CHAPTER XIV

“SATAN ABSOLVED”—THE BOER WAR

“George is in high spirits, as he has just been appointed Under-

Secretary for War, a less interesting place than the Foreign Office, but

still important, especially at the present moment. Things look more and

more warlike, as Russia seems to be backing France, and I suspect most

of the Continental Powers are against us. It is impossible Lord

Salisbury should maintain the full ground he has chosen, that of

refusing to negotiate without a war. The French will not give in like

that. The way out of the mess would seem to lie in the direction of a

European Congress, or at least of European intervention in the interests

of peace. George says that the British fleet has its programme ready,

and the French fleet would be shut up in their ports in a few days. He

and the ultra Jingo section of the party are all for war. He gets £1,500

a year by this appointment.

“_22nd Oct._—To Paris, by Newhaven and Dieppe, much the pleasantest

route. I have not travelled by it since I landed at Newhaven in a storm

with a shipload of frightened refugees flying from Paris after Sedan.

“_23rd Oct._—Neville came to breakfast with me, and later old Julienne,

Francis Currie’s _bonne_; who amused us with her view of the political

situation. The government of France, she said, was in the hands of ‘un

tas de gueux, passez-moi le mot,’ who were pillaging the country, and

there must be a new _régime_—Orleanist, Bonapartist, or what ever else,

she did not care, so long as it was not Dreyfusist. As to the Fashoda

trouble, it was all the rapacity of ‘la grosse Victoire,’ meaning our

own gracious Majesty, who wanted all the earth for herself and would

leave nothing to poor France. ‘Nous sommes bien bas, allez.’ I fancy

this represents pretty fairly the general opinion at Paris.

“At 3 to Gros Bois, where I found our hostess entertaining two Parisian

ladies, dressed up like Parisian dolls, a ci-devant Russian beauty, the

Comtesse de Talleyrand, and Mme. Chevreau, her neighbours. We were a

party of six at dinner, lively in the usual French way, which means all

talking at once. I had some quiet conversation, however, with Wagram

before the guests arrived. He refuses to believe in a war and thinks the

thing will be arranged. Russia, if it came to war, would fight too, and

we should be attacked in India. I see that Redmond is openly declaring

himself at Dublin in favour of the French, but I doubt if either Ireland

or India is really attackable.

“_24th Oct._—Wagram was away all day shooting at Chantilly with the Duc

de Chartres. Prince Henri d’Orléans was there and showed him a number of

abusive letters he had received, mostly from Germans, in connection with

the Dreyfus case, he being a violent anti-revisionist. Wagram brought

back with him in the evening the Fashoda Yellow Book just published.

“_25th Oct._—The new Yellow Book gives a much more dignified form to the

French argument than it has received in our Blue Book, and I consider

that, logic for logic, M. de Courcel has the best of it. It is also

clear that, as I suspected, Lord Salisbury _has_ been negotiating,

though it is equally clear that he has allowed his back to be stiffened

by the London Press and his colleagues’ speeches and Lord Rosebery’s.

The French terms are now pretty fairly formulated. They will evacuate

Fashoda on being allowed to keep the Bahr el Gazal with access to the

White Nile. A Cabinet has been called in London for to-morrow, when a

final decision will be come to. In face of the extraordinary outburst of

Jingo violence in England I doubt such terms being accepted and war

seems probable; nobody, however, here seems of that opinion.

“M. Hanotaux, late Minister of Foreign Affairs, and M. Vandal were here

to-day and I had much conversation with both. Neither would hear of war

for such a trifle as Fashoda. M. Hanotaux maintained that no war would

be popular in France, that nobody knew where Fashoda was, or cared three

straws about the Marchand Mission. He even considered the Egyptian

question itself one of small importance for France. As for the Bahr el

Gazal, it was ‘a country inhabited by monkeys and by black men worse

than monkeys.’ A war with England over such a dispute would be worse

than a crime, a folly. He was of opinion that such a war would ruin both

countries. It would last two years; it would be carried on interminably

because neither could vitally attack the other. ‘I admit,’ he said,

‘that your fleet may destroy ours, that you may blockade our ports, and

that we could not land troops in England, but what then? You could not

touch us in France, or even in Algeria or Tunis; it would ruin your

trade and leave you at the end worse off than ourselves. You would find

yourselves faced by a triple coalition. I do not believe in the

possibility of war.’ I told him of the military fever we were suffering

from in England, but he refused to believe that Lord Salisbury, who was

‘un homme d’Etat,’ who looked at the future, would quarrel to this

extent with France, England’s only possible ally, for any such cause.

“I asked him about the Army, what its feeling was, what line it would

take? ‘The French Army,’ he said, ‘is always ready to fight when the

word is given, but it does not busy itself with politics, and will not

intervene to force on any policy. It can be counted on absolutely to

obey its orders, whether for peace or war. No war would be popular now

in France, and there was no such military fever now here as I had

described in England.’ He added, however, that if the Army at any time

found a leader in any popular general who should become Minister of War,

the situation might change, the public might easily become excited. If

an appeal were made to it by the Government against England then the

Army would, doubtless, show its readiness to fight. The Dreyfus case was

also discussed. Vandal and Wagram were against revision, Berthe and,

cautiously, Hanotaux for it. This was continued between Berthe and

Wagram to the point of violence all the evening, Wagram maintaining that

there were secret pieces of evidence which if made public would ruin the

Army and ruin France, Berthe that no conceivable evidence could have

such effect, the only people to be ruined being the General Staff.

Personally I am much charmed by Hanotaux, who talks well on many

subjects and without display of vanity. He has a pleasant _regard_ and a

sympathetic voice. He gave me his views on architecture and art and

talked to me, as knowing him, of Herbert Spencer. Vandal also talked

well, but is less interesting. Both are academicians.

“_26th Oct._—The Brisson Ministry has resigned and all is confusion in

Paris. This will probably ease the tension towards England and make a

peaceful solution more possible.

“M. et Mme. Sommier, the owners of Vaux, and a Mme. de Brie came to

luncheon. Sommier is a man of cultivation and intelligence, who has

taken in the ‘Times’ newspaper for years so as to get news of the

outside world, a rare circumstance in France. Like all the rest he says

war is impossible for such a trifle as Fashoda, that France is not

prepared for war, and that nobody wants to fight.

“_27th Oct._—Three men arrived to shoot pheasants, M. Chevreau, Comte de

Gontaut Biron, and Comte de Kergoulet, all men of great intelligence and

good talkers as well as good fellows. We shot in the forest beyond the

park, but had no great sport. In the evening there was an excellent

political discussion, turning principally on the overthrow of the

Brisson Ministry and the chances of their succession. They think it

probable that Delcassé will remain at the Affaires Etrangères. None of

them will hear of a war with England, in which they say they would be

beaten. My neighbour at dinner, M. de Kergoulet, a young Breton

gentleman of old family, did not scruple to say they would withdraw from

the Nile and apologize rather than that. None of the party, except

Wagram, expressed any very different sentiment. I proposed as a bridge

of escape from an impossible situation that the French Government should

express its willingness to acknowledge Egypt’s right to the whole of the

Nile provinces, but not the right of England. I believe that this would

practically save them from their dilemma without loss of honour, and

would leave the Nile question for a more favourable moment for raising

it in conjunction with the whole Egyptian question. The question of

Alsace-Lorraine was also debated, and it was generally admitted that

there must be sooner or later _prescription_, a limit of time beyond

which resentment could not be continued, though that time had not yet

come. But for this the German alliance was what would be most

advantageous to France and a coalition against England. I asked them

whether they thought it true that the Emperor William had proposed such

a coalition two years ago, and they said it was most probable, but not

certain. Such a coalition was impossible at present on account of the

sentiment about the lost provinces, and nations live by sentiment, it

was the mainstay of their patriotism. I had it on the tip of my tongue

to say patriotism is the virtue of nations in decay, but I felt that

that would be hardly civil, though the aphorism would be a good one. [A

better one would be, ‘patriotism is the virtue of weak nations, it is

the vice of the strong.’]

“M. de la Siseranne was also of our party, an excellent talker like the

rest, but with more pose, as one would expect from his position as

_conférencier_ and dogmatic art critic, a shock-headed man _taillé en

brosse_, less attractive than the others. He was strong on the point of

the time being nearly come when the animosity about Alsace-Lorraine

could be decently buried. ‘There is,’ he said, ‘prescription for all

things, one does not now refuse one’s hand to the descendant of him who

guillotined one’s ancestors in 1793,’ meaning, no doubt, Carnot.

“_28th Oct._—To Paris on my way home. Called on Abu Naddara, who gave me

some details of the Marchand mission. Marchand had come to him three

years ago to ask his advice about penetrating to the Upper Nile, and how

to make friends with the Khalifa, and he (Sanua) had given him papers

inscribed with texts from the Koran, and as I understood him,

introductions from one or two persons at Omdurman. Marchand’s idea was

to go and make friends with the Mahdists and help them against England.

He was certainly sent by the French Government. Sanua is severe on the

stupidity of French diplomacy, and considers France very low down in the

scale of European nations. He told me a good deal about his visit to the

Sultan Abdul Hamid, who had received him with all honour, and allowed

him to speak frankly and openly about affairs. He says the Sultan is

acquiring an immense prestige from the Emperor Wilhelm’s visit, which is

everywhere in the East regarded as an act of homage. It was Abdul Hamid

who first suggested to the Emperor to get rid of Bismarck. On his first

visit to Constantinople they were talking about Bismarck’s great power

in Europe, and the Sultan said, ‘I should not like to have so powerful a

servant, would your Majesty like to see how I treat mine?’ William said,

‘Yes.’ Abdul Hamid then touched a bell, and when the attendant entered

said, ‘Send for Kiamil,’ the then Grand Vizier. Instantly horsemen were

despatched at a gallop through the city seeking the Minister, who

presently appeared and stood, with head bowed and folded hands, before

them. The Sultan for awhile took no notice, and let him stand, then

casually ‘You need not wait, it is of no consequence, go,’ and the Grand

Vizier went. William took this lesson to heart, and dismissed his

Chancellor hardly less brusquely.

“Dined with Neville and his friend Geoffroi, a young fellow art student

of a modest serious kind at the hôtel where I was their entertainer. We

discussed art, literature, and politics. The young man is rather

socialistic, hates the army, in which he is just about to be obliged to

serve, and is a Dreyfusard. He assures me military service is most

unpopular, and war still more so. It is clear nobody in France will take

up the quarrel thrust on them by us over Fashoda.

“_29th Oct._—Back to England. To-day it is announced that Marchand has

left for Cairo, so the quarrel _solvitor ambulando_.

“_3rd Nov._—Newbuildings. Knowles has agreed to my writing on the

Fashoda affair in the ‘Nineteenth Century,’ but says he hopes I will not

forget the motto which is his, ‘my country right or wrong.’ What

absurdity! One would think that England was a poor struggling

nationality, oppressed by a strong neighbour, and in need of the help of

all her sons, not what she is, the mill in which all the nations are

being ground.

“_4th Nov._—Anne and Judith left for Egypt, I staying on in England for

the winter. Lunched with George Wyndham at Willis’s Rooms, where he is

near his work at the War Office. We discussed the Fashoda business about

which there will certainly not be war, George said. Also that our

Government had squared the Emperor William. The Duke of Devonshire and

Henry Chaplin were lunching at another table, and greeted George as

‘dear George.’ Of Chamberlain, George said, ‘He is for war at any

price.’ He (Chamberlain) has just come back from America, where they are

going through the same absurd military fever that we are here.

“_7th Nov._—At Newbuildings with Cockerell. Delcassé has made his climb

down about Fashoda, certainly a pitiful one, which reduces France almost

to the level of a second-class Power. The Emperor William meanwhile has

been touring it in Syria, and making speeches at Jerusalem. I fancy his

concurrence with English policy has been bought by some promise of

recognizing him as the Sultan’s protector with a future reversion of the

Holy Land. Our Jingo papers, especially the ‘Chronicle,’ have been

clamouring for the annexation of Egypt, or at least the declaration of

an English Protectorate, but that is probably not within the limits of

Lord Salisbury’s present agreement with Wilhelm.

“_9th Nov._—Left Newbuildings for Gorsey End, near Lyndhurst, for the

winter, driving in beautiful weather by Rogate, where we are being

entertained by Hugh Wyndham and his daughter Florence, stopping also to

call on Charles Wyndham at Midhurst. Hugh, talking of the agreement with

Waddington made in 1878 at the Berlin Congress in regard to Tunis, told

me that he had had it from Odo Russell that the thing was transacted at

the British Embassy. Odo Russell had said to him, ‘You must be prepared

for some startling moves,’ and told him what had happened. This was soon

after the agreement.” [Sir Hugh Wyndham had been Secretary of the Berlin

Embassy at the time.]

The whole of this winter I spent in the New Forest, having been advised

to go there for my health, as I could get easy hunting there, and so be

much out of doors. My principal friend in the neighbourhood was Sir

William Harcourt at Malwood, whom I saw frequently, but otherwise I was

much cut off from political society, though I went up now and then to

London. At Lyndhurst I was busy writing my poem, “Satan Absolved.”

“_20th Nov. (Sunday)._—To luncheon at Malwood. Sir William in excellent

form, principally about the bishops, with whom he is now in violent

conflict. He narrated to us a conversation he had had with the Duke of

Devonshire as to the nomination to a bishopric. The Duke’s account of it

was this: ‘He had written two letters to Salisbury, recommending a

fellow, he couldn’t remember the fellow’s name, and Salisbury hadn’t

even answered. He had written because Courtney and another fellow, he

couldn’t remember his name either, had wanted it.’ On inquiry it had

turned out that the proposed nominee was Page Roberts, and Sir William

had taken an opportunity of asking Lord Salisbury why he hadn’t made

Page Roberts a Bishop. ‘The fact is,’ said Salisbury, ‘I thought they

were talking of Page Hopps, and we gave it to some one else.’ ‘That,’

said Sir William, ‘is the way they make bishops.’ Our luncheon was quite

a feast, as Lady Harcourt has a very good cook. Rawnsley and his wife

were there.

“_22nd Nov._—Knowles has returned me my article on ‘Fashoda,’ on the

plea of its being too late, and that, besides, it would not be wise to

publish it, doubtless the true reason.

“_28th Nov._—Cromer has consented to give Judith away at her wedding if

I am prevented from being present. This is as it should be, for

personally I have always been on pleasant terms with Cromer, much as we

may tilt politically.

“_3rd Dec._—To London, where I saw George Wyndham. He tells me they had

a tremendous dinner a few nights ago, all the Under-Secretaries, at

which, after the consumption of much champagne, they toasted each other

as ‘the youth of the day and the future Cabinet of 1910.’ All were

present except Austin Chamberlain, who had been run over by a cab.

“_8th Dec._—Basil Blackwood came to breakfast with me in Mount Street,

just back from a shooting expedition in East Africa. He gave me an

account of it, as well as of Hubert Howard’s death. He and Hubert had

been very close friends. Basil is a nice youth, not a little like what

his father was when he was young.

“_10th Dec._—I have been buying books with Cockerell’s help at Morris’s

sale, his ‘Gerarde’s Herbal,’ a Berner’s ‘Froissart,’ and Malory’s ‘King

Arthur,’ the Copland edition of 1557, the last a book to lie always on

one’s table.

“Last night there was given a great private dinner to George Curzon, at

which most of the ladies who are our friends were present. [This was a

farewell dinner to Lord Curzon of Kedlestone on his departure for India

as Viceroy. I have an amusing letter from Curzon of that date, as member

of the Crabbet Club, excusing himself for accepting an office which,

according to our Rules, entailed a resignation of membership, but I

cannot print it here.] Both George Wyndham and Sibell gave me an account

of the feast. He, George Wyndham, recited a poem he had written for the

occasion. Hugo (Elcho) proposed Curzon’s health in a speech which George

declared beat even his (Hugo’s) record, and Curzon’s reply was also most

amusing. No pressmen were invited except Harry Cust, if he can still be

called one. It is described in the evening papers as a ‘congregation of

the Order of the Souls.’

“_16th Dec._—The event of the day is Harcourt’s retirement from the

leadership of the Liberal party. The true reason of his retirement is

the conversion of the whole party, or at least the whole Liberal Press,

to Jingo Imperialism. I wrote yesterday to congratulate him on his

published letter. To-day I have a line from him in answer. He says:

‘_Anche io_ have escaped out of gaol and am a free man.’ I hope now that

his tongue and Morley’s will be let loose to attack the militarism of

the day, of which Rosebery is the most outrageous champion. They will

have plenty to say and will give dissentients heart. There must be a few

lovers of liberty left in England, but for the moment they have no voice

more powerful than Labouchere’s. I consider Harcourt’s retirement a

distinct gain for liberty, if not for Liberalism.

“_17th Dec._—To London on business, and dined at the ‘Travellers,’ where

I was introduced by d’Estournelles to his new Ambassador, Cambon. I had

a long talk with the latter about desert travelling, and my adventure at

Siwah. Having mentioned that I was at Paris at the time of the late

crisis they asked me ‘which crisis,’ and I without thinking said ‘the

crisis of Fashoda.’ Cambon’s countenance fell at the word, and he

changed the conversation, though heaven knows I meant no harm. It is

arranged between d’Estournelles and me that I should get up a little

dinner at Mount Street for the Ambassador after the _Jour de l’An_, but

I fear I should disappoint d’Estournelles’ expectations. He counts,

among other inducements, upon my inviting Lady Galloway, who, being Lord

Salisbury’s sister, he thinks would interest Cambon. He wants Cambon to

make a good impression in English society. When he finds out how little

I am a _persona grata_ with the Government he will probably be less keen

for my assistance; however, that is their affair. [N.B. Cambon had been

sent to England after the Fashoda affair and the change of Ministry at

Paris, expressly to bring about a good understanding between France and

England, and in this he succeeded admirably. I believe it to have been

due to him more than to any other Frenchman, except perhaps Delcassé,

that the Entente Cordiale was come to four years later with the

withdrawal of all French opposition to England in Egypt. It is probable

that at the time of Fashoda an understanding was come to between Lord

Salisbury and Delcassé for the partition of North Africa. England to

have the East, France the West, Germany and Russia to be eventually

allowed the spoil of Turkey and Persia. The full development of the plan

being put off till the death, when it should happen, of Sultan Abdul

Hamid.]

“_19th Dec._—Old Lord Napier and Ettrick, Mark’s father, is dead. He was

a man of distinction, and no small ability. He was for many years in

diplomacy, and was then sent as Governor to Madras. The last I saw of

him was six or seven years ago, when I was at the Glen. His chief

achievement in life was the making of Mark.

“_26th Dec._—I have been staying at the Danes for Christmas, a family

party. To-day we drove over to North Mimms, to make acquaintance with

Loulou’s _fiancée_. North Mimms, a beautiful old place, but turned

inside out by a Victorian architect, who has been let loose on it

regardless of expense. Loulou’s new relations are Americans, the young

lady simple and unaffected, and tenderly attached to Loulou.”

I ended the year 1898 at Ockham with Ralph and Mary, more happily than

was its beginning. “The first four months were of exceeding physical

pain with the final breakdown, followed by a great contentment of mind

and body. That great act of abdication, ‘the taking to one’s deathbed,’

teaches one the value of the smaller pleasures of life. Intellectually I

still feel growth, and while growth continues one is not yet old.

Judith’s marriage has been an event of supreme satisfaction.

“_1st Jan._, 1899.—I am back at Lyndhurst. Lady Lytton tells me that the

Queen was greatly opposed to Neville’s marrying before he came of age,

and that her Majesty is constantly inquiring about the date of the

wedding, and has been soothed by being told that Neville will at least

be twenty on his wedding day.

“_4th Jan._—To Malwood, where I had a long talk with Sir William

Harcourt about the line he ought to take as an independent member of the

Opposition. He told me that he intended to bring forward the whole anti-

imperial case on grounds of economy. I told him that I did not think he

would get much following that way. Nobody cared enough about economy to

be enthusiastic over it. I thought he would have more success if he gave

his opposition a moral basis, exposing the demoralization of England

through the violence and bloodshed Imperialism entailed, the fraud,

lying, and hypocrisy, and the growth of militarism. Carried away by my

argument I pressed him so closely that he almost lost his temper, and as

a final word said: ‘Well, what you say may be true, but this is my plan,

and I mean to stick to it.’ Lady Harcourt, however, who was there, took

my side, and afterwards made me go with her upstairs to see her boy

Bobby, and repeat to him my argument. ‘It will do him good,’ she said,

‘for he is just at a moment of crisis when a very little may turn his

ideas one way or the other.’ I found the boy in bed with a cold, writing

his views on politics in a copy-book, and I turned my eloquence on him.

Old Sir William’s ill-humour was almost pathetic, and did not last long,

and Lady Harcourt said to me as we went upstairs, ‘He will not really

mind, and he will remember what you said when you are gone.’ Really

there never was a moment, when a man with convictions and some knowledge

of foreign affairs, could do more in England.

“Bennett, one of the military correspondents in the Soudan, has written

a powerful article in the ‘Contemporary,’ exposing the barbarity of the

war, about which all the country has been shouting triumph, and about

Gordon College at Khartoum. The British public are paying to ease their

consciences for the incredible slaughter of Omdurman.

“_6th Jan._—The run of the season with the New Forest deer hounds, in

pursuit of an old roebuck from Lady Cross Lodge right across the open

heath of Beaulieu plain, very fast to the far side, when he turned back

and again faced the open. About the middle of the plain, on his second

journey, he lay down, and jumped up in the middle of the hounds, racing

away for two miles in view with the pack at his heels to Hackett Pond,

where he took the water and swam for ten minutes with the pack after

him, and out again, and was run into and killed in the open. They say

they never had so good a run before. It lasted seventy-five minutes. I

was riding Mahruss, who carried me in the front rank all the way, the

only heavy weight that went fairly with the hounds.

“_7th Jan._—Cromer has made a speech to the Soudanese Sheykhs at

Khartoum, declaring they will now be ruled by the Queen of England and

the Khedive of Egypt. This lets the cat out of the bag. I was quite sure

the thing was in contemplation from the reticence of Lord Salisbury. All

these weeks he has been allowing the rest of his Cabinet to make

altruistic speeches about the Soudan having been ‘reconquered for

Egypt,’ but has been mute himself, remaining by his telegram to Monson.

The high moral nature of the transaction has been appealed to by every

newspaper in England notwithstanding Bennett’s exposure of the

atrocities of the campaign. I have written to congratulate Bennett on

his courage.

“_13th Jan._—Indoors all day writing about the new settlement in the

Soudan. It is ludicrous to follow the antics of the so-called Liberal

papers, the ‘Chronicle,’ the ‘Westminster Gazette,’ and the rest, in

their endeavour to make the seizure of the Upper Nile for England fit in

with their moral heroics about England’s duty of ‘reconquering it for

Egypt.’ What they don’t understand is that Lord Salisbury was very

quietly playing with them. He was delighted at the time of his ultimatum

to France to get the support of the Radical Press, and he let them run

on to their hearts’ content about England being Egypt’s trustee and the

Nile being Egypt and Egypt being the Nile—that was Rosebery’s phrase—and

it pleased him that the Nonconformist conscience should call heaven and

earth to witness what a moral and unselfish nation we were, and how

abominable were the French, who would pilfer Egypt’s inheritance. He was

glad to get the support of the Exeter Hall people and the bishops and

the clergy by letting them boast of the evangelical missions they were

going to start at Khartoum, all the while having up his sleeve this card

of Kitchener’s, English Viceroyalty of the Soudan in the name of Her

Gracious Majesty and a strictly Mohammedan Protectorate. The world are

fools, or rather, they ask to be deceived, and deceived they are. The

‘Chronicle’ will very soon come fully into line with the ‘Telegraph,’

and find it an exceedingly clever trick to have made a cat’s-paw of the

Egyptian Government in English interests. What can be more amusing than

to add the Upper Nile to the British Empire, and make the Egyptian

fellah pay for his conquest and maintenance, the profit being wholly for

England. Meynell tells me that when Sir William Butler (who is his

brother-in-law) met Kitchener on his arrival at Dover, he said to him,

‘Well, if you do not bring down a curse upon the British Empire for what

you have been doing, there is no truth in Christianity.’ Kitchener only

stared.

“_14th Jan._—Drove to Abbotsworthy to stay with George Lefevre,[19]

where we have had a deal of talk about politics. Lefevre is of opinion

that Rosebery’s retirement from the Leadership of the Liberal party was

resolved on by him with the idea that he could get Lord Salisbury’s

succession, if not as Unionist Prime Minister, at least as Unionist

Foreign Secretary. This is likely enough. We went to look at St. Cross

and the Cathedral at Winchester. The old ‘brother’ at St. Cross, one

Joyce, who acted as showman, was describing to us the mechanism of an

ancient confessional in the wall of a church there, and I asked him, ‘Do

you hold, sir, with the modern practice of confession?’ His answer was

amusing. ‘Modern confession, sir. I was taking a lady round the church

last week, and when we came to this ’ole in the wall, I invited her

inside. “Now, Madam,” I said, “have you nothing to confess to me?” And

she was a pretty woman, sir. “I confess,” said she, “that I ’ave been in

’ere alone with you quite long enough.” That’s my idea of modern

confession and you may let Sir William ’Arcourt know it with my

compliments.’

“_15th Jan._—Back to Lyndhurst, stopping on the way at Malwood for

luncheon. Sir William is immensely pleased with my confessional story,

which exactly hits his humour. Loulou was there, and Bobby, the younger

boy, and we had a great discussion about poetry and poets. I expounded

to them the glories of Malory’s ‘Morte d’Arthur.’

“_20th Jan._—The papers give the text of a convention made between

Cromer and Boutros Pasha—a leonine convention indeed. The text, however,

shows it less of an annexation than Cromer’s speech suggested. As far as

I can read its meaning it would become legally inoperative if England

evacuated Egypt, for it provides only ‘a system for the administration

and making of laws . . . giving effect to the claims which have accrued

to Her Britannic Majesty’s Government by right of conquest to share in

the present settlement and future working and development of the said

system of legislation.’ This can hardly be construed into sovereign

rights. Nevertheless, it is practically as bad as possible for Egypt,

for it will saddle on her the whole cost and labour of the war of

reconquest not yet completed and make her budget responsible for Soudan

deficits.

“_21st to 23rd January._—At Hewell. I have made friends here with Rowton

and have talked Egyptian and other matters over with him. He is, of

course, a Jingo of the Jingoes, as becomes a courtier of the Queen and

Disraeli’s once private secretary, but he can talk without asperity even

on the delicate subject of the British flag at Khartoum.

“_2nd Feb._—To-day is Judith’s wedding day. I came up to London and

joined Edith Lytton and the family dinner party, where we drank the

health of bride and bridegroom. Edith had with her a telegram from Her

Majesty expressing sympathy, and later another saying that she had

telegraphed to Lord Cromer asking for news of the wedding and giving his

reply, ‘_marriage duly performed_.’ This Her Majesty had underlined to

show, Edith explained, her disappointment at the baldness of the answer.

The Queen, she said, would have liked something gushing, but, of course,

Lord Cromer treated it merely in an official way and would go to no

expense. Both telegrams were signed ‘V.R.I.,’ which, Edith says, is

always Her Majesty’s signature now. I thought the ‘I’ had been reserved

for communications east of Suez, but the Queen is pleased with her title

of Empress and uses it always. She has shown great interest in the

marriage all through.

“_7th Feb._—The ‘Times’ publishes my Soudan letter in a prominent place,

and as to-day is the opening of Parliament it may perhaps do good. Nubar

Pasha is dead, and they are giving him a public funeral at Alexandria,

while all the English papers are full of his praises, yet this wily

Armenian arrived penniless in Egypt fifty years ago and has made four

millions out of his various tenures of office. For this he is applauded

by the London Press as an Egyptian patriot and statesman. He was unable,

I believe, so much as to talk Arabic.

“_12th Feb._—Lord Salisbury has given certain explanations in the House

of Lords about the Soudan which are better than nothing, but the

Opposition is too flabby to push him farther than he condescends to go.

“_16th Feb._—Called at 44, Belgrave Square, where Mary, Pamela and

Madeline are sitting for their portraits in a group to Sargent. It is

being painted in the drawing-room. In the background there will be their

mother’s portrait by Watts.

“_19th Feb. (Sunday)._—Faure, the French President, is dead, and there

is a good deal of excitement over the event, but I do not anticipate

anything final at present. The chiefs of the Army would like to

overthrow the Republic, but in the absence of any popular candidate for

the throne, they are afraid to move. The rank-and-file, especially the

conscripts, would not follow them.

“_22nd Feb._—I have been helping to get up an agitation against the

Parliamentary grant of £30,000 to Kitchener, and questions have been

asked in the Commons. Brodrick admits the digging up of the Mahdi’s body

and the throwing it into the Nile, and they are bringing further

questions about the mutilation, that is to say, about young Bill

Gordon’s having cut the head off to keep as a ‘curio.’ The whole thing

is revolting—a piece of military revenge for the death of Gordon and the

defeat of Wolseley and excused now on the absurd plea of its having been

‘a necessity in view of the possibility of a fanatical revival.’ What

makes the desecration worse is that Sir Herbert Stewart’s grave had

remained all these years untouched in the desert where he fell, but the

Liberal front bench is ready to condone every horror, being more Jingo

than the Jingoes.

“_24th Feb._—To the House of Commons for the Soudan debate which was led

by Morley, ably and courageously. I heard Grey speak in good

parliamentary style, but without eloquence, the Tories applauding him.

[He had become Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs under Rosebery.]

“_26th Feb._—Morley’s speech reads well in the ‘Times,’ and is founded

for the most part on my letter published a fortnight ago. There is to be

a separate debate about the desecration of the Mahdi’s tomb.

“_1st March._—Gave a dinner to the two Ambassadors, Cambon and

Staal—with Margot, Lady Windsor, and Mrs. Benson for other guests; it

was very gay, thanks to Margot, who talked imperfect French with great

courage and volubility, and amused us all. Staal was as usual witty and

charming, and after dinner Cambon, who is a bit of a _poseur_, sat on a

sofa between two of the ladies, telling stories of Pierre Loti and his

fabulous love adventures. Loti, when at Constantinople, had made the

acquaintance of an Armenian lady of the half world, and on that slender

foundation of romance built up his tale of an intrigue with the Turkish

inmate of a harem of the Eyub quarter who died of jealousy for his sake.

So successfully had he done it that he had convinced himself of its

truth, and to the point that when he returned to Constantinople, and was

staying at the French Embassy, he came in one day from a walk, and

assured Cambon, who knew the true story, and Loti knew that he knew it,

that he had just been to weep in the spot in the Eyub quarter where he

had been so happy. He had found the quarter burnt, and the house reduced

to ashes. Cambon assured us that Loti did this in all good faith, having

been able to persuade himself to believe in these _bonnes fortunes_ as

things that had actually happened.

“_8th March._—Lunched at the French Embassy. Staal, Maxse and his

daughter, Margot and others. I asked Staal, who sat next to me, how it

was that Tolstoy managed to remain on in Russia, untroubled by the

Government. He said it was entirely due to the great literary position

he held in Europe. It was thought wiser to tolerate him at home than to

send him away to exile.

“_9th March._—George Wyndham came to see me this morning, and I lunched

with him and Madeline Adeane later at Belgrave Square, where we saw the

first sketching in of Pamela’s head which Sargent had just done in a

couple of hours’ work. It is wonderful as a likeness and as a bit of

rapid execution, giving just her playful prettiness, and the peculiar

wave of her hair, a sketch in the manner of Velasquez, with exactly his

strong touches, unintelligible when looked close into, but alive when

seen at a distance. Mary, too, has been sketched in not unsuccessfully,

and Madeline less well. It should make a remarkable picture, probably

Sargent’s best. He is to be allowed no licence with the magentas and

mauves he loves. I met him on the doorstep as he was going out, a rather

good looking fellow in a pot hat, whom at my first sight I took to be a

superior mechanic.

“_10th March._—By early train to Guildford to sit to Watts. (It had been

arranged for me by Madeline Wyndham that Watts should do my portrait, a

special favour he accorded her in deference to their long friendship.)

The sittings were to be at his house, about three miles off by the

Hogsback, an ornamental, not too ornamented cottage of the usual

Victorian kind, which he has christened ‘Limnerslease,’ much to his

friends’ amusement, Cockerell tells me. Burne-Jones used to call it

‘Dauber’s Den,’ ‘Painter’s Palette,’ and other nicknames. The old man,

well and alert, went to work at once on me, talking without interruption

the whole time, and sometimes, finding me a good listener, with

eloquence, though he complained of having been unable all his life to

hit the right word in conversation, or even in writing. He is by nature,

he says, a poet, but without the gift of expressing himself in any form

of words. That is why he has worked all his life to express himself in

colour, which after all he can only do imperfectly. He cares for his

art, and desires to do it well, but principally as a means to his end of

giving form to his ideas. He also wished to make these ideas

intelligible to the widest circle of disciples, and for this reason he

has refused to connect his art with any special epoch or any special

creed. His figures are ideal figures, which will suit all ages and all

beliefs. He once received a letter from a woman in Australia, who wrote

to tell him that as a girl in Manchester she had found life so hard, she

had intended to die, but by accident had seen a photograph of his ‘Love

and Death,’ which had consoled her, and now she was married, and

prosperous, and happy. She kept the photograph always hanging in front

of her bed. This he said was a greater satisfaction to him than any

success he had had merely as a painter.

“To some extent he blames Burne-Jones for being too much a man of one

age. He (Burne-Jones) had locked himself up in the fourteenth century

and had stayed there. Except for this he spoke warmly of him and of his

charming qualities. He told how he had set Burne-Jones once on horseback

at Little Holland House, starting him to canter round a ride he had made

there, but he forgot some hurdles which had been put up and poor Burne-

Jones fell off, nor would he ever be persuaded to mount again. Of

Morris, he spoke with less enthusiasm, and I fancy there was a coolness

between them in later years, though formerly he had seen much of them

both. His heroes are Ruskin, Carlyle, and Rossetti, and he quoted ‘The

lost days of my Life’ as the finest of all Sonnets, an opinion which has

long been mine. He does not think very highly of Rossetti as a painter,

rather as a poet. Millais and Leighton were his two special friends

among artists, and how many charming and beautiful women! He spoke more

than once of Lady de Vesci. The handsomest head he had ever painted was

Sir Henry Taylor’s, but his best man’s portrait he considers to be

Burne-Jones’, his best woman’s portrait, Madeline Wyndham’s. He sets

greater store, however, on his allegorical subjects than on his

portraits.

“_11th March._—To Limnerslease again, having slept the night at Milford.

To-day we talked much on the subject of the destruction of the weak

races by the strong, and, like so many people nowadays, while deploring

it Watts excused it as inevitable, a law of nature and the fulfilment of

destiny. I thought he must have been talking about this to Gerald

Balfour, whose portrait he has just been painting, but he told me how he

had hardly had any conversation with Gerald during their sittings. With

me he has talked uninterruptedly, sometimes leaving his work for five

minutes altogether to explain and illustrate his arguments. Two of his

illustrations I remember. Speaking of the ritualistic controversy and

the necessity of ceremony in all religions, ‘Ceremony,’ he said, ‘is the

substance of religious belief, it is what outline is in a picture, it

ought not to be required, indeed it does not exist in nature, but it is

often impossible to understand what is meant without it.’ This seemed to

me a particularly good illustration. Again, speaking of the part reason

plays in our religious ideas, ‘Here,’ he said, pointing to his

forefinger, ‘is sentiment, here is faith, here is charity, here is hope,

all four fingers stand together on more or less equal terms, yet they

can grasp nothing without this,’ bending down his thumb, ‘which is

reason.’ He was intensely pleased when I applauded and said he had

always thought it good.

“_12th March (Sunday)._—At Newbuildings, gathering the first spring

flowers, which I am going to colour in my Gerarde’s Herbal, the one

bought at Morris’s Sale.

“I have concluded the purchase of Fernycroft in the New Forest from Lord

Montagu, 31 acres of woodland. It formed part of the hereditary lands of

Beaulieu Abbey, an outlying croft where the monks kept their cows.

“_14th March._—Entertained York Powell with others at dinner. I have

known him since 1863, when he was a boy, and I a quite young man,

travelling in the Pyrenees, but we have hardly met since, though in

correspondence now and then on literary and political subjects, where we

mostly agree. He was made Professor of History at Oxford, some years

ago, and is a good fellow, with a larger mind than Dons usually possess.

“_17th March._—Again at Limnerslease. Mrs. Watts took me to see Mrs.

Hichens’ house close by, where there is a portrait of old Prinsep, the

finest Watts ever did. Indeed, I think it almost the finest portrait

ever painted in England. The house is set under a chalk pit looking

south, and screened from all cold winds. Princess Christian came in, but

seeing strangers, decamped.

“_24th March._—The Government has published a meagre parliamentary paper

upon the doings at Omdurman, and the desecration of the Mahdi’s tomb. Of

course everything is denied, or made to appear to be denied, except the

fact, which could not be concealed, of the throwing of the Mahdi’s body

into the Nile. As to the killing of the wounded, the denial does not

include the general order which, without doubt, was given of killing men

lying on the ground in battle after they had fallen. This is thought to

be excused by the story, much exaggerated, of wounded men getting up and

firing at our soldiers, but the true reason of the slaughter is that

Kitchener was campaigning on the cheap, and did not wish to be

encumbered with prisoners, and especially wounded prisoners. This, and

the desire to have ‘a record bag’ as a revenge for Gordon. The

destruction of the tomb is a crime of which Kitchener meanly excuses

himself by saying he was away when it was done, though he had given the

order, and for the political reason of preventing the tomb’s becoming a

centre of pilgrimage, and so of fanatical feeling. This is mere fustian.

The thing was done to emphasize the revenge taken, young Gordon,

Gordon’s nephew, having been sent for from Cairo expressly for the job,

and given command of the bombardment during the battle, with orders to

fire at the tomb. Afterwards he was intrusted with the blowing-up of the

ruins and the violation of the grave. Kitchener admits that ‘the skull

was preserved and handed over to me for disposal,’ which leaves it to be

implied that young Gordon performed the act of mutilation.

“_27th March._—To Brighton to see old Herbert Spencer at his house in

Percival Terrace. I found him lying on a sofa in a dressing-gown, with

slippers on of an ornamental feminine kind. He began by talking for ten

minutes about his health, and explaining that his fresh, rosy colour was

no sign of health; then he got round to the subject of my visit, the

militarisms and brutalities of the day, the idealization of football and

all games of force, the rehabilitation of Napoleon and other war-making

scoundrels who had long been condemned as such, with the rewriting of

history to suit the agressive ideas now in fashion. He repeated what he

had said in his first letter to me, that if he did not believe there

would be a return to humane doctrines, it might be in a hundred, it

might be in two hundred or three hundred years, he would not move a hand

to prevent the destruction of the whole human race. He applauded what I

had said in writing to him of its being probably necessary that we

should be first beaten and invaded here in England by a foreign enemy,

and he thought it would be the best thing that could happen. ‘I am quite

as pessimistic,’ he said, ‘as you are about the present, only I foresee

a change in the remote future.’ ‘In the remote future,’ I replied, ‘it

will be too late, everything that is interesting and beautiful and happy

in the world will have been destroyed. The world will be inhabited then

only by the ugly and dull, and miserable white races.’ This made him

talk of the South Sea Islanders, the Burmese, and other unspoiled

people. He said he had intended writing to William Watson to suggest a

poem on the gradual degradation of a South Sea Island community by the

missionary and the trader. Watson had not much backbone in his poetry,

but he thought he could do this. Trade competition was only another form

of war waged by the strong against the weak, less abominable, perhaps,

than fire and sword. For this reason the Czar’s peace proposals should

be supported, though they would not result in any real cessation of

civilized aggression. We talked also about race hatred and the influence

women had in fostering it, and I told him about India. He showed me some

beautiful photographs he had had sent him from Burmah, of the happy poor

people there, and contrasted them with the faces of our own poor. Then

complaining of being tired, for he had been talking very energetically,

he sent me down to have my luncheon with the two ladies who look after

him, a housekeeper and a young lady who plays the piano to him. They are

both new in the house, and he seems to have no relations or belongings

except these two, and they are strangers. After luncheon I went upstairs

again, but Spencer soon tired of talk, and, ringing the bell, he sent

for the young pianist, whom he directed to play Masaniello and a piece

by Purcell, which she did for twenty minutes. She did this very

nervously, as he was continually interrupting her, begging her to play

either a little faster or a little slower. This done, we fell to talk

again about the domestication of animals. While talking he occasionally

gets excited, and jumps up from his sofa and walks hurriedly about the

room, until suddenly recollecting himself and his health, he stops. He

explained to me that he had been an invalid since he was a young man,

and he will be seventy-nine next Tuesday, and has a right to be careful.

“On the whole I am rather disappointed with Spencer. He is so very dry,

and so much wrapped up in himself, his ailments, his work and his ideas,

to the exclusion, it seems to me, of individual sympathies. His mind is

clear and logical, he expresses himself well, but without eloquence or

such power as compels attention; not once was I able to feel myself in

the presence of a _great_ man, only of a very well-informed one, a

pedagogue and able reasoner. There was nothing in him of the softening

character which old age so often gives, and which is so touching. Still

I am glad to have spent this day with him, for his is one of the great

names of our time, and his work has been great. His rooms in Perceval

Terrace are cheerful, facing the sea, and he seldom moves out, the

ladies tell me, except for a drive in the afternoon, nor does he often

see people, so I may take his asking me to visit him as a very high

compliment. He has promised to send me a copy of his volume on

Sociology. At three I left him and walked back to the station, and so

home to Newbuildings, glad not to be a philosopher.

“_12th April._—Yesterday and the day before I have been entertaining

Prince and Princess Sherbatoff, showing them the stud, with her brother,

Count Strogonoff, both highly intelligent Russians, and breeders of Arab

horses.” [Sherbatoff had travelled in our footsteps in Mesopotamia, and

had started an Arab stud on his estate somewhere between Moscow and the

Ural mountains, on the same principle of thorough breeding as our own.]

“Sir Wilfrid Lawson sends me the heads of a speech he intends making on

the Soudan vote. It reads like the speech of Balaam, and I have answered

him: ‘If English Liberals and humanitarians leave it to the Irish to

express disapproval of Kitchener’s ways with the wounded and his

treatment of the Mahdi’s head, I can only say that they had better vote

in silence. You praise Kitchener for his deeds as a soldier. It is all

the argument needed to justify the parliamentary grant. Kitchener did

not make the policy of the war, for that he is not responsible, but he

was responsible for the brutal way he conducted it, a brutality which

makes his success, no very great one, a disgrace.’

“My final sitting to Watts. The old man was more agreeable and

interesting than ever, and we parted on terms of real affection. The

portrait is a fine one, the best, he said, he ever painted, but this is

more than the truth, for it cannot compare with his great achievements

of thirty and forty years ago. Our talk has never flagged for a moment

during the sittings. I told him of my visit to Herbert Spencer, and

asked whether he had ever painted him? ‘How could you expect me,’ he

said, ‘to paint a man with such an upper lip?’ He has no opinion of the

philosopher as a man, and declares him to be wholly selfish.

“_18th April._—The first nightingale.

“Young Oliver Howard came to dine and sleep, and to consult me about a

hare-brained expedition he was bent on to Jerabúb and Kufra. I strongly

advised him to turn his thoughts elsewhere. It is quite enough that his

brother Hubert should have got killed in Africa without his doing the

same, and for even a stupider reason. Neither he nor any of his proposed

companions have had the smallest experience of the North African desert

or know a word of Arabic, though one of the party has been in Somaliland

shooting lions. For his father’s and mother’s sake I dissuaded him.

“_22nd April._—Anne returned from Egypt, having left Judith and Neville

at Paris.

“_27th April._—With Cockerell to see the new mosaics at St. Paul’s about

which there has been angry correspondence in the ‘Times.’ They are not

in the best style of decoration, but the over brilliancy of the mosaics

will soon blacken in the London smoke and tone down to the rest.

“On my way back from London in the evening we travelled by accident with

D——, who as usual was full of interesting talk. He told us, with a

little pressing and on promise not to give him away, the true history of

the Mahdi’s head. The mutilation of the body seems all to have come of a

mere bit of rowdy nonsense on the part of certain young English

officers. He says it has long been a custom with the members of White’s

Club who are in the Army to bring back trophies from any wars they may

be engaged in and present them to the club. He, D——, had jokingly

proposed to E—— W—— to bring back the Mahdi’s toe-nails from the coming

campaign. Kitchener, on this hint, seems to have fancied having the

Mahdi’s head for himself to make an inkstand of, and gave Gordon the

order to dig the body up and keep the head for him. This accordingly was

done, and at the same time finger-nails were taken by some of the young

officers, but they got talking about it at Cairo and hence the trouble.

He says he had the whole account of the thing in detail from W——, and

that Kitchener received the head from Gordon, who was charged with the

destruction of the tomb, and he actually had it (he, Kitchener) as an

inkstand until Cromer wrote about it, when he ‘put it behind the fire.’

D—— was quite incredulous about its having been buried at Wady Halfa, or

anywhere else. It was just put ‘behind the fire.’

‘He gave an interesting account of Kitchener, whom he had known, he

said, ever since they were both together at Woolwich, before the French

war. He, D——, was at a preparatory military school, reading for the

military college, but Kitchener had passed in. Kitchener was ‘a rough

young devil,’ and he and another cadet got into a row, partly about a

woman, partly about money, and Kitchener’s father, who was poor, refused

to pay up for his son. The son, consequently, ran away with the other

boy, and was tried by court-martial as a deserter. The two went to

France and enlisted in the French army and fought in the war in the Army

of the North, and Kitchener got some credit for his handling of a

mitrailleuse on one occasion, and eventually, when the war was over,

came back to England and got old Linthorn Simmons, then the head of

Woolwich School, to forgive and take him back, and he got his

commission. ‘But,’ said D——, ‘he always was what I have said, and did

not know how to behave.’ His conduct afterwards to the Khedive proved

this. He was, however, a wonderful organizer, though a bad general. He

had very nearly lost a battle at Atbara by his clumsy handling of the

troops, and again at Omdurman, when he had wheeled the Egyptian army in

such a manner as to place it between the Dervishes and the English

contingent, so that these last were unable to take any part in the

firing. Now he had been given absolute power in the Soudan, and was

using it in the most arbitrary way. When Carlisle went up to Khartoum to

visit the grave of his son Hubert, Kitchener ordered him back

immediately he had performed this duty. He would not hear of Carlisle’s

staying longer than the second day.

“_3rd May._—Dined at the Centenary of the Sussex Club, a piece of local

patriotism out of my usual way; indeed, it is twenty-five years since I

dined with the Club. There were ninety-three members present, the Duke

of Norfolk presiding, who did the duties simply and well. I sat between

Henry Campion of Danny and Brown of Holmbush. They asked me to take the

Chair at their next dinner, a thing which would have entailed a speech

on me at this one, but I managed to get out of it. My father was one of

the first members, having been elected in 1808.

“_18th May._—Yesterday I was in London and met my friend Harry

Brand,[20] just back from Australia, where he has been Governor of a

colony. He found it dull work among people without literature, art, or

culture of any kind, except a taste for bad music. He was offered to

stay on as Governor-General, but wisely refused. Harry and I are

contemporaries and we swore, long ago, the oath of brotherhood, so I

have invited him to take up his residence in Mount Street with me till

his country place, The Hoo, becomes vacant in August.

“_19th May._—Lunched with George Wyndham at Willis’s Rooms. He told me

of a book young Winston Churchill is publishing, blurting out all kinds

of inconvenient truths about the Soudan campaign. The desecration of the

Mahdi’s tomb Winston calls ‘a foul deed,’ as indeed it was.

“_26th May._—I have written to Morley on the Kitchener case, as he is

taking it up publicly and has made a speech on it at Lydney. The Liberal

newspapers, however, are afraid of touching the matter, and the ‘Daily

News’ burks this portion of his speech.

“_27th May._—I have finished my poem, ‘Satan Absolved,’ and feel more

content with life in consequence, having the sense of having done all I

could, and having made my individual protest against the abominations of

the Victorian Age. The 24th was the Queen’s birthday, Her Majesty being

now eighty. There is a foolish letter in the ‘Times’ pointing out the

wonderful fulfilment of a prophecy of Sidney Smith’s, who, sixty years

ago, exhorted her Majesty to make it the boast of her life to avoid war

and to have it on her conscience to say, ‘I have made no orphans or

widows.’ This for one whose reign has seen whole races of beings

exterminated under her rule, and only the other day thanked God that her

troops had destroyed 30,000 Dervishes!

“_28th May._—George Wyndham came down last night to dine and sleep, and

to-day I drove him to Worthing, where we lunched with Henley. On our way

over the Downs we stopped and walked up to Chanclebury Ring, which

George had never done, and found some white dog-violets nearly at the

highest point. George has told me a good deal about the internal

rivalries in the Cabinet, which may well break out if anything happens

to Lord Salisbury. What he calls the reactionary Tories are headed by

Hicks Beach, but the young Tories, including himself, would not serve

under Beach. As long as Arthur Balfour is there they will follow him,

but if any accident sent him too out of the leadership they would revolt

from the main Tory body and form a third party of ultra-imperialists

with Chamberlain. About foreign politics George says that it is now

simply a triangular battle between the Anglo-Saxon race, the German

race, and the Russian, which shall have the hegemony of the whole world.

France he considers gone as a great Power, as much gone as Spain or

Austria, but the Emperor William means to be supreme overlord. He is

holding his hand for the moment till he can get an efficient navy, but

as soon as this is ready there will be a coalition against England. He,

George and the young Imperialists are going in for England’s

overlordship and they won’t stand half-measures or economy in pushing it

on.

“_3rd June._—Young Winston Churchill has made a speech in which, while

condemning the desecration of the Mahdi’s tomb, he excuses Kitchener on

the ground that it was done in his absence and that he was keeping

silence in order not to incriminate his subordinates. This throws the

odium of the deed on young Gordon, a quite innocent person, for both

Anne and Judith, who have been seeing Gordon and his wife at Cairo all

through the winter, assure me that he repudiates the deed with absolute

disgust. I have consequently written to the ‘Daily News’ telling the

truth about it.

“_4th June (Sunday)._—Lunched at Sir Wilfrid Lawson’s where I found John

Morley. We had a long two hours’ talk about the Kitchener vote which is

to come off to-morrow. Morley is very fierce against Kitchener, and I

gave him what help I could, besides what I wrote to him on the subject.

But he is hampered by all sorts of conditions. I urged him not to admit

the capture of Omdurman as a great feat of arms. It was a trumpery

affair for which to give a peerage, but he would not take this line,

though it really invalidates his whole argument. He is already in a

depressed frame of mind, for Campbell Bannerman is to second the vote,

and he thinks the result of the debate will be to make a further

cleavage between the two sections of the Liberal party, his own anti-

military section being left with a small minority. Even Harcourt’s vote

he thought was doubtful. I proposed to go and see Harcourt and try and

persuade him to vote against the grant, but Morley said, ‘If you do, for

God’s sake don’t tell him you have seen me,’ which shows how little

confidence in each other there is among the chiefs, even of the Anti-

Jingo section. He ended, however, by saying I might as well go to

Harcourt without mentioning him. I found Sir William at the Avondale

Hotel in capital spirits, but when, after some talk about the New

Forest, I mentioned the Mahdi’s head, I saw his countenance fall, and he

changed the subject to the Transvaal, where he thinks trouble is coming,

and then while we were talking about it he was suddenly called out, and

I did not see him again. I asked Lady Harcourt when we were alone to try

and get him to support Morley, but she said, ‘I have given up trying to

get him to do anything but what he chooses,’ which I take to mean he

will do nothing.

“_5th June._—Again to London where I found a note from Lady Harcourt,

telling me that what had interrupted my talk with Sir William yesterday

was the news brought him of Loulou having been taken seriously ill, so

that his wedding, which was fixed for to-morrow, has had to be put off.

“My letter about Kitchener is in the ‘Daily News’ neutralized according

to an editorial dodge by printing next to it what is headed as ‘The true

story’ in contradiction to mine. At first I was alarmed lest young

Gordon might have confessed, in spite of his denial, that he was the

real culprit, so I went down to Chelsea and lunched with my kinsman,

Gerald Blunt, at the Rectory (whose son’s wife was a sister of

Gordon’s), and he reassured me on this point. He says that Gordon’s

family are furious at the slur cast on him. Then at four to the House of

Commons. George had got me a good seat in the special gallery, and I

found myself among friends, Rennel Rodd, George Peel, Canon Wilberforce,

and others. Kitchener, who returned to England last night, was sitting

with Roberts in the Peers’ gallery. After the usual irrelevancies,

Arthur Balfour opened the debate in a brief speech recounting

Kitchener’s services, for the Opposition was quite unequal to the

occasion. Kitchener’s name had not been very warmly received, and it

would have been easy to appeal to the better feeling of the House,

though the result of the vote could not have been altered, but Campbell

Bannerman’s rising to second the vote, though he expressed himself

pretty strongly on the ‘vulgarity’ of the desecration of the tomb, put

things at once into a false position, and Morley who followed to oppose

it, with the strongest of possible cases, proved feeble beyond all

recorded feebleness. His arguments were weak to fatuity, and he gave

himself away over and over again till the House laughed at him. So much

was this the case that Balfour already found himself in sympathy with

the House before he rose to reply. He did this in a speech of great

skill and eloquence, which, as mere oratory, it was a relief to listen

to, and he succeeded even to taking a high moral line with the wretched

Morley, and in proving to him conclusively that Kitchener was absolutely

justified, indeed bound by every principle of right feeling to blow up

the tomb, dig up the body, chuck it into the Nile, and what he called

‘disperse the remains.’ Absurd as his argument was it was conclusive

with the House, and Morley had not even the wit to ask what became of

the poor head, or who was entrusted with the various operations. I doubt

if Morley will ever make a speech again in the House, I should not if I

were he.

“Personally I am not altogether dissatisfied with the result. We have

gained at least this, that we have forced Balfour and the Government and

the House of Commons to declare themselves in favour of the extreme

abominations of war, and have in so far exposed the hypocrisy of modern

England. It is better so than that the country should have it in its

power to boast that it did not approve, although it did the deed.

Kitchener got his £30,000, his money perish with him! I was glad to

notice that, except old Roberts, who came with him to the House, none of

his brother Peers in the gallery offered him a congratulation, or spoke

a word to him.

“_7th June._—In all the newspaper articles on the Kitchener Debate, not

one has the wit to see the flaw in Balfour’s argument. It rests entirely

on Kitchener’s assertion that he had the Mahdi’s tomb profaned, and the

body dispersed deliberately with a political intention, that of publicly

showing the Mohammedan world of Africa that the Mahdi was an impostor.

The untruth, however, of this is easily discoverable even in the meagre

Blue Book published. If it had been true it is certain Kitchener would

have reported the fact with the reasons to Cromer _at the time_, and

that Cromer would have reported them _at the time_ to the Foreign

Office. But though the thing happened in September, and though Kitchener

in the meanwhile had been back in London, and in personal communication

with everybody, including her gracious Majesty the Queen, the Government

professed to be ignorant of the facts until the month of February, the

earliest document in the Blue Book being one of February 17, when Cromer

sent home a communication of February 1 from Kitchener. Kitchener then

for the first time gives his explanation thus: ‘I would add,’ he says,

‘that my action regarding the tomb of Mohammed Achmet, the so-called

Mahdi, was taken after due deliberation, and prompted solely by

political considerations.’ How anybody at all conversant with the way in

which Blue Books are edited can be simple enough to believe in face of

this comparison of dates, that the ‘political considerations’ were not

an afterthought passes my understanding, yet is clear that Morley and

even the Irish overlooked the absurdity. The whole discussion in

Parliament was unreal, nobody wanted to believe, except perhaps Morley.

The Irish look on Kitchener with a sneaking regard, as in some measure

an Irishman, while Dillon has Catholic sympathies which prevent his

quite disapproving the crusade. In this way Balfour’s absurd argument

held its ground, and I suppose will hold it in history.

“_15th June._—The plot for annexing the Transvaal has taken a new

development. Chamberlain, to force the hand of the Government, has

published a despatch of Milner’s written on the 4th of May of the most

aggressive kind, and the newspapers are full of flame and fury, the

‘Daily News’ leading the chorus. They talk about Milner’s ‘cool and

impartial judgment’ just as if Milner had not been specially selected by

Chamberlain to put the job through. Milner was sent to Egypt ten years

ago to convert English Liberal opinion to the plan of remaining on there

instead of withdrawing the garrison, and having succeeded in that

mission he has been sent to the Cape to convert English Liberal opinion

to the idea of reannexing the Transvaal. Milner, though an excellent

fellow personally, is quite an extremist as an imperial agent, and his

journalistic experience on the ‘Pall Mall Gazette’ has given him the

length of John Bull’s foot very accurately, so that he is invaluable to

the Empire builders. Now there will certainly be war in South Africa.

They have tried every kind of fraud to get their way, but old Kruger has

been too astute for them, so they will try force. They seem to have

squared the German Emperor, France is in chaos, they think their

opportunity come. Chamberlain will not rest until he has Kruger’s head

on a charger. The Boers, however, will fight, and there is some chance

of a general war between the Dutch and the English in South Africa,

which may alleviate the condition of the only people there whose

interests I really care for in the quarrel, namely the blacks. It will

also be a beautiful exposure of our English sham philanthropy, if at the

very moment the Peace Congress is sitting at The Hague, we flout its

mediation and launch into an aggressive war. Anything is better than the

general hand-shaking of the great white thieves and their amicable

division of the spoils.

“I am now staying at Oxford with York Powell at Christ-Church. Powell is

an excellent good fellow, and seems to be much liked at Oxford in spite

of his somewhat heterodox views on politics, for he has a certain

Socialistic tendency enough to have widened his mind. We had a deal of

talk to-day, principally on poetry and literature, of which he has a

large knowledge. I told him, among other things, of my having consulted

Jowett fifteen years ago half seriously about the possibility of my

entering the University as an Undergraduate, and how he had answered me.

‘You could never pass the examination for Balliol, but might try Christ-

Church.’ ‘Insolent dog!’ said Powell, resenting the slur on his College.

It is lovely weather, the Christ-Church Meadow looking its best, and

while we sat on a bench in the Elm Avenue talking, a little redstart was

watching us. Then we went into the Cathedral to see the Burne-Jones

Morris windows. Prayers were going on for the Queen, the Prince of

Wales, and the Houses of Parliament, and they were intoning, ‘Give peace

in our time, O Lord.’ Then we dined in the hall, and talked with two

Dons, Myers and another, about Eastern travel and horses, till I got

away to bed.

“_21st June._—Lane will publish ‘Satan Absolved.’

“_28th June._—Herbert Spencer consents to have ‘Satan Absolved’

dedicated to him, but is in a terrible fright lest it should be found

out that he gave the idea of the poem, ‘on account,’ he says, ‘of the

_odium theologicum_ and the injury it might do to the spread of his

philosophy,’ so I have written a preface without exactly saying this,

though it is not very courageous of him to leave me alone in the coming

battle.

“_29th June._—Breakfasted with George and Sibell, who showed me two very

interesting letters from her son Bendor, describing the interview

between Kruger and his chief, Milner (whose private secretary he is) at

Bloemfontein. The letters were written actually during the conference,

and contained sketches of old Kruger, whom he described as very old and

infirm, and also very sly. He talked of Kruger as ‘bluffing.’ He writes

with a boy’s enthusiasm for his chief, and seems to be enjoying himself

greatly. I showed George my preface to ‘Satan Absolved,’ which he thinks

cannot fail to attract attention.

“On my way home by the late train I travelled as far as Dorking with

Harry Cust. I gave him my view of the way the Transvaal quarrel had been

engineered by Chamberlain and Milner. He professed to regard this as the

extreme of political scepticism. ‘A poet,’ he said, ‘should not be so

unbelieving in honesty.’ He was on his way down to Admiral Maxse’s,

where he was to meet Meredith and others.

“_8th July._—Our annual Arab Sale, an immense concourse of people, 380

sitting down for luncheon in the tent. Colonel Sdanovitch our principal

buyer for the Russian Government.

“_8th Aug._—I have been staying for the last few weeks at Fernycroft,

but to-day I went to London, where I found Hampden at my rooms in Mount

Street. He has been living there all the last month. We went in the

evening to see the Savage South African Show. It is a return to the

shows of Imperial Rome, minus the bloodshed, and is worth seeing as a

spectacle, though it is monstrous to look on at these captives brought

to London to make a Roman holiday. The white swaggerers who are given

the _beau rôle_ to play in the exhibition are of course disgusting, but

the black men managed to preserve their dignity and make the others look

foolish. The superiority of the black man over the white was throughout

conspicuous, and it did not need the patter of the whites on the stage

to explain that it was only their maxim guns that gave the latter their

victory.”

From 9th August to 16th August I was at Fernycroft, my new acquisition

in the New Forest, and after that on my annual summer driving tour once

more visiting St. Fagans, where, amongst others, I found Lord Rowton and

Sanderson, of the Foreign Office.

“_21st Aug._—Both are good company, and we have had much friendly

discussion of politics. Rowton tells me that never with his consent will

Dizzy’s Memoirs be published. He is light in hand and eminently

reasonable, full of amusing anecdotes, especially of his old master, and

of his lodging-house plans, an odd hobby, for it is not altogether a

charity, paying, he tells me, 4 per cent. on the capital, but it

doubtless does much good. Sanderson has talked freely on the Transvaal

quarrel, and expresses very moderate opinions. He believes in a pacific

arrangement. This in contradistinction to Windsor our host who, though

the quietest and most moderate of men on other topics, takes fire about

the Transvaal almost as a personal matter.

“_29th Aug._—Back at Fernycroft. Chamberlain has made another violent

speech, and it is clear now, as, indeed, it has been all through, that

he is forcing on a war with the Boers. The Liberal press is childish,

and there is practically no opposition. The Liberal party has swallowed

so many violences and so many diplomatic frauds in the last twenty years

that it may as well make up its mind to swallow this too. I, as an enemy

of Empire, shall say not a word.

“_1st Sept._—Partridge shooting with Mark Napier and Terence Bourke. I

shot well, the first time since my illness, killing twelve birds in as

many shots, but I am no longer keen for sport of any kind, and go out

principally as an old custom and to justify the expense of game

preserving. My logic about shooting here in England is, that it is the

only way of preventing the destruction of wild animals. If there was no

shooting, no one would be at the expense of paying gamekeepers, nor

would it be possible to prevent the rag-tag and bob-tail of the towns

from snaring and netting. The abolition of the game laws would mean the

extinction not only of all game, but of the small wild birds and beasts,

too, which enjoy the peace of the protected covers, while, if I did not

go out shooting myself, my gamekeepers would take no trouble to prevent

poaching, so I kill my few brace of partridges and pheasants, that the

rest may live in peace. In Egypt, where there are no game laws and no

birdsnesting, I never fire a gun.

“_3rd Sept. (Sunday)._—I have written a long letter to Frederic Harrison

about the Transvaal, apropos of his open letter to Lord Salisbury, which

has just been published. It is principally to explain to him that he is

mistaken if he really relies on Lord Salisbury to control Chamberlain,

or to do anything to prevent a war which he and the Queen desire. Also

to let him know what Milner’s position is in the affair.

“_11th Sept._—The world has gone mad over the verdict of guilty given in

the Dreyfus case. Of course it is abominable, but what did anyone

expect? It was clear from the time that Gallifet took office that there

would be a compromise of the case, and that the compromise would only be

that Dreyfus should be found guilty and then pardoned, and that be the

end of it. As to our virtuous selves, we are of course in a state of

splendid denunciation of our neighbour’s sin, this at the very moment

that we are pushing forward a new raid on the Boers, certainly no

smaller public iniquity, huge though the other may be. I drove to-day to

Malwood, but Sir William was away. Lady Harcourt would not hear of war

with the Transvaal.

“_16th Sept._—I have written again to Harrison about the Transvaal. He

answered me a week ago, urging me to write to the ‘Times’ in the same

sense as I had to him, and as to Salisbury saying, ‘It is well to

attribute virtue to a powerful man, even if he has it not. It must make

him doubt of it.’ This I cannot do, as I am certain the ‘Times’ would

not publish such a letter. I have explained to him how Buckle is one of

the gang acting with Rhodes, and how the Jameson Raid was concocted, so

to say, in the ‘Times’ office, and how there is no true peace party in

England. The only difference between Liberals and Conservatives in these

cases is, that while both rob with the cry of ‘your money or your life,’

the Liberals would like the money given up peaceably, the others after a

fight. I have told him that I do not believe in the possibility of any

change of opinion until we have got a good beating ourselves, and that

it is by no means impossible the Boers may make a formidable stand. In

any case it would be better for the world that they should be destroyed

fighting for their independence, than that they should be bullied or

cheated out of it.

“_18th Sept._—Fernycroft. A telegram came from Madeline Wyndham to say

she was coming to spend the day here. I accordingly met her at

Southampton. On the way there I read in the papers the Boers’ refusal of

Chamberlain’s ultimatum. A very dignified document it is, and one very

difficult for our people to answer. Morley had already a day or two ago

at a meeting in Manchester given away the whole Liberal case against the

war, publicly approving the Franchise demand, made by our Government on

the Transvaal, a mere red herring which the Radicals have run to in full

cry. The consequence is that the whole English press to-day is with the

Government and war is certain.” [N.B. The pretext of demanding the

franchise for the Outlanders in the Transvaal was a trap laid by Milner

especially for Morley and the Radicals who stepped into it precisely as

was intended. Once having approved the demand it was impossible for

these with any logic to disapprove the military steps taken to enforce

the demand on Kruger, and war became a necessity.]

“_21st Sept._—The news is all very ominous, indeed it will be a miracle

if war does not break out of itself on the frontier without further

waiting, and so give our Government the pretext it wants. Under the

circumstances I have resolved to publish my letter of the 2nd to

Harrison.

“Dreyfus has been pardoned; and so the case ends according to programme.

Our papers are in a righteous fury and Dreyfus swears he will continue

the struggle. But it will not end here. It has cost France dear—her

position on the Nile, her position as a great European Power, and her

good name in the world. Gallifet deserves well of his country for the

courage he has shown and the wisdom in ending it.

“_26th Sept._—Frederic Harrison writes that he wishes to see me about

the Transvaal. He warns me that I should have to modify my letter to him

if I sent it to the ‘Times.’ It was ‘violently actionable,’ he said, and

as I should have no defence, it would cost me £10,000 to have it printed

as it stood. But he hoped I will publish something. He also tells me as

a secret that, at his suggestion, the Queen of Holland has, he believes,

written to our gracious Majesty, begging her to intervene to stop the

war, which otherwise is inevitable. This would seem the best chance,

though nothing is more certain than that Queen Victoria has been a prime

mover in the Government policy. These military blood sheddings are not

displeasing to Her Majesty, and she has just allowed Kitchener to make

her a present of a white ass from Omdurman.

“On receipt of this letter I went to London and at Mount Street found

Hampden. He tells me Lord Salisbury has arranged with Portugal to take

immediate possession of Delagoa Bay.[21] This he has learned

confidentially from the Colonial Office. I then went down to Sutton

Place, in which delightful old house I now am staying with Frederic

Harrison and his brother.

“_27th Sept._—Sutton Place. I have had a long talk with Harrison about

the Transvaal, which we both think must fight unless indeed there is

royal interference in Holland. We have decided not to publish my letter

as being too libellous, also the time is a little gone by for it to do

much good. I read him my ‘Satan Absolved.’ He thinks it should be the

sensation of the year. He will write a review of it in the ‘Nineteenth

Century,’ refuting its attack on humanity and giving me an opportunity

of defending my ideas in prose. This will make it almost certainly a

success.

“The Harrisons, or rather, Sidney Harrison and his mother, have been

tenants of Sutton for twenty-five years. The house is much dilapidated

as to doors and windows, and is a fearfully cold house to inhabit even

in September, having, unlike most old houses, ridiculously small

fireplaces, which seem to have been always there. I slept in the west

wing, the only spare bedroom, big as the house is. I have known Sutton

Place as long ago as the year 1855, when it was occupied by my cousins,

the Lefevres. In those days there was a Catholic chapel in the east wing

to which we used to be sent on Sundays from West Horsley. The east wing

was then uninhabited, a melancholy romantic vacancy with a great

staircase, hung with family portraits mouldering on the walls. The

chapel was in an upper room used for mass on Sundays, according to an

old endowment. Now the wing has been restored and is occupied and the

chapel placed elsewhere.

“_29th Sept._—Back to London. Lady Lytton tells me that Kitchener is a

great favourite at Court. She was with the Queen and Kitchener when they

went to Netley Hospital, and was impressed with Kitchener’s manner to

the wounded soldiers. ‘What these Royal personages admire,’ she said,

‘is that he is such a stern man.’

“_30th Sept._—My cousin, Gerald Henry Blunt and his wife (she is General

Gordon’s niece and sister to Colonel Bill Gordon) is here at

Newbuildings to dine and sleep, and I have heard from her the whole

story of the digging up of the Mahdi at first hand, or rather, as her

brother told it her. ‘Bill,’ she said, ‘was entrusted with the

bombardment of the tomb from the gunboat on the river during the battle

of Omdurman, and after it he was ordered to blow up the ruined remains

of the dome, as being already shattered and unsafe. This he did, but it

was no part of his orders to interfere with the body of the Mahdi. It

was left untouched under the ruins until Kitchener’s return from

Fashoda, when Kitchener had it dug up and thrown into the river. Bill

was not present at this, nor was the job assigned to him, but Kitchener

and most of his staff were present, and Kitchener ordered the head to be

kept, intending to send it to the College of Surgeons, as the head was a

very large and remarkable one. It was sent on board the steamer in a

kerosene tin and taken down to Cairo, but was never in Bill’s charge,

and he disapproved of the whole business. Eventually when the scandal

was made about it, the head was entrusted to two English officers to

take up the river again to Wady Halfa.’ These reported that they ‘buried

it at night, somewhere in the desert,’ they don’t know where, so very

possibly D——’s account of its having been ‘put behind the fire’ is

correct. Mrs. Gerald Blunt thanked me profusely for the letter I had

written to the ‘Daily News’ in her brother’s defence, and said that Bill

considered that Kitchener had treated him unfairly in the affair. They

had all made a scapegoat of him because he did not stand in with them in

certain not very straightforward things. She is a nice, cheerful little

woman, enthusiastic about her ‘Uncle Charlie,’ and not at all

conventional about the military nonsense of the day.

“_30th Sept._—To the Hoo, where I found a family party. Hampden and his

wife, and sons and daughters. Nothing is talked of but the Boer war. I

notice that Harry, who was quite moderate about it when he first came

home from Australia, has now imbibed all the violent Liberal-Unionist

views regarding it. His eldest son is ordered to the war, and the

younger ones talked loudly about ‘exterminating the Boers.’ We expect

hourly now to hear of guns gone off on the frontier.

“_2nd Oct._—Back to Newbuildings. The ‘Chronicle’ is running a new red

herring to-day, and has proposed sending the Duke of Devonshire out to

South Africa, of all men in the world, to arrange a peace. They are

ready, however, to follow every false scent thrown in their way. The

Government’s present plan is to try and make people think they don’t

want war, and don’t want to wipe out Majuba, and don’t want to annex the

Transvaal. We shall see when it is over. If, after a successful

campaign, the Transvaal is not annexed, and Milner is not made a peer,

they may claim not to have intended it; but both these things will

happen.

“_7th Oct._—We have been expecting the Boers to advance on Natal all the

week, but something has delayed them. Perhaps the abortive attempt by

the Queen of Holland to intervene with our Queen. The Boers seem to be

losing their chance by this delay, but I fancy old Kruger knows what he

is about. He has, I think, to consult his friends in Europe, at Berlin

and elsewhere, before each important move. He has managed to get the

whole sympathy of the Continent with him, indeed, of the whole world

except ourselves and the Americans. These last are backing us, as we

backed them in their iniquity against the Filipinos. The Transvaal

Committee, too, in Manchester, has been telegraphing absurd messages to

Kruger, telling him that the Duke of Devonshire may be trusted. If this

has at all influenced the old man, the Transvaal Committee deserves

hanging, for the delay of the week may cost him dear.

“_9th Oct._—The men at the Clubs now mock at Kruger, saying he won’t

fight, never meant to fight, and the rest. Reginald Carew, whom I met at

the Travellers, talked in this sense. He leaves for South Africa with

Buller’s staff on Saturday, but I told him not to be discouraged, that

the Boers would certainly not cave in. He thinks they have lost what

chance they had by waiting. Perhaps so. Still they will fight.” [N.B.

This was General Pole Carew, who went on Buller’s Staff. I remember him

lamenting his bad luck in the belief he had that what little fighting

there might be would have been over long before Buller’s arrival. He

distinguished himself during the war principally, I think, as being the

first to burn down the Boer farms. He is a connection of mine through

the Glanvilles. I have known him in India when he was Lytton’s A.D.C. It

had been arranged at that time that he was to go with me as representing

Lytton on the journey we proposed taking that year in Arabia, but which

Cavagnari’s death at Kabul and Lytton’s recall from India prevented.

(See ‘India under Ripon.’)]

“_10th Oct._—The streets are placarded with the Boer ultimatum, so I

hope the end has come.

“To the British Museum with Cockerell, and saw Dr. Budge, of the

Egyptian Department. He gave us a deal of information about the Hyksos

and Assyrians in connection with Horse History. But all these

authorities differ so much from each other in what they tell you, that

one cannot have much confidence in their knowledge. As Huxley said, it

is still all ‘guess work.’

“_12th Oct._—Dined with Sibell and George, and Lady Windsor in Park

Lane, and went with them to see ‘King John’ at Her Majesty’s theatre, an

egregious performance. I never cared about ‘King John,’ and, as acted by

Tree, it was a violent piece of ranting. George, with whom I walked home

after it, told me that Tree had chosen the play as being full of Jingo

tags and no Popery talk. But the audience was too dull to seize the

points.

“We talked much about the war, which is declared to-day. George’s

brother Guy is on White’s Staff at Ladysmith, and he expects them to

advance. White’s orders from England have been generally to stand on the

defensive, but George is sure he will not remain quiet, and ‘of course

we must leave all liberty to the men on the spot.’ Baden Powell is at

Mafeking, and there will be fighting there. He told me a good story of a

certain J——, who is notorious for keeping clear of danger. He has just

telegraphed to his wife from Kimberley, seven hundred miles away from

Mafeking, ‘War declared. Mafeking will be attacked by Boers to-

morrow—probably destroyed. No cause for anxiety.’ About the general

prospects of the war, George still believes in the theory that Kruger is

‘bluffing,’ and that after a bit of a fight he will knock under to

Buller and make terms, otherwise he thinks it will be a very long and

tough job. He says that the Cabinet would really have come to an

arrangement with Kruger but for the bitterness of the feeling against

Chamberlain. There was a moment when they would have accepted terms

which, while giving Chamberlain an appearance of a diplomatic success,

would have left the real advantage to Kruger. Kruger, he thinks, ought

to have accepted the proposal of inquiry and discussion, have agreed to

go himself to Cape Town, and then have delayed and put off till

everybody was tired of it. He had himself heard Chamberlain say when

they expected such acceptance by Kruger, ‘It seems my failure has been

changed into a _pæan_.’ Now, however, there is no way but to fight it

out. I told him I, too, was glad it was to be so. My chief fear had been

lest the Boers should be jockeyed out of their independence without

fighting. Besides, I look upon the war as perhaps the first nail driven

into the coffin of the British Empire. I believe that if the Boers can

hold out six months Europe will intervene.

“_17th Oct._—In South Africa the Boers are advancing steadily southward,

and have invested Mafeking and Kimberley. Their plan is doubtless to get

the Dutch in Cape Colony to rise and join them. It seems their best

chance. Buller went off on Saturday to take command of the British Army.

They gave him what is called a ‘send off’ at Southampton by crying a

bogus victory in the streets.

“Swinburne has published a ridiculous sonnet in favour of the war, and

Kipling has also been in the ‘Times.’ My ‘Satan Absolved’ must stand for

poetry on the other side. I got an advance copy of it to-day.

“_19th Oct._—Newbuildings. Hampden and Neville are here. Much argument

about the Transvaal war. Hampden very fierce in defence of the

Government. We shot to-day, Mark Napier joining us as fourth gun.

Violent discussions again in the evening, Mark maintaining that, while

the English officers are good, the rank and file are worthless, and that

in a long campaign the English regiments would go to pieces; Hampden

annoyed, as having a son in the army. But all ended pleasantly.

“_21st Oct._—The Boers have been beaten in an attack they have made upon

White’s Camp. George had the happy task in Parliament, as Under-

Secretary for War, of announcing the victory.

“_23rd Oct._—More victories. The ‘Chronicle,’ after championing the Boer

cause all the summer, has now gone clean round, and shouts triumph with

the rest. It is a dastardly world.

“_27th Oct._—To London. People are not so pleased now with the war in

Natal, as, in spite of the reported victories at Glencoe and

Elandslaagte, Dundee has had to be evacuated, the guns and wounded being

left behind. They say Ladysmith will now be invested. Guy Wyndham is

there, with White’s staff in the threatened position.

“_29th Oct._—Herbert Spencer has written again about ‘Satan Absolved.’

He is disappointed at my not having stuck to his idea in the poem, but

on the whole he approves. ‘Unquestionably,’ he says, ‘Satan’s

description of man and his doings is given with great power, and ought

to bring to their senses millions of hypocrites who profess the current

religion. I wish you would emphasize more strongly the gigantic lie

daily enacted, the contrast between the Christian professions and the

Pagan actions, and the perpetual insult to One they call Omniscient in

thinking they can compound for atrocious deeds by laudatory words.’

“_1st Nov._—News of a great defeat of the British army before Ladysmith.

Two of Her Majesty’s best regiments, the Royal Dublin and the

Gloucester, laid down their arms to the Boers, 2,000 men of our most

veteran troops. There seems now a chance of the whole British army

capitulating before Buller and his men can relieve them from England.

Letters from old Watts and Kegan Paul, both in sympathy about ‘Satan

Absolved.’

“_2nd Nov._—To Malwood with Anne and stopped to lunch. After it, old Sir

William took me into his smoking room, and we talked over the whole

South African case. The old man is, I think, secretly just as pleased as

I am with the success of the Boers, though, when I said I should like to

see the Boers established in Cape Town, he protested he could not go

with me as far as that. However, he spoke strongly enough, and told me a

number of most interesting things about Rhodes and Milner. When he was

Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1893, Rhodes came to him about his

railway project and humbugged him not a little. Sir William showed me a

map on which Rhodes had marked his schemes, and he came again, when he

was in England after the Raid, ‘to face the music.’ Sir William says he

is an astonishing rogue and liar, but occasionally blurted out truths

other rogues would hide, and he had boasted how he bought up everybody

by putting them into good things on the Stock Exchange. He said that,

though he, Rhodes, was certainly privy to the projected revolution at

Johannesburg, he did not think he knew precisely of the Jameson Raid.

The reason the Outlanders at the last moment would not rise was that

they found out that Jameson intended to hoist the British Flag, and that

did not suit them. They wanted to continue the Republic and run it

themselves. As to Milner, Sir William said he was certain he was sent

out on purpose to pick a quarrel with Kruger. He had seen a great deal

of Milner while he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Milner came to

wish him good-bye—and he had told him he knew why he was going. He knew,

too, that Milner had told Lady Cowper at Panshanger before he left for

the Cape, ‘If I come back without having made war I shall consider my

mission has failed.’ Milner was an enthusiastic Jingo, but knew nothing

of Statesmanship. Sir William also told me he had seen a good deal this

year of Cromer, and had been charmed with him. He had found Cromer very

moderate, hating Rhodes and hating Kitchener, and doing his best to keep

them within bounds. He told me that if the Liberal Government had

remained another fortnight in office they would have made Redvers Buller

Commander-in-Chief, instead of Wolseley. Altogether my visit was a most

interesting one. I wish I could remember a tithe of what he told me.

“_3rd Nov._—A violent wind and rain, but we are snug here in our wood.

Ladysmith is invested and isolated. There are reports of another defeat

of White. I hope nothing will happen to Guy.

“_10th Nov._—There is a severe article on ‘Satan Absolved’ in the

‘Chronicle’ quoting Newman, and complaining of my profanity. I have nice

letters, however, from York Powell and Mallock.

“_20th Nov._—At Inchmery. The Belgian Minister, who was here yesterday,

tells me the Queen of Holland wrote to Queen Victoria to beg her to make

peace with the Transvaal, as so many of her subjects were engaged in it.

He says the Queen did not like the use of the word ‘subjects,’ and did

not answer the letter. He considers that the war, as far as it has gone,

has much damaged England’s prestige abroad. It has shown people

specially that English officers, though brave, are without science. They

all play too much instead of learning their work. He has been nineteen

years in England, and is an Anglophile, but like all the rest he

disapproves this war, and thinks it will result badly for us, even if in

the end successful. We have suffered defeats which will encourage our

enemies next time they quarrel with us.

“_23rd Nov._—Fernycroft is shut up for the winter, and I have gone to

Newbuildings, and am to start for Egypt on Wednesday. Fernycroft

stripped of its leaves looks melancholy enough, and the thought of Egypt

with its birds and butterflies is irresistible.

“They are making an immense fuss in the papers about the Emperor

William’s visit to Windsor. He has come in spite of the disgust of his

own people, who are furious against us on account of the Boer war. But I

fancy he knows his own game, and hating us at heart has come to spy out

the nakedness of the land with a fresh military eye. Our newspaper

people, however, would go down on their bellies to him and lick his feet

if they were allowed.

“_24th Nov._—To Wotton to dine and sleep. They have fought a new battle

in South Africa, and another in the Soudan, and announced them as two

British victories—victories I suspect to order for the German Emperor’s

benefit. The South African one seems nothing much to boast of besides

200 of our men lost, mostly of the Guards. The other is probably less

bogus. Dear old Evelyn still sticks religiously to his political

principles with me. We are the last of the anti-imperialist

Conservatives.

“My poem is getting fearfully maltreated in the newspapers where I have

no friend, as it attacks the country and Christianity alike, and what is

worst, the newspapers themselves. This, however, was to be expected, and

it is not the first time I have had the world on my back.

“_25th Nov._—Back to Newbuildings and shot rabbits with Neville. I am

closing my accounts of all kinds for the year, and shut up this journal

in no sanguine mood of having anything happier to relate in the diaries

of another year. The only thing I love now is my cat, and I am obliged,

alas! to leave it behind.”