A SUMMER IN ENGLAND, 1894
The first news that greeted me on my return to London from Egypt in the
Spring of 1894 was the engagement of my friend Margot Tennant to Mr.
Asquith, a political event, as it turned out, of the first magnitude,
though perhaps not fully appreciated as such at the moment. I find it
recorded thus:
“_1st May._—To Grosvenor Square, where I found Sir Charles Tennant very
important over his daughter’s approaching marriage. ‘It has gone on
now,’ he said, ‘for a year and a half, at first all on Asquith’s side,
but now Margot is sincerely attached to him. She has smartened him up
wonderfully, you would hardly know him.’ Upon which in walks Asquith, a
little smooth-shaved middle-aged man, with a beatific smile on his face,
as of one to whom Heaven’s doors have been opened. He reminded me very
cordially of our former meetings on Home Rule platforms, and in answer
to my congratulations, said, ‘Indeed you have reason to congratulate
me.’ Sir Charles gives his daughter £2,000 a year and a house in
Cavendish Square. They are to spend the honeymoon in Caroline
Grosvenor’s house, 30, Upper Grosvenor Street, which they have rented
for the season.
“_4th May._—George Wyndham came to see me. We discussed Rosebery, and
agreed that he was overrated as a statesman, a clever after-dinner
speaker, but nothing more. He had been pushed forward by the press and
the Jews as a sort of Stock Exchange candidate, but he could not last as
leader of a party. George applauded my intention of formally returning
to the Conservative fold [a momentary intention never carried out, for I
joined no party].
“_7th May._—Lunched with Sir William Harcourt. In spite of accounts of
his ill-health I found him looking better than for a year or two. His
budget comes on for second reading to-night (he was still Chancellor of
the Exchequer), and Loulou told me in private that it is quite possible
the Government may be beaten on it. Sir William was, nevertheless, in
high spirits, and I think enjoyed my denunciation of Rosebery as
‘Minister of the Stock Exchange.’ Alfred Milner came in and we had some
chaff, good-naturedly, about Egypt. Nubar has been playing his old games
there already, giving a concession to a land company he is interested
in. Milner admitted he was an old rogue. Afterwards in private Loulou
told me that his father would probably retire from public life at the
end of the present Parliament. He himself intends to do so as soon as
the Budget is through.
“_10th May._—Margot’s wedding day, showery and cold, but with occasional
gleams of sunshine. St. George’s crammed to the ceiling with the gayest
world of the gay. It is the only church in London I have the smallest
romance about, but to me it is interesting and touching from the vast
number of marriages it has seen (including my own). It is old-fashioned,
with nice comfortable pews, and none of the tawdry Gothic rubbish they
are fond of elsewhere. De Staal was there in the same pew with us, and
there were Rosebery and I believe all the Ministers, and Gladstone, who
came in late and was cheered outside, and Arthur Balfour. Margot was
pale, very pale, but firm and decided, Asquith much smartened up. A
great crush in the Tennant house afterwards in Grosvenor Square, Margot
surrounded by a crowd of women friends. She drove away in a slatey-blue
dress, an apple-green straw hat and dark-blue flowers.
“_18th May._—In consequence of a talk I have had with Lady Lytton I have
written to Arthur Ellis on the subject of the Khedive’s intended visit
to England. In it I said: ‘When I was leaving Egypt the other day the
Khedive, whom I went to take my leave of, spoke to me of his proposed
visit to Europe, which was then not quite decided on, and asked me to
find out for him confidentially whether if he came to England, his
reception would be a really cordial one. By this he meant not so much
whether there would be the usual official reception, whatever that might
be, due to his rank, as whether he might count upon the kindly feeling
of the Court and especially of the Prince of Wales towards him. From
what I know of him I feel sure that it is more in the power of the
Prince of Wales than of Lord Rosebery or of any of the officials to
place things in Egypt, as far as the Khedive is concerned, on a more
satisfactory footing than they have lately been. The Khedive is very
suspicious of Lord Cromer, not as I think entirely without reason, for
the quarrel between them is no doubt largely a personal one, and I think
that, if it could be conveyed to him that he could count at least on a
friendly reception at Marlborough House, he would be less likely to
listen to the advances which are pretty sure to be made to him in Paris
on his way through. In my opinion large political interests are involved
in the issue of this visit.’
“To-day the tenantry of Crabbet presented Judith with a silver cup on
her coming of age. They were most hearty, and recalled the fact of most
of them holding their farms from father to son for generations. Judith
made an admirable speech in reply, delivered in a clear voice and with a
charming manner. Then I showed them some of the family deeds and they
all drank champagne in tumblers. The leaders among them were the two
Caffins and young Wright of Pryors Farm. The servants, too, at Crabbet
are making her a presentation. We have, I think, seven house servants
who have been over twenty years with us.
“_21st May._—An answer has come from Arthur Ellis with an informal
message from the Prince of Wales. It is most satisfactory. He says:
‘Whilst the Prince of Wales feels some hesitation in sending any message
to the Khedive except through the accredited official channel, I may say
that should His Highness determine upon a visit to England, he will
certainly receive from the Prince of Wales and from society in general
every possible attention.’ I have written to the Khedive, conveying to
him the message.”
This little piece of diplomacy I had afterwards reason to regret,
successful as it proved in bringing the Khedive to England. The
influence of Marlborough House was not a wholesome one for the Khedive’s
patriotism, and in other ways proved detrimental, as will be seen later.
“_22nd May._—I see a report in the evening paper that the Sultan has
forbidden the Khedive to go to England, but it sounds to me hardly
likely.
“_24th May._—Breakfasted with Sir Henry Loch and had much talk with him
about ‘civilization’ in Africa. He expressed his fear of the spread of
Mohammedanism southwards as likely to prove a danger. I wish I could
think it. He also asked about Arabia in a way which sounded as if they
may have their eye on it, too, in the scramble that is going on. He told
me the Chinese were driving the Russians back in Central Asia.
“Anne and Judith have taken rooms at 31, South Street for the season.
“_27th May (Sunday.)_—On Wednesday I called on Randolph Churchill in
Grosvenor Square (his mother’s house) and had some political talk with
him. He is terribly altered, poor fellow, having some disease,
paralysis, I suppose, which affects his speech, so that it is painful to
listen to him. He makes prodigious efforts to express himself clearly,
but these are only too visible. He talked of his election prospects at
Bradford and the desire of the Conservatives to delay the turning out of
the Rosebery Government. About Egypt he said, ‘You know my opinion about
evacuation is unchanged, but my tongue is tied.’” This was the last time
I saw him. I remember that as he came to the door with me he tried again
to explain to me what he wanted to tell me about Egypt, but broke down
and said, almost in tears, “I know what I want to say, but damn it, I
can’t say it.”
“_28th May._—Breakfast with George Wyndham. He is at last bringing out
his book of French Lyrics. With any luck it should be a great success.
“_10th June (Sunday)._—To Wotton to see Evelyn, who is in poor health.
He wants me to act in concert with him on the question of a new
Conservative candidate for East Grinstead. On Thursday I met Frederic
Harrison, just back from France. There is great excitement about the
Anglo-Belgian Agreement in regard to the Congo and Upper Nile, the last
of Rosebery’s thieves’ treaties, but Harrison says the wirepullers
assure him that the French menace will come to nothing. I am not so
sure, as it is being taken up in Germany also.
“_11th June._—Still at Wotton. After luncheon drove to Box Hill to see
George Meredith. Found him with his daughter, a pretty little bar maiden
just engaged to Russell Sturgis, and another young lady. He is terribly
deaf and afflicted with creeping paralysis, so that he staggers from
time to time while walking, and once to-day nearly fell. It does not,
however, affect his mind, and he has a novel on hand at the present
moment which keeps him writing six hours a day. He is a queer, voluble
creature, with a play-acting voice, and his conversation like one
dictating to a secretary, a constant search for epigrams. I took the
bull by the horns at once about his novels, said I never read prose and
looked upon him only as a poet. This pleased him, and he gave me two
volumes, recommending to me especially the piece called ‘Attila.’ He
told me Tennyson was the first person to discover the merits of ‘Love in
a Valley.’ I asked him to explain sundry obscurities in ‘Modern Love,’
and he said he would do so if I would come up with him to a little
literary den he has at the top of his garden, but the young ladies
unfortunately followed us, and he was unwilling to talk about this poem
before them, so I missed my chance. During our talk a luncheon was
brought to him on a tray, as he said he was too busy to sit down to a
regular meal, and could not write after one o’clock, so I left him to
his work and drove on. I had driven my four horses in at the front
entrance, a difficult feat, and got them out again and went on over the
hill to Ockham, where I picked up Judith, and back in the evening again
to Wotton over Ranmore Common and down the steep descent of Coombe
Bottom. I fancy in all history no team of four horses was ever driven
before down that road, not even by Tommy Onslow of happy memory,
certainly not by a woman, for Judith had the reins.
“Compare the local rhyme, for Onslow lived close by:
What can Tommy Onslow do?
He can drive a coach and two,
Can Tommy Onslow do no more?
He can drive a coach and four.
Where shall we his merits fix?
He can drive a coach and six.
“_13th June._—Dr. Leitner called to talk over Egyptian and Mohammedan
affairs. He is gloomy about prospects as I am in the East, where the old
sympathy for Eastern things amongst Englishmen is fast dying out, and a
reign of Western intolerance is taking its place. There is danger of a
partition of the Ottoman dominions, for there is nowhere the smallest
wish in Europe to see reform in them, and all Powers alike are in arms
in Africa against the Mohammedan Arabs. This is for England and Germany
a new feature and a dangerous one for Islam.
“_18th June._—Miss Violet Maxse’s wedding, an _omnium gatherum_, social,
political, and literary. The bridegroom, Lord Salisbury’s third son,
brought the Tories; Maxse, the Liberal Unionists, with Chamberlain and
the rest; the young lady, her friends. I counted six poets in the
church, including myself, Alfred Austin, George Meredith, Alfred Lyall,
Oscar Wilde, and Edwin Arnold. I found myself next to Lyall, who told me
the latest joke about the Laureateship. ‘If one must have a Laureate,
choose the least of evils, choose Austin.’ At the bride’s house the
crowd was immense, and I found myself for ten minutes flattened like a
herring between Lord Salisbury and a tall Dutch clock. Truly matrimony
makes strange pew fellows.
“_22nd June._—Gave a dinner at Mount Street to Lady Granby, Lucy Smith,
d’Estournelles, Alfred Lyall, and Godfrey Webb, all of us more or less
poets. After dinner we read and recited poetry, d’Estournelles being by
far the most effective, having an admirable manner.
“I hear that Edward Malet is going to resign his Embassy at Berlin
because he was not consulted on the Congo arrangement.
“_26th June._—Received a visit from M. Ducroix, Editor of the Paris
‘Matin.’ He asked me my opinion of the situation in Egypt, and I gave it
him very frankly, and of French policy there. ‘French diplomacy,’ I
said, ‘had made two capital mistakes, first in not supporting native as
opposed to European interests, and, secondly, in making the perpetual
opposition it does to our English policy without being prepared to
fight.’ He said they were his own views. Reverseaux had to his own
knowledge promised the Khedive to back him in the Spring of 1893 with a
French fleet at Alexandria, and then had left him in the lurch. It was
the fault of the home Government more than Reverseaux’s.
“_30th June and 1st July._—Our Annual Crabbet Club Meeting. The members
present were:
George Wyndham,
George Curzon,
George Peel,
George Leveson Gower,
Esmé Howard,
St. George Lane Fox,
Eddy Tennant,
Hubert Howard,
Godfrey Webb,
Mark Napier,
Theobald Mathew,
Charles Gatty,
Laurence Currie,
with three new members, Lord Cairns, Alfred Douglas, and Basil
Blackwood.
“_13th July._—Called on Frank Lascelles, who is just starting as
Ambassador for St. Petersburg. We talked over old and new times. He and
I were exact contemporaries, both in age and in the diplomatic service,
and it is just thirty years ago that we were at Madrid together as
_attachés_. Without any very special abilities he has made a rapid
career by hard work and good sense. We talked of the Asiatic question
and the Egyptian question. He does not believe in the possibility of
saving any part of Persia from Russia, who could take it whenever she
has a mind to. I walked with him to call on Staal, and left him at the
door.
“_16th July._—To the Keats memorial meeting at Hampstead with George
Wyndham, a curious ceremony. It took place in the parish church, the
vicar and his choir assisting in surplices, but the proceedings were
entirely mundane. Gosse, who presided, made a dull, platitudinous
oration in the tone of a sermon (his father was a Nonconformist
lecturer), and the others were even duller. Houghton alone was brief and
to the point. The poet’s bust was then unveiled, and throughout the only
allusion to religion was when one of the speakers enumerated what Keats
was not, and included in the list that he was _not_ a religious
propagandist. When all was over the worthy vicar consoled himself with
some prayers and an anthem.
“_17th July._—A brilliant luncheon with Margot and her husband at 30,
Upper Grosvenor Street, and I took her her Wedding Ode, which I had
written for her amusement. The other guests were Mrs. Grenfell, Mrs.
Daisy White, Ribblesdale, his brother Reggie Lister, and Oscar Wilde,
all immensely talkative, so that it was almost like a breakfast in
France. Asquith alone rather out of it. I sat next to him and was rather
sorry for him, though he was probably happy enough. Afterwards, when the
rest had gone away, Oscar remained, telling stories to me and Margot.”
This is a very poor account of an interesting, and in the sequel a
tragic, incident which has remained strongly impressed on my mind, as it
was one that showed Oscar Wilde at the height of his social glory, and
as the last occasion on which I found myself in his company. Of all
those present, and they were most of them brilliant talkers, he was
without comparison the most brilliant, and in a perverse mood he chose
to cross swords with one after the other of them, overpowering each in
turn with his wit, and making special fun of Asquith, his host that day,
who only a few months later, as Home Secretary, was prosecuting him on
the notorious criminal charge which sent him to hard labour in prison. I
remember, too, as a characteristic trait of his dandyism, that when at
the end of the half hour we remained on talking, we went away together
from the door, I to walk back to my rooms in Mount Street, and he to pay
a visit in the same direction, hardly farther. I said, “We will walk
together as far as Grosvenor Square.” “No, no,” he said, and called a
passing hansom. “I _never_ walk.”
This was the end of my London season, and the only extracts I can find
in my diary at all of a public character, which was otherwise devoted
entirely to the social care of amusement and launching Judith in the
world. It is a record especially of dinners that I gave, and which were
for a moment rather the fashion with the Soul society at my rooms in
Mount Street.
“_25th July._—Crabbet. With Judith on a pilgrimage to see Huxley at
Eastbourne. He lives in a new house he has built near the cliff and with
Beachy Head behind it. He was very cordial and pleasant, and his wife,
an excellent old soul, most kind to Judith. We had only two hours with
him but we talked all the time about the origin of the Arabian horse,
and I think I got from him all the information he had to give. He said
that in reality nothing was known at all clearly except that horses were
unknown in Egypt under the fourth dynasty, that there had been a close
connection with Arabia, and that if there had been horses in Arabia
there would have been horses also in Egypt, but how they eventually came
to Arabia was mere guesswork. Arabia had doubtless been in former times
well watered, and it was possible a wild horse might have been isolated
there in the South (this was my suggestion) long after the drying up of
the northern plateaux, but the historical evidence, such as there was,
was against it. We might expect something from the cuneiform records
when thoroughly examined. Piétrement’s theories were merely speculative.
“Of the human race in Egypt he said that he had long suspected a common
origin for them with the Dravidians of India, perhaps a long belt of
brown-skinned men from India to Spain in very early days. Of savage
races, he said he had no sympathy with them; he considered there was
more difference between the man of the criminal class in London at the
present day and the high type of educated thinker, than between the
Australian savage and, say, the average man of the time of Elizabeth.
‘Yet,’ I objected, ‘I suppose you could educate your young criminal into
being a bishop.’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘a bishop would be easy enough because
the other bishops would look after him, but not a country parson, that
would be a dangerous experiment.’ He was surprised to learn that grey
Arab horses were not foaled grey.
“_6th Aug._—A party at Crabbet for Sunday. The Meynells, George Wyndham,
Alfred Douglas, and Blanche Wortley. Coventry Patmore, Henley, and
Locker could not come. Meynell told us much that was interesting about
Francis Thompson, who is the latest discovered of the poets.
“Thompson’s history is most curious. He was educated at Ushaw, and his
father wanted him to become a doctor, but he had a distaste for it and
could not or would not pass his examinations. This led to a quarrel, for
the father had married a second time, and Thompson was turned out of the
house, or left it in anger. He came to London, where he fell into
extreme poverty, walking the streets as a beggar for five years and
sleeping under the arches by the Thames. The money he earned he spent on
opium, which drugged him to endurance of his life. Nevertheless, he once
attempted suicide, spending what remained to him on a large dose of
laudanum enough to kill two men. He divided it into two portions and
retired to I forget what cemetery in the city and took the first
half—whereupon he had a vision in which he saw Chatterton, who took him
by the hand and comforted him, and reminded him how the very morning
after his suicide a letter had come from a publisher which would have
relieved him. So he did not take the second dose, and recovered to find
the dream fulfilled by the arrival precisely of a letter from a friend
enclosing him the cutting of one of his poems printed by Meynell in
‘Merrie England.’ Thompson had been in the habit of writing poems on any
scraps of paper he could pick up and had sent several of them to
Meynell, and among them a paper on Paganism and Christianity, which
Meynell had pigeon-holed and forgotten till six months later, when he
read them and found them excellent. Then he had tried to get into
communication with Thompson, but had lost trace of him and had published
the papers in hope of attracting the author’s attention. This succeeded,
and Thompson, seeing his writings in print, wrote Meynell an angry
letter about it, giving the address of a chemist’s shop near Charing
Cross. Thither Meynell went, and on inquiry was told that Thompson owed
a bill there of four shillings for opium, that he had no abode, but
might be found at nights in the street in front of Charing Cross
Station.
“Through the intervention of the chemist he was eventually discovered
and sent to Meynell’s house apparently with but few weeks to live, for
he was dying of opium. Meynell wanted him to go to a hospital, but at
first he refused on account of a girl with whom he had a friendship in
the streets. She had been kind to him, just as had been the case with De
Quincy, and Thompson refused to go anywhere where he should be unable to
see her. But the girl insisted that he should go to the hospital, and
when he came out of it cured she had disappeared. I asked Meynell
whether it was not a case of love rather than friendship, but he said:
‘No. Thompson told me that it was not so, that in his condition there
could have been no question of physical love; he was too constantly
starved.’ Thus Thompson was saved. He has now for the last year been
sent to Pantasaph, the Capuchin monastery, where he is taken care of and
kept away from drugs. He writes poetry and prose and has no other
occupation. Meynell will bring him here one day. He showed us a fine
poem of his still in manuscript, entitled ‘Amphicypellon,’ which he will
have printed privately.”
This was followed by a pilgrimage to Stratford-on-Avon, which I had long
intended, and which I now accomplished, going by road with my four
horses, and taking my cousin Alfred Douglas with me, stopping at several
friends’ houses on our way, Lady Hayter’s at South Hill, and Dr.
Watney’s at Buckholt, and Mr. Harvey’s at Woodstock. Then across the
Wolds by Chipping Norton to Stanway, where we were amongst relations,
and so on, two days later, to Stratford. Of this I write:
“_13th Aug._—All the way to Stratford there are lovely villages, houses
of the seventeenth century built of stone, with stone roofs, people
harvesting magnificent crops, but it is a thing to remark that in all
this country, north of the Wiltshire and Oxfordshire downs there is no
single common, or bit of waste land where a traveller might pitch his
tent. Stratford itself is a very pretty town, standing on a fine, clear
river, with little that is modern about it, marred only by the monstrous
Shakespeare memorial, a Victorian building, perhaps the most degraded in
architecture of our graceless age. Here Alfred left me in a hurry to
return to London, while I stayed on fulfilling the object of my
pilgrimage by reading the Sonnets at the poet’s tomb.
“Sitting on the chancel steps and in full view of the monument with the
poet’s portly bust and its inscription, a new light broke on me with
regard to his character, and I seemed to see him with less mystery, the
full fed prosperous citizen he doubtless was in his later years,
affecting gentility and honoured of his neighbours. The truth is there
is nothing really more romantic in a poet than in other men when seen at
home. The original cast of his face they show in Shakespeare’s house,
said to have been taken after death, shows him a strong practical man,
not over refined, one who at the present day would have been a
successful journalist and man of letters. The Shakespeare of the Sonnets
does not appear in this bust, rather the playwright and ready writer of
dialogue for the stage. I can imagine him in this year of grace, 1894,
figuring as a George Augustus Sala, or a Druriolanus in the London
literary and dramatic world. Fortunately he was born 300 years ago.[11]
“On my way home I stopped at Kelmscott, where after dinner we played at
twenty questions, the things chosen for our guessing being the white
horse of White Horse Hill, the pen Chaucer wrote the first line of the
Canterbury Tales with, and the American volume of Rossetti’s ‘House of
Life,’ which Morris gave his wife. It is always a pleasure to find
Rossetti still a living memory in this house.
“_16th Aug._—Made a late start as I dawdled on talking with Morris, and
trying to prove to him that he and Ruskin had done more harm than good
by their attempt to make English people love beauty and decorate their
architecture. He defended himself good-humouredly, but I think has
doubts, nevertheless, for we are engulfed to-day in a slough of
ornament. I maintained that the old-fashioned square cardboard box style
was less abominable, as were the days when it was considered bad taste
to attempt any kind of prettiness. However at noon I got away and drove
in floods of rain to Uffington, and up the face of White Horse Hill.
There the sun came out, and I pitched my tent under lee of the ancient
camp where there was a splendid crop of grass for the horses, and
stopped for the night. There was a full moon, and it was bitter cold.
Morris declares the White Horse to be a work of the Stone Age, probably
20,000 years old. In the night my horses, which I had tethered to the
carriage pole, broke loose and wandered away, and I had a long run after
them in the moonlight during which I crossed the old white chalk one,
without finding mine, but it is hard to track horses on the grass, and
we could do nothing till daylight, and not much then. In the course of
the morning they were fortunately brought back by some farm people who
had found them grazing two miles away. We then
“_17th Aug._—Followed the Ridgeway, a rough grass track along the crest
of the down as far as near Lyddington Castle, when, striking a high
road, we turned left and came to Aldbourne, and so to the Kennet river
and Savernake Forest, where just before sunset we camped under one of
the beech avenues, a lovely spot, dry and secluded, except for the
wandering fallow deer. To-night we bivouacked, there being no sign of
rain. It was my birthday of fifty-four, yet I feel little of the cares
of age.
“_18th Aug._—Away before seven driving across the forest, which is
splendid. Near its centre stands a column with the following inscription
of supreme grandiloquence:
This column was erected
by Thomas Bruce Earl of Ailesbury
as a testimony
of gratitude
to his ever honoured uncle
Charles Earl of Ailesbury and Elgin
who left him these Estates
and procured for him the Barony of Tottenham;
and of loyalty
to his most Gracious Sovereign
George III
who unsolicited conferred upon him
the honour of an Earldom,
but above all
of Piety
To GOD FIRST HIGHEST BEST
whose blessing consecrateth every gift
and fixeth its true value
MDCCLXXXI
“On the other side is a second inscription hardly less amusing:
In commemoration
of
a signal instance of Heaven’s protecting Providence
OVER THESE KINGDOMS
in the year 1789
by restoring to perfect health
from a long and afflicting disorder
their excellent and beloved Sovereign
GEORGE THE THIRD
This tablet was inscribed
by
GEORGE BRUCE EARL OF AILESBURY
“After Savernake we came down into the Avon valley at Pewsey, and
followed the river on to Amesbury where we baited, and so later to
Stonehenge where we camped about half a mile from the stones under lee
of a small plantation. The stones I found in possession when I arrived
of American tourists, but even these could do little to injure the fine
calm of the place, and they were soon gone, and about midnight I
returned and went again in full solitude to the stones and spent an hour
there alone, making incantations in the hope of raising some ghost of
ancient times, but in vain, and though I repeated the Lord’s Prayer
backwards, nothing would come. Perhaps it was the fact that in order to
do so without a book I had first to repeat each sentence in its natural
sequence, and this may have neutralized the spell. Then I lay down under
one of the fallen blocks and dozed off for an hour or two, but still
nothing. Stonehenge has much in common with primitive Egypt.
“_19th Aug. (Sunday)._—Moved eight miles on to Quarly Hill, and camped
to the west of it. All this plain must once have been heath with
scattered juniper bushes, for every here and there on the poorer land,
as here and at Stonehenge, there are heath and juniper patches left. It
is the modern sheep grazing that has brought the grass.
“Called on Major Poore who lives at Middlecote, close by, and dined with
him. He is Urquhart’s last disciple and still preaches his doctrines.
They have elected him a County Councillor, and he is organizing his
district on a system of his own, and teaching the villagers to live
according to the Chinese idea of domestic socialism. He is doing good,
or at any rate is very happy in the thought that he is doing so. He
talked much of Urquhart and his personal charm. We passed to-day close
by Wilbury, which is sacred in my recollection on account of Percy and
Madeline Wyndham, whose home it was for so many years.
“_20th Aug._—I am running homewards now, a long day’s march, by a grass
road to Stockbridge, and thence to Winchester. I was determined to re-
visit the scene of my old slave days at Twyford School.” This I
accomplished, but the account of it in my diary is too long and too
personal for insertion here. Another two days, _22nd August_, brought me
home to Crabbet, making up 345 miles by road in the fifteen days and a
half of my pilgrimage.
Visits to Saighton and Cumloden occupy the rest of my diary of this
summer of 1894, but it contains nothing of any political consequence. On
_29th September_ I write:
“I am preparing for a long departure from England, which may be for
years and may be for ever, for I am in the mood for farewells. In public
matters there has been the war between Japan and China. My sympathies
are with Japan, because her victory will mean a check put to European
expansion in that quarter of the globe, and an encouragement to
Orientals everywhere to arm themselves and fight against it. Old-
fashioned China is a colossus, with feet of clay, interesting, but
doomed if it does not put its house in order, somewhat on European
lines. The Japanese stand towards China much as Arabi and the Liberal
party in Egypt stood towards Turkey twelve years ago. The defeat of
Japan by China would have meant immediate European interference in
Japan’s affairs.
“I am leaving home for Gros Bois, Tunis, and Egypt, and am making
arrangements to stay abroad over next summer, but I promise nothing to
myself. Anne and Judith will meet me in Egypt in the middle of November,
that is far enough ahead for my hopes to look, and so to Crabbet I bid a
long good-bye. I shall perhaps never go back to it as my home, for I
have plans of making Newbuildings my Sussex home instead. We are so much
abroad, that so large a house and establishment are thrown away on us.
Newbuildings would fulfil all our purposes.”
My usual autumn visit to Gros Bois lasted till 18th October. While
there, there is one entry worth transscribing:
“_14th Oct. (Sunday)._—To Paris for the day and breakfasted with General
Faverot. He had with him General Descharmes, a young M. de Sivry (a
grandson, Wagram tells me, of the Duke of Brunswick), and a son of
General Fleury. Descharmes talked much of Japan, where he was military
instructor for some years, and in glowing terms of their success in the
war with China. He declares them to have _le diable dans le corps_ for
fighting, and that it would take a European Power all it knew to beat
them. ‘I would not,’ he said, ‘undertake to land an army in Japan with
less than 60,000 men, all Frenchmen.’”