.
Although the outbreak had been in the main directed against the Roman
Catholic missionaries, it was quite as much an attack upon M. Fontanier,
the French Consul, who was one of the victims. I knew him when he was
interpreter to the French Legation at Peking. Combining piety with
bullying, he was a violent Ultra montane bigot, one of those Christians
who seek to propagate their cause by methods more really anti-Christian
than those of what they call “the heathen.” My only wonder had been that
he was not murdered long before. A man who would prove his Christianity
by kicking over into the mud of Peking the humble stall of a poor old
apple-woman, because it stood between the wind and his nobility, was
hardly to be pitied—and of that I was a witness. The poor priests had
in him but a sorry protector, a weak reed to lean upon. The Queen
listened with great interest. “I am afraid,” she said, “that sometimes
the missionaries are rather injudicious.” It was a revelation to me
that in the midst of the pressure of affairs so much nearer home, and
so appallingly important, the Queen should yet have found time to make
herself mistress of the concerns of the Far East. Her memory was amazing,
and it was that most precious quality which made her such a valuable and
sure guide to her ministers in matters of precedent and detail.
I had been at Balmoral once before, some twelve years earlier, when I
was staying at Invercauld, and, as usual, the neighbouring lairds and
their guests were invited over to a ball. It was fixed in my memory by an
incident trifling in itself, and yet not without interest as showing one
side of the Queen’s character—her great dignity. It was ill attempting
anything like presumption in her presence. A country dance was going on,
in which the Queen took part. There was a certain gentleman present,
dressed in gorgeous Highland array, who, after having had his turn and
made his bow to her Majesty, cheated, and, instead of taking his proper
place, tried to win the chance of dancing up to her a second time. The
Queen saw through the trick at once, and when the ambitious dancer came
up to her, stopped dead short and very quietly drawing herself up,
pointed to his proper place, and beckoned up the gentleman whose turn
it was. What the foolish man expected to gain it would be hard to say,
but he was known as a very pushing person, and what he did gain was a
setting down in the face of the whole company, which must have made him,
as America says, “feel mean.”
I doubt whether the Prince of Wales was ever more happy than he was in
his beloved Scottish home, in all the privacy of family life. There were
no foundation stones to be laid, no buildings to be opened, no addresses
from chained mayors. He had the best of deer-stalking, the sport of all
others which he loved, and in the evening a quiet rubber and the music
of the Princess. For two months an ideal existence—broken only by an
occasional visit, an occasional shoot over less familiar moors, a stalk
in a less familiar forest.
After Abergeldie I paid a visit to my old friend and colleague, Lochiel,
at Achnacarry, in a country still full of the mystic romance of the ’45;
wild mountains which echo to the centuries-old skirl of the bagpipes;
scenes that make a man understand the glamour of the old clan feeling
which lives in Canada, in Australia, all over the world; traditions which
send the kilted men to the front where Britain calls, just as in the old
days they left home and wife and bairns, rushing to the summons of the
fiery cross when the honour of their chieftain was at stake.
From Achnacarry I went to Dunrobin, where I was again to meet the Prince
and Princess of Wales, and where I was made welcome with untold kindness
for many years. When the Dunrobin visit came to an end I went with the
Prince to Polmaize, and later on, in November, was commanded to his
birthday party at Sandringham.
The remainder of the year was spent in preparing my “Tales of Old
Japan” for the press. I did not make much by the book, for I sold it to
Messrs. Macmillan for two hundred and forty pounds, and the materials
and illustrations cost me nearly, if not quite, that sum. Still, I
cannot complain; it was as much as they could be expected to give in the
circumstances, for the subject and I were both new, and it was impossible
to say whether we should catch the fancy of the public. It was a bold
venture on the part of the publishers.
The mistake which I made was in selling the copyright out and out. For as
it turned out, the book found favour, many editions were published, and
I believe that it continues to be printed to this day, although the book
first appeared forty-four years ago.
Mr. Alexander Macmillan was at that time the head of the firm, a man for
whom I entertained the highest respect and much affection, as I believe
did all those who had dealings with him; he gave me great encouragement,
and I feel that had that kindly Scot been less brave in accepting the
work of an unknown man, I might have had some difficulty in bringing out
the book. It is a satisfaction to know that he was no loser by his gamble.
* * * * *
After the year 1870 I did no more diplomatic work. I did not resign
definitely until 1873, but in 1871 I was appointed once more to St.
Petersburg, and knowing that I could not afford so expensive a post,
I asked to be placed _en disponibilité_, and so became a gentleman at
large. I was very sorry when the time came for cutting off my humble
connection with Downing Street after fourteen very happy years and a
fairly adventurous diplomatic career. There is—or was—in the Diplomatic
Service a certain freemasonry, the great advantage of which was the
almost confidential intimacy to which the younger members were admitted
by the veterans of the profession, who always seemed ready to help in our
education. I am grateful to their memory for much kindness.
When I entered the Foreign Office, among the Princes of Diplomacy who had
laid down their arms, none could compare as a maker of history with Lord
Stratford de Redcliffe. It sounds a little inept to talk of laying down
arms when speaking of a diplomatist, and yet in his case the metaphor
is not so very inappropriate. He had been a fighting man all his life.
He fought his own Government and made them swallow his policy whole: he
fought the great Tsar Nicholas and we know how that ended: he fought
Mentchikoff over the Holy places and beat him as the lion in the legend
did the unicorn, and the poor unicorn had to run out of the town, give
up diplomacy and take to soldiering in the Crimea, where he was beaten
again. For half a century Lord Stratford had been always in the lists,
and now he had come home, full of years and full of honour, to pass what
was left to him of life in rest and peace. A scholar and no mean poet, he
had at his command the enjoyment of a learned leisure. He was, I think,
the handsomest old man that I ever saw. He was of middle height, straight
and still active. His features were such as a Pheidias would have loved
to copy. A brow like that of the Olympian Zeus was crowned with silvery
white hair; the blue eyes flashed clear and brilliant, his complexion was
as beautiful as that of a young girl.
As a chief we used to be told that he held his attachés in awe, but as a
host he was delightful—his conversation various and full of charm, as,
indeed, how could it fail to be, since he had seen and done so much? When
his face was in repose the expression was rather stern, and men realized
the great Eltchi who could dominate feeble sultans, terrify corrupt
pashas, and defeat the machinations which were always rife in that hotbed
of intrigue where so much of his life had been spent. I do not know
whether his answer when he was asked if he had read Kinglake’s “History
of the Crimean War” when it first appeared has ever been printed.
“Yes,” he said, “I have read that romance of which it has pleased Mr.
Kinglake to make me the hero.” In what anger would that august brow have
been knitted had he been told that the two Powers which, almost at his
dictation, fought in alliance to preserve Constantinople for the Turk,
would one day be sending their fleets to the Dardanelles in order to
turn that unspeakable reprobate out of doors, and perhaps hand over his
inheritance to the great-grandson of his bitterest foe? Wonderful is the
whirligig of time! I fancy that we should now read Sir Hamilton Seymour’s
dispatches recording his conversation with the Emperor Nicholas about
“the sick man” with very different feelings from those which they excited
in 1853. The great Tsar’s diagnosis of the invalid’s condition was not
far out, though the death agony had been long protracted. As the great
Lord Salisbury put it, “We backed the wrong horse.”
Sir Hamilton Seymour retired in 1858 and came home for good. His was
a great name in the Diplomatic Service and he was in high favour with
Queen Victoria, who asked him what had led him to send in a resignation
which she greatly regretted. “Well, Madam,” was the witty answer, “your
Majesty knows that I have kept the Royal Arms for many years abroad,
and so I thought that it was time that I should come home and set up a
family hotel of my own.” Genial, witty and charming, everybody liked Sir
Hamilton Seymour, and certainly, if he was a loss to the service of which
he had been one of the chief ornaments, London was a notable winner by
the change.
Those were the two great historic envoys to whom we neophytes looked up;
with them we joined Lord Cowley, of whom I have already spoken, and who
was still in harness. What a triumvirate! Lord Stratford, the masterful
embodiment of the old Greek definition of a great gentleman, καλός κ’
ἀγαθός (beautiful and good); Sir Hamilton Seymour, the man who had calmly
to face the wrath of the Lord of all the Russias—to most men as freezing
as the blizzards of the Ladoga Lake; and Lord Cowley, wise and sagacious,
holding the balance in Paris. At that time there were only two Embassies,
Paris and Constantinople, but St. Petersburg, though still only a
Legation, was quite of equal importance.
Among the younger members of the Diplomatic Service two were _facile
principes_. Julian Fane, brilliant, handsome, accomplished, a poet and
musician who died young, and Robert Lytton, by whose poetry Sir Thomas
Wade—one of the best critics I ever knew—set great store, who had not yet
reached the high offices in which, as Viceroy of India and Ambassador, he
afterwards gained so great distinction. Those two we neophytes worshipped
as demigods—worshipped them with the adoration of lower boys for the
captain of the boats and the captain of the eleven. Is there any higher
measure of admiration? Morier, who afterwards became famous as Ambassador
in Russia, was junior to these. He was a very able man. Perhaps his
greatest claim to a niche in the Temple of Fame lay in the jealousy of
Bismarck, who recognized in him a dangerous foe, a power to be reckoned
with.
Talking recently (1915) with a very eminent foreign ambassador, we
discussed these names and others—Lord Lyons and my old chief, Lord
Napier, among them. “Yes,” he said, “in your Diplomatic Service you have
had a series of very remarkable men.” He was right. To listen to such
men was the best of schooling; and of these who shall say which was the
greatest?