AT HOME AND AT COURT
Appreciating Opponents—Hackney Address—Proportional
Representation—Justice for Women—A State Concert—Humble
Friendships—Pigs—Salisbury again.
[Sidenote: Appreciating Opponents.]
The same respect for the individuality of others which made Fawcett
unwilling to punish a subordinate if he could honourably avoid it, which
made him often detect good qualities in the offender to compensate for
the offence, made him also quick to respect and admire an adversary,
even when strongly repudiating his principles. Fawcett never forgot that
his opponent was a human being, however different their political
creeds. In his later years his sympathy may not have been any deeper
than in his vigorous youth, but it expressed itself more gently and more
skilfully. When his fine wrath was roused, he still had at his command
barbed arrows of sarcasm and thunders of denunciation, but his speech
was more apt to be kindly. He trusted more than in his less experienced
days to force of example and to irrefutable logic. His fairness and
justice stood out in fine contrast to the hectic verbal warfare raging
between rival factions. When, on 13th October 1884, he spoke in public
for the last time, he administered a grave rebuke to ‘the spirit of
mutual intolerance,’ saying:
[Sidenote: ‘Prudence and Patriotism.’]
‘If we take a calm review of the situation ... we refuse to enter into
useless recriminations and taunts about the past. I still have not
relinquished the hope ... that the counsels of common sense, prudence,
and patriotism will prevail.... Can we come to any other conclusion than
that the present is a time when the dictates of prudence and patriotism
demand that everything should be done to lessen, rather than to
intensify, the bitterness of party strife.’
He went on to speak on a subject which had been much in his mind from
the beginning of his political career. Proportional representation meant
to him the method, and the only method, by which the different elements
of the body politic could be fairly represented in Parliament. So
earnestly did he hold to this view that he made up his mind, with his
friend Lord Courtney, to resign his office should the Government proceed
with legislation incompatible with these principles. In this last word
on a subject on which it has been necessary in this book to omit so many
other words, Fawcett emphasised the main principle in these phrases:
‘While we regard it as of the first moment that no important section of
opinion should be effaced from representation, yet at the same time we
are most anxious to secure to the majority the preponderance of power to
which it is justly entitled. Let the voice of the weak be heard as well
as the voice of the strong by your Government, give fair play to all,
and make justice possible.’ And he added this vital remark: ‘The
enfranchisement of women, already dictated by justice, would soon become
a necessity.’
[Sidenote: Fawcett’s unfailing Chivalry.]
His unfailing chivalry was always a radiant characteristic of his
courteous nature, and he felt it his high privilege to serve women; he
had the faculty of encouraging them, and filling them with confidence in
their own ability; his voice, though not melodious, had a peculiar
brightness that raised drooping spirits, and impressed itself upon the
memory. Besides the encouragement which he gave by the employment of
women in the Post Office, his efforts for compulsory education, now
accepted as a matter of course, his labours to protect young children at
work in factory or field, as well as his fight for free playgrounds and
commons, were all helpful to the mothers of the race.
On the day after his death, a poor woman, who came to the employment
office to make inquiries on behalf of her daughter, who wished to enter
the Civil Service, must have expressed the feelings of hundreds of
struggling women, when she said: ‘We do not know who will help us now
that so good a friend has gone.’
[Sidenote: Fair-play Expedient.]
Believing that justice must infallibly become the most expedient policy,
he felt it was not only repugnant, but bad diplomacy, that any class
should be excluded by force or prejudice from having a voice in the
Government, and he realised to the full that government could only be
fair when it existed with the consent of the governed.
The constant society of his wife and other brilliant women of her family
and her friends, impressed him with the great benefit that it would be
to the community to have the assistance of their votes, as expressing
their fair and able minds. He said concerning women’s voting: ‘The
Parliamentary suffrage should be applied to those women who fulfil the
qualifications of property and residence demanded from the elector. That
is to say, if a widow or a spinster is in possession of a house, and
pays rates and taxes, she should have the borough vote, and if she
possesses freehold or leasehold property, she should have a county vote,
as if it were held by a man.’
[Sidenote: The Uses of Adversity.]
We have dwelt on the great part that Fawcett’s blindness played in
forming his character. It intensified his bravery and determination,
broadened his sympathies, sharpened his observation, made his memory
keener, quickened his intellect, and gave him a greater power to conquer
himself and others. Affliction had given him strength as of steel well
tempered, to withstand and pierce all muddled thought and murky
sentiment, and so make the clear under-light of his soul a shining
beacon to all who knew him. But there were, inevitably, quiet moments,
when, all efforts unavailing, his blindness must have weighed heavily
upon him. Seated by his fireside, feeling the glow which he might never
see, he would listen to the crackling of the coal and the ticking of the
clock as it marked a minute less of his darkness. Such hours had to be
fought through single-handed, by his own courage and strength of will.
[Sidenote: Hearth and Home.]
No small part of his triumph over circumstance was due to the great
affections and friendships which were at the heart of his life. Chiefest
and most constant of these were his flawless devotion to his wife and
daughter, and the singularly beautiful sympathy and companionship which
he found at home. It is not for the biographer to intrude into this holy
of holies—enough to know that Fawcett had with his wife that perfect
understanding and fellowship, that entire sympathy and intellectual
inspiration, which, when he was most sorely tried, gave him a sure haven
of rest and happiness from which to start forth again, better armed and
braver, to battle anew.
When Mrs. Fawcett was absent, her husband would postpone a decision of
great moment until he was able to get her opinion. She often acted as
his secretary, and in all matters was his trusted counsellor. In later
years, his daughter Philippa, whose great talent was a source of deep
interest to him, completed with her brilliant intellect and happy wit
this perfectly attuned trio. There is a poetic justice that Fawcett
having fought so for the admission of women students at Cambridge, it
was left for his daughter to achieve the highest mathematical honours
bestowed on any woman in Great Britain, when as a student at Newnham she
won four hundred marks above the Senior Wrangler.
[Sidenote: A blithe Spirit.]
He still greatly enjoyed society, and threw himself so thoroughly into
the spirit of sociability and gaiety, that he seemed to leave his
critical Parliamentary self. Mrs. Fawcett, as a comment on his
whole-souled capacity for finding all things and everybody lovely,
jestingly composed this epitaph for him: ‘Here lies the man who found
every soup delicious and every woman charming.’ He did, and what is
more, he tried to make every one else find life lovely and to have as
glorious a time as he did.
He would never overlook any quiet mousy individuals lost in the general
gaiety, but would take pains to draw them out, to throw himself so
thoroughly into their interests that he put them at their ease, and made
them take part in the conversation and shine unwontedly.
A contemporary gives a gay glimpse of him chatting and joking merrily
among the smart crowd at Lady Granville’s. His tall figure towered over
the little knot of friends invariably gathered round him.
[Sidenote: A State Concert.]
Fawcett duly attended the levees and occasional official dinners held by
the Prince of Wales, and on one occasion, when in the neighbourhood of
Balmoral, he dined with the Queen. With his wife he went to the concerts
given by her at Buckingham Palace. These were very stately events.
Arrayed in his court uniform, Fawcett would drive with his wife betimes
to the palace; as they approached, the music of the band in the
courtyard was in full swing, and they liked to hear it as they waited in
line until the preceding carriages had deposited their burdens. The
guests moved through the glass doors to the entrance-hall, which echoed
the rumbling of wheels and the closing of the carriage doors, the
clanging of the spurs and swords of the men. They mounted the main
staircase between the stationed Yeomen of the Guard, Fawcett’s cheery
voice and laughter resounding as he greeted friends above and below him.
A moment’s pause on the threshold of the great concert-room, and here
the parquet floor gave back the tapping of little slippered feet and the
heavy tread of the men, as the groups of guests flocked together or
dispersed to find places before the music began.
On both sides of the room were raised tiers of seats for the company. At
one end was the low platform with chairs arranged for Royalty. At the
opposite end, a balcony with the organ provided places for the singers
and musicians. Crystal chandeliers with hanging stalactites lighted the
brilliant scene. Fawcett’s fine ear caught the tiny tinkle of the
crystals, as they answered to the draughts from the movement of the
crowd, or trembled when the waves of music shook them on their little
metal moorings. The good acoustics of the room, and the consequent
clearness of all the sounds, brought the scene with unusual vividness
before the blind man.
[Sidenote: Enter Victoria Regina et Imperatrix.]
A sudden expectant murmur rose from the crowd, a pause, a flutter of
silks and a tapping of scabbards, the organ played ‘God save the Queen,’
and the mighty little Empress entered and greeted her guests. Returning
her courtesy, the brilliant throng bowed as a field of wheat swayed by
the wind, until the Queen had seated herself in the centre of the dais,
surrounded in due order by members of the Royal Family.
Then the guests resumed their places and the music began.
[Sidenote: Voices of Youth and Art.]
Here Fawcett, as much if not more than any other guests, enjoyed the
fresh young voices of the chorus of young girls from the Royal School of
Music, and choir-boys from the Chapel Royal. This youthfulness
contrasted charmingly with the more formal and perfect singing of the
great artists of whose skill Queen Victoria was so appreciative.
When the programme was finished, the Queen rose and, preceded by
gentlemen of the court walking backwards, went to the supper-room,
through an aisle formed by her guests, stopping as she passed the
balcony, to speak to the chief artists. The princesses who followed her
often darted a smile or stole a fleeting word with one of the throng,
and the more decorous ladies-in-waiting brought up the rear of the
procession. The guests followed, with them Fawcett guided by his wife.
As Royalty was well separated by an encircling wall of court gentlemen,
the assault by the guests on the sandwiches, cakes and bonbons began
without restraint. A horseshoe buffet surrounded the room. The throng
stood about chatting together, waited upon by gorgeous footmen
resplendent in scarlet and white. The clinking of glass and china was
drowned in the general conversation, all the more lively after the long
silent listening to the music. Then the guests drifted in friendly
groups down to the great hall, where the names of departing guests
called from footman to footman echoed among the pillars.
A frequent and happy conversation this, as they sat on the long benches,
muffled up and waiting for their carriages, and doubtless more than one
of Fawcett’s good stories was cut short by the call ‘The
Postmaster-General’s carriage stops the way.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: A Big Friend of all the World.]
Though he could find amusement in any form of social intercourse, it was
the opportunities of close companionship that he most valued. He rarely
lapsed into silence, and with his family, when there were no guests at
table, he would talk with the same animation as if he had been at a
brilliant dinner. Talk was an essential of life to him; wherever he
went, reserve vanished.
If any unsuccessful schoolmate, who had no other claim on him, wrote for
help, he was always sure to get it. In his interviews he was
marvellously patient, would never let a person leave him in anger or
displeasure; few people left him without being his friends. If he said a
sharp thing to any one, he confessed at once, and was not happy until he
had made full amends; any irritable action towards another on his part
caused him much more suffering than he inflicted.
His real democratic feeling and disregard of rank put him at his ease
with all classes, his abounding geniality and accessibility often placed
him in difficult predicaments from which it required a lively ingenuity
successfully to extricate himself.
Once while he was walking, a well-known bore buttonholed the
Postmaster-General, and explained at length how the Post Office might be
regenerated. Fawcett listened patiently for five minutes; then when it
was clear that the man had no idea or facts to offer, but only words,
Fawcett held out his hand, saying, ‘Good day, Mr. J——, I am much obliged
to you for your kind wish to help me,’ and walked on, leaving the bore,
who felt himself just warming to his work, helplessly stranded.
[Sidenote: His Dog.]
His servants and his friends loved him; he was wonderfully considerate
to all dependants, and indeed to every one whom he met. Certainly he was
over-attentive to his dog Oddo, who had emerged from a refuge of lost
dogs to assume the high office of watch-dog in the garden of the London
house. Fawcett was deeply interested in the higher education of this
humble friend, and their common affection was very warm.
[Sidenote: Sudden Friendships.]
His friendships were so sudden, at times so instantaneous, that their
strength and duration was surprising. He had an incredible number of
people whom he called in all sincerity his intimate friends, and, as one
of them says, ‘all the overgrowth of new friendship seemed rather to
strengthen than to stifle the earlier ties.’ As we have recorded, even
the voice of an acquaintance once made, was to him unforgettable. When
walking in London with his sister, Fawcett met the Primate of New
Zealand, who had been at Cambridge with him. They had not met for many
years, and the Primate did not wish to trouble Fawcett by recalling a
long-ago acquaintanceship. But Miss Fawcett, recognising him, stopped,
and as soon as the Primate spoke, Fawcett exclaimed with delight, ‘Why,
it’s Nevill!’
[Sidenote: Postmaster and Pigs.]
At Salisbury he invariably called on his father’s old farm servant,
Rumbold. Rumbold was one day giving to Fawcett’s mother the last news
from his sties, and he added ‘Mind you tell Master Harry when you write
to him, for if there’s one thing he cares about, ‘tis pigs.’ Truly it
was one thing, though it is generally suspected that the Postmaster had
other interests.
His increased income as Postmaster-General made no change in his simple
mode of life, though he may have spent a little more on riding; he had,
however, the satisfaction of being able to buy his family more presents,
and he took an intense delight in tactfully giving many little things;
he heard his sister say that she very much liked a lamp by which she had
read to him in London. To her surprise and delight, on her return to
Salisbury its twin appeared, found and sent to her by her brother.
Nothing gave him greater pleasure than to have his parents and sister
under his roof, and to give them a good time. One of the most touching
things in his life was his intense affection for his father. When the
father grew old and was forced to breakfast in bed, the big son, after
saying good-bye to him in the morning, would often quickly run upstairs
again just to kiss the old gentleman a second time.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Presents and Parents.]
When his sister told him that his letters gave his parents the greatest
pleasure of their lives, he never let a week elapse without sending off
two newsy documents to Salisbury. These letters abound in affection and
in many little proofs of his eagerness to make them happy. He sends a
birthday present, a comfortable pair of ‘Norwegian slippers,’ or
encloses letters containing bits of political news which he is at
liberty to show them; he tells them of his triumphs, even of compliments
which he thinks that they would like to hear, and boasts of the
admiration expressed for his father’s remarkable vigour and youthfulness
for his years; he also compliments the admirable packing evinced by the
excellent condition in which sundry gifts in various interesting hampers
have arrived.
He ran down to Salisbury whenever he could make time, and was there for
the ovation given by the Liberals to his father on his ninety-first
birthday. The old gentleman had been a fighter in the Liberal ranks
since the days of the great Reform Bill.
Six months later, in spite of the urgent claims Cambridge lectures and
Post Office work made upon him, he again went to speak at Salisbury.
Parliament was in session too, an unusual thing in November, so that he
was particularly hard worked. Still November 17th found him at Salisbury
speaking to an enthusiastic audience, of which his father was one. After
the meeting he seemed exhausted, but he returned to London on the 20th,
lectured at Cambridge on the 22nd, and on the 23rd discharged his
business at the House of Commons.