THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE
There are certain things that come to one only in maturity. One is a
taste for Jane Austen. Another is a correct sense of the meaning and
importance of such men as Spencer Compton Cavendish, Knight of the
Garter, eighth Duke of Devonshire, Marquis of Hartington, Earl of
Devonshire, Earl of Burlington, Baron Cavendish of Hardwicke, and Baron
Cavendish of Keighley.
To a young man in the Nineties the mere fact of the Duke’s importance was
obvious enough. Had he not been in politics time out of mind, ever since
he was twenty-four? Was not his breach with Mr. Gladstone one of the
cardinal facts of modern history? Was he not among the first half-dozen
men accorded the distinction of “first person” reports? Was he not
cartooned and quoted after the manner of the very greatest? But why? The
young fellow of the Nineties saw simply a large dull man, with a large
dull way of talking, a man incapable of saying a witty thing, or doing
a picturesque thing; and in his haste this young fellow declared that
all men were snobs, that the sole secret of the Duke’s influence was his
wealth and position, that if he had been born the son of a clerk he would
never have risen to be more than a clerk, but, being the son of a great
noble, people hastened to find in him qualities which were simply not
there.
And in some ways, no doubt, the young fellow was right. In any station
Spencer Compton Cavendish would have been something, something real
and substantial, something of true human worth, of strong sense, shrewd
vision, and rare fidelity. But it is highly probable that, had he been
born poor, he would never have been heard of beyond the limits of his
parish. For he had few of the qualities, and none of the defects, that
make a man rise. No human being was ever more destitute of vanity,
which is one great motive of pushfulness. Though his sense of duty made
him accept responsibility, he hated it; though he felt compelled to
do much work, he detested exertion; utterance in any kind was painful
to him; he was quite wanting in surface brilliance and in the quality
people call magnetism. Such men do not readily “get on.” They find their
groove, and stay in it. They are too much trusted in the positions they
actually fill for anybody to be anxious to promote them, while their own
laziness, pride, dislike of cultivating superiors, and general capacity
of “consuming their own smoke” all conspire to keep them where they are.
In most business places one will find men almost indispensable in their
special jobs, who are never thought of in connection with a superior
job, partly because it would be troublesome to replace them, partly
because they are bad courtiers, but chiefly from the sheer difficulty of
imagining them elsewhere.
The Duke of Devonshire was a man of this sort. He did not make
himself, and he was not exactly made by circumstances; he was there,
and the circumstances were so, and a process of adaptation, chiefly
unconscious, followed. He might almost be described, politically, as a
natural growth—a kind of tree which went through its destined changes
of development and decay in accordance with a certain principle, but
in obedience to no visible motive. He got himself planted in a certain
soil without much consideration on his own part; he took such firm
root that he could not unplant himself, though he constantly wished
to do so; and thus it arrived that for over fifty years he was the one
permanent feature in a changing landscape. The creatures of the hour, the
beasts of the political field, gathered under him for shade, support,
or convenience, and he gave them what he had to give, almost with the
impartiality of a thing inanimate. But, just as the beech-tree is often
in close association with a herd of swine, but does not follow the swine
when they roam away to an oak, so the Duke remained rooted in the midst
of a constantly changing company; he had all sorts of associates, but he
did not follow them when they sought fresh woods and pastures new; to
the end he remained what he had been from the beginning—the pure Whig. I
remember a poor little Liberal Unionist of the Nineties who complained
that he had been sadly misrepresented. “It is not I,” he used to say—he
was about five feet high, and had a querulous little squeak—“it is not
I who have deserted my party; it is my party that has deserted me.” The
Duke of Devonshire could at any time have said the same thing without
evoking a challenge or even a smile. He did not leave Mr. Gladstone; he
merely stayed where he was. He did not leave Mr. Balfour twenty years
later; Mr. Balfour took up a new position, and the Duke remained in his.
Of all the Liberal Unionists he alone did not suffer “some sea change” as
the result of immersion in the Tory flood. Even Mr. Chamberlain was not
immune; he did not become a Conservative, but he did become a new kind of
Radical. The Duke shed no particle of his old-fashioned Whiggism, with
its distrust of the Crown, the Church, and the people, and its intense
faith in itself. In 1902 he was still conscious of a dividing line
between himself and his Conservative colleagues—a line “imperceptible
to the practised eye” of Lord Rosebery. The line was assuredly there,
real if not obtruded. Lord Salisbury was still too much of a Carolean
theologically and too much of a modernist politically to suit a mind
which envisaged Sir Robert Walpole as the ideal occupant of 10, Downing
Street, and Dr. Thomas Tusher as the proper tenant of Lambeth.
If this immobility had been the result of mere stupidity the young man
of the Nineties would have been justified in his scepticism. But in fact
the Duke was by no means stupid. Or, rather, the fact can best be put in
positive form. While the least clever of men, he had a quite uncommon
gift of true wisdom. He had all the outward marks of dullness. No man
was more completely without colour or atmosphere. A rather abnormal
carelessness in dress contributed to his conventionality rather than
relieved it. He was old-fashioned without a touch of the picturesqueness
of the antique, and untidy without the piquancy of Bohemianism. Some of
his contemporaries had the interest of a well-ordered “period” room;
the Duke gave rather the impression of a furniture broker’s shop full
of miscellaneous Victorian mahogany. His beard—though it had a certain
subtle character of its own, as just a shade different from the growth
of any plebeian, lay or clerical—completed the notion of carelessness
without grace and individuality without distinction. His attitudes
were angular; when he did not sprawl on a bench or in an arm-chair he
leaned up against a pillar or a mantelpiece, and somehow he seemed to
take the colour out of the most glowing examples of stuff and stone.
His expression was habitually dreary, and if by chance he said he was
glad to see you—and very often he did not—you would have had some little
difficulty in believing it had you not reflected that “no Cavendish
tells a lie,” and that he was a most typical Cavendish in that regard.
He suffered from a permanent difficulty of self-expression; the simplest
speech caused him torment, and (though he could be the kindest and most
considerate of hosts) social chit-chat was scarcely less painful. He
was most extraordinarily lazy. He dozed when he could, and yawned when
he could not. His yawn was perfectly impartial—he yawned at friends,
foes, and himself. Once in the middle of his own Army Estimates the fit
came upon him, and he signified in the usual manner his weariness of
the whole performance. This yawn was a thing of wonder, so hearty and
natural that no question of manners arose. It suggested no affront, even
to the most prolix speaker; it was rather a proclamation of privilege,
like the wearing of a hat in the House of Commons. It seemed to say, “I
am a Duke, and (possibly more to the point) a great gentleman, so that
nobody can accuse me of not knowing how to ‘behave.’ But after all what
is the use of owning Chatsworth, Devonshire House, all those Eastbourne
ground-rents, and I really cannot trouble to think what else, if I cannot
be natural? Here I am—heaven alone knows really why—condemned to this
intolerable boredom. I go through it, because I feel somehow that I
ought. But I claim in return the freedom of not pretending that I find
it amusing. Please don’t be offended; I should be sorry if you were.
But if you insist on taking offence I shall sleep none the less soundly
to-night, or—who knows?—ten minutes hence if the fit takes me.”
It is related of the Duke that he once went to another seat in the House
of Lords specially to listen to a speech, and fell asleep there before
five minutes had elapsed. He once gave a reply to a noble lord. The noble
lord was not satisfied, and made a long speech in order to say so. The
Duke fell asleep, but woke automatically (as people do at the end of a
sermon) when the voice ceased. Then he began to read his answer a second
time, but, suddenly remembering what had already happened, abruptly sat
down again without saying another word. And the House (which knew its
Duke) was perfectly satisfied.
How the Duke in such circumstances managed to get the right end of any
controversial stick must ultimately remain a mystery. But that he did
so is a plain fact. For, if a slow thinker, he was a generally clear
one, and, if a painful speaker, he made speeches which never lacked
matter. His was one of those minds on which sophistry has no effect.
He was not incapable of admiring eloquence and ingenuity. His attitude
towards Mr. Gladstone was a singular mixture of reverence and something
not unlike disdain. So much of Mr. Gladstone was admirable, and yet so
much of him simply “would not do for the Duke.” One often sees a shrewd
old Hodge listening to the patter of a cheap-jack at a fair. He enjoys
the jokes, and has a kind of glee in the dexterity, but he is simply not
made to believe in an eighteen-carat gold English lever, jewelled in
thirty-seven holes, for twenty-three and six. The Duke never troubled to
consider every point; he was content to say that it could not be done at
the price, and leave the matter there. And if he would not buy, still
less would he consider any proposal to go into the cheap-jack business
himself; if anybody wanted the Duke as a colleague it was no use to
propose a line in razors made only to sell. The character, of course,
has its defects. The Duke was mainly negative in his wisdom. His belief
in gold might make him unjust to platinum, but he was infallible in
detecting pinchbeck. On things of pure spirit it was useless to consult
him, but on any question which could be weighed in the balance of
common-sense his judgment sought its fellow.
Hence it became a habit of a large number of people, during a long
range of time, to wait till the Duke had declared himself before they
made up their own minds. It sometimes took the Duke a long time to
declare himself. Where, as in the case of Home Rule, the matter was
comparatively simple, no man could be more sharply decisive. It was
impossible for him to undergo any process of self-hypnosis such as that
of which Mr. Gladstone was occasionally capable; he could not understand
the distinction between “war” and “military operations” or between being
“surrounded” and being “hemmed in.” In 1885 he had declared himself
unalterably against Home Rule, and he saw no reason to say another thing
in 1886. But in the matter of Tariff Reform the issue and the man were
both more complicated, and plain “Yes” or “No” harder. The Duke was quite
sure about Ireland; he was less sure about maintaining Free Trade by
reverting at least partially to Protection. He knew Mr. Gladstone to the
bottom; no human being had succeeded in knowing Mr. Balfour. He could
only confess himself at first “completely puzzled and distracted by all
the arguments _pro_ and _con_ Free Trade and Protection.” But, he finally
decided, “whichever of them is right, I cannot think that something
which is neither, but a little of both, can be right.” In both cases
his judgment was an element of great importance, but, while it was of
decisive effect in regard to Home Rule, it exerted less influence on the
latter controversy. The public judged, as usual, rightly. In the one case
Lord Hartington, as a plain and very honest Englishman in close contact
with realities, might be trusted to form at least an interim judgment on
behalf of plain and honest Englishmen in general. But in the other case
the moral factor counted for less, and the intellectual factor for more,
and the prolonged puzzlement of the Duke detracted from his influence
when he finally decided (with infinite agony) on his course.
The main source of the Duke’s influence was, indeed, the general
conviction that, with a masculine but ordinary understanding, he
combined perfect disinterestedness and straightforwardness. This faith
was not based wholly on the fact that he was a great noble; the middle
class might, indeed, have been a little scandalised by the side of him
illustrated in the affair of the napkin-ring. The Duke had seen in the
paper that somebody had given a certain bride a set of napkin-rings. He
worried about the meaning of this until he came across a knowledgeable
man, who, he thought, could explain what napkin-rings were. The
explanation was given that in a certain class of society people did not
use clean napkins for every meal, and that therefore each member of the
family kept a distinctive ring. The Duke remained silent for ten minutes.
Then he suddenly exclaimed: “Good God!” It was certainly not this kind
of aloofness that gave the Duke his power. Nor was it so much to the
point that he was placed, by his rank and wealth, far above all vulgar
ambitions. Many men as rich and as highly placed have been the objects of
sleepless suspicion. Apart from money, there are plenty of temptations
open to rank, and wealth is no guarantee of honesty. The Duke enjoyed
public confidence in an extraordinary degree because it was so very
obvious, not only that he was getting nothing, but that it was impossible
for him to get anything out of politics. His yawn, in fact, was his great
talisman. Everybody knew that if he had consulted his own tastes he
would hardly have stirred beyond his park palings. Everybody knew that
he carried out what he believed to be his political duties just as he
carried out what he believed to be his social duties, not because he got
any pleasure or profit from them, but because the obligations were there
and had to be met. It is said that he once invited the Prince of Wales
to lunch, and then forgot all about it; the Prince presumably arrived to
find Devonshire House fragrant with the ducal equivalent of Irish stew;
while His Grace himself had to be summoned by telephone from his club by
a terrified major-domo. It was part of the Duke’s strength that such a
story could be related of him. The true point was not that he was a great
nobleman, and therefore disinterested; it was that he was from every
point of view uninterested. It was not simply that he had no financial
or social axe to grind; there was no fancy cutlery of the spiritual or
intellectual kind which he desired to sharpen. Men do not always ruin
their country for a fee; they more often do so for a fad. The Duke was
free from all fads, except Whiggism. He had a certain honourable interest
in education. He nourished, in his dry and secretive way, a distinct
love of the arts in general and of certain departments in literature.
But on all public questions he was able to bring his faculties, such as
they were—and it was particularly easy to rate them too lowly—without
subjective disturbance; it may almost be said that he thought _in vacuo_.
Moreover, he was in essence a very ordinary Englishman. With an effort
he might think of himself as a Briton, or as a citizen of the British
Empire. But his inner mind knew nothing of Acts of Union; he was English
and nothing but English. And being very English, it followed that he
cared a great deal about truth and very little about logic, and that
he was much more inclined to follow the beaten track than to initiate.
People felt that he was a safe man, who would not go far, but therefore
could not go far wrong. He once described himself, rather pathetically,
as “the brake on the wheel.” It is a humble, but on occasion a useful,
function, and the sheer unimaginativeness of the man was time and time
again an asset to his country. But such a character arouses no great
enthusiasm, and if the Duke was trusted without limit, he was neither a
popular idol nor the hero of a small circle. He went his way in a certain
detachment, never alone but always a little lonely. Even in his own
houses there was a tendency to regard him as something to gather round
instead of someone to talk to. He might almost be said to fulfil the
function of the dining-table rather than of the host.
The position had its compensations. The Duke was the chartered libertine
of his time. He could go poaching where others could not look over the
hedge. Lord Rosebery’s Derby victories caused scandal among the virtuous
of his party. Nobody troubled about the Duke’s bets or race-horses. He
played bridge for high points, but nobody thought of him as a gambler. He
used emphatic adjectives, without the reproach attaching to the swearer
of profane oaths. It may be an exaggeration to say that whatever the
Duke did was right. But nobody troubled about his doing wrong; no doubt
because people felt that it would not be very much wrong, after all. And
in this their judgment was sufficiently sound. The man was in no sense
a saint or a hero. He never said or did a thing to make a single man’s
pulse beat quicker. He was incapable of the highest in any kind. But
his character, however prosaic, was based on a foundation of granitic
firmness. If not a great man, he was at least a true and honest one.