festivals. Sometimes they carried one as far as Hatfield, my
unapproached favourite among all the "Stately homes of England"; but
generally they were nearer London--at Syon, with the Thames floating
gravely past its lawns--Osterley, where the decorative skill of the
Brothers Adam is superimposed on Sir Thomas Gresham's Elizabethan
brickwork--Holland House, rife with memories of Fox and
Macaulay--Lowther Lodge, with its patch of unspoiled country in the
heart of Western London. Closely akin to these Garden-Parties were other
forms of outdoor entertainment--tea at Hurlingham or Ranelagh; and
river-parties where ardent youth might contrive to capsize the adored
one, and propose as he rescued her, dripping, from the Thames.
It is only within the last few years that we have begun to talk of
"Week-Ends" and "week-Ending." These terrible phrases have come down to
us from the North of England; but before they arrived the thing which
they signify was here. "Saturday-to-Monday Parties" they were called.
They were not so frequent as now, because Saturday was a favourite
night for entertaining in London, and it was generally bespoken for
dinners and drums. But, as the summer advanced and hot rooms became
unendurable, people who lived only forty or fifty miles out of London
began to ask if one would run down to them on Friday or Saturday, and
stay over Sunday. Of these hospitalities I was a sparing and infrequent
cultivator, for they always meant two sleepless nights; and, as someone
truly observed, just as you had begun to wear off the corners of your
soap, it was time to return to London. But there were people, more
happily constituted, who could thoroughly enjoy and profit by the weekly
dose of fresh air and quiet. It was seldom that Mrs. Gladstone failed to
drag Mr. Gladstone to some country house "from Saturday to Monday."
As I re-read what I have written in this chapter, I seem to have lived
from 1876 to 1880 in the constant enjoyment of one kind or another of
Hospitality. It is true; and for the kindness of the friends who then
did so much to make my life agreeable, I am as grateful as I was when I
received it. My social life in London seems to me, as I look back, "a
crystal river of unreproved enjoyment"; and some of those who shared it
with me are still among my closest friends.
One word more, and I have done with Hospitality. I brought with me from
Oxford a simple lad who had been a College servant. In those more
courteous days a young man made it a rule to leave his card at every
house where he had been entertained; so I made a list of addresses, gave
it to my servant with a nicely-calculated batch of cards, and told him
to leave them all before dinner. When I came in to dress, this dialogue
ensued: "Have you left all those cards?" "Yes, sir." "You left two at
each of the houses on your list?" "Oh no, sir. I left one at each house,
and all the rest at the Duke of Leinster's." Surely Mrs. Humphry Ward or
Mr. H. G. Wells might make something of this bewildering effect produced
by exalted rank on the untutored mind.
FOOTNOTE:
[28] The second Lord Lytton.
IX
ELECTIONEERING
"Candidates are creatures not very susceptible of affronts, and
would rather, I suppose, climb in at a window than be absolutely
excluded. Mr. Grenville, advancing towards me, shook me by the hand
with a degree of cordiality that was extremely seducing.... He is
very young, genteel, and handsome, and the town seems to be much at
his service."
_W. Cowper_, 1784.
Gladstone's first administration, which had begun so gloriously in 1868,
ended rather ignominiously at the General Election of 1874. Matthew
Arnold wrote to his friend, Lady de Rothschild, "What a beating it is!
You know that Liberalism did not seem to me quite the beautiful and
admirable thing it does to the Liberal party in general, and I am not
sorry that a new stage in its growth should commence, and that the party
should be driven to examine itself, and to see how much real stuff it
has in its mind, and how much claptrap."
That wholesome discipline of self-examination was greatly assisted by
the progress of events. England was now subjected to the personal rule
of Disraeli. In 1868 he had been for ten months Prime Minister on
sufferance, but now for the first time in his life he was in power. His
colleagues were serfs or cyphers. He had acquired an influence at Court
such as no other Minister ever possessed. He had conciliated the House
of Lords, which in old days had looked askance at the picturesque
adventurer. He was supported by a strong, compact, and determined
majority in the House of Commons. He was the idol of Society, of the
Clubs, and of the London Press. He was, in short, as nearly a dictator
as the forms of our constitution permit; and the genius, which for forty
years had been hampered and trammelled by the exigencies of a precarious
struggle, could now for the first time display its true character and
significance. Liberals who had been bored and provoked by the incessant
blunders of the Liberal ministry in its last years, and, like Matthew
Arnold, had welcomed a change of government, soon began to see that they
had exchanged what was merely fatuous and foolish for what was actively
mischievous. They were forced to ask themselves how much of the
political faith which they had professed was "real stuff," and how much
was "claptrap." Disraeli soon taught them that, even when all
"claptrap" was laid aside, the "real stuff" of Liberalism--its vital and
essential part--was utterly incompatible with Disraelitish ideals.
The Session of 1874 began quietly enough, and the first disturbance
proceeded from a quite unexpected quarter. The two Primates of the
English Church were at this time Archbishop Tait and Archbishop Thomson.
Both were masterful men. Both hated Ritualism; and both worshipped the
Man in the Street. The Man in the Street was supposed to be an
anti-Ritualist; so the two Archbishops conceived the happy design of
enlisting his aid in the destruction of a religious movement which, with
their own unaided resources, they had failed to crush. Bishop
Wilberforce, who would not have suffered the Ritualists to be bullied,
had been killed in the previous summer. Gladstone, notoriously not
unfriendly to Ritualism, was dethroned; so all looked smooth and easy
for a policy of persecution. On the 20th of April, 1874, Archbishop Tait
introduced his "Public Worship Regulation Bill" into the House of Lords;
and, in explanation of this measure, Tait's biographers say that it
merely "aimed at reviving in a practical shape the _forum domesticum_
of the Bishops, with just so much of coercive force added as seemed
necessary to meet the changed circumstances of modern times." I have
always loved this sentence. _Forum domesticum_ is distinctly good, and
so is "coercive force." The _forum domesticum_ has quite a comfortable
sound, and, as to the "coercive force" which lurks in the background,
Ritualists must not enquire too curiously. The Bishops were to have it
all their own way, and everyone was to be happy. Such was the Bill as
introduced; but in Committee it was made infinitely more oppressive.
Henceforward a single lay-judge, to be appointed by the two Archbishops,
was to hear and determine all cases relating to irregularities in Public
Worship.
When the Bill reached the House of Commons, it was powerfully opposed by
Gladstone; but the House was dead against him, and Sir William Harcourt,
who, six months before, had been his Solicitor-General, distinguished
himself by the truculence with which he assailed the Ritualists. On the
5th of August, Gladstone wrote to his wife: "An able but yet frantic
tirade from Harcourt, extremely bad in tone and taste, and chiefly aimed
at poor me.... I have really treated him with forbearance before, but I
was obliged to let out a little to-day."
Meanwhile, Disraeli, seeing his opportunity, had seized it with
characteristic skill. He adopted the Bill with great cordiality. He
rejected all the glozing euphemisms which had lulled the House of Lords.
He uttered no pribbles and prabbles about _forum domesticum_, and
paternal guidance, and the authoritative interpretation of ambiguous
formularies. "This," he said, "is a Bill to put down Ritualism." So the
naked truth, carefully veiled from view in episcopal aprons and
lawn-sleeves, was now displayed in all its native charm. Its success was
instant and complete. The Second Reading passed unanimously; and the
Archbishops' masterpiece became at once a law and a laughing-stock. The
instrument of tyranny broke in the clumsy hands which had forged it, and
its fragments to-day lie rusting in the lumber-room of archiepiscopal
failures.
But in the meantime the debates on the Bill had produced some political
effects which its authors certainly had not desired. Gladstone's
vehement attacks on the Bill, and his exhilarating triumph over the
recalcitrant Harcourt, showed the Liberal party that their chief, though
temporarily withdrawn from active service, was as vivacious and as
energetic as ever, as formidable in debate, and as unquestionably
supreme in his party whenever he chose to assert his power. Another
important result of the controversy was that Gladstone was now the
delight and glory of the Ritualists. The Committee organized to defend
the clergy of St. Alban's, Holborn, against the _forum domesticum_ and
"coercive force" of Bishop Jackson, made a formal and public
acknowledgment of their gratitude for Gladstone's "noble and unsupported
defence of the rights of the Church of England." Cultivated and earnest
Churchmen, even when they had little sympathy with Ritualism, were
attracted to his standard, and turned in righteous disgust from the
perpetrator of clumsy witticisms about "Mass in masquerade." In towns
where, as at Oxford and Brighton, the Church is powerful, the effect of
these desertions was unmistakably felt at the General Election of 1880.
It has been truly said that among the subjects which never fail to
excite Englishmen is Slavery. "No public man," said Matthew Arnold, "in
this country will be damaged by having even 'fanaticism' in his hatred
of slavery imputed to him." In July, 1875, the Admiralty issued to
Captains of Her Majesty's ships a Circular of Instructions which roused
feelings of anger and of shame. This circular ran counter alike to the
jealousy of patriots and to the sentiment of humanitarians. It directed
that a fugitive slave should not be received on board a British vessel
unless his life was in danger, and that, if she were in territorial
waters, he should be surrendered on legal proof of his condition. If the
ship were at sea, he should only be received and protected until she
reached the country to which he belonged. These strange and startling
orders were not in harmony either with the Law of Nations or with the
law of England. They infringed the invaluable rule which prescribes that
a man-of-war is British territory, wherever she may be; and they seemed
to challenge the famous decision of Lord Mansfield, that a slave who
enters British jurisdiction becomes free for ever. Parliament had risen
for the recess just before the circular appeared, so it could not be
challenged in the House of Commons; but it raised a storm of indignation
out of doors which astonished its authors. Disraeli wrote "The incident
is grave;" and, though in the subsequent session the Government tried to
whittle down the enormity, the "incident" proved to be graver than even
the Premier had imagined; for it showed the Liberals once again that
Toryism is by instinct hostile to freedom.
But events were now at hand before which the Public Worship Regulation
Act and the Slave Circular paled into insignificance.
In the autumn of 1875 an insurrection had broken out in Bulgaria, and
the Turkish Government despatched a large force to repress it. This was
done, and repression was followed by a hideous orgy of massacre and
outrage. A rumour of these horrors reached England, and public
indignation spontaneously awoke. Disraeli, with a strange frankness of
cynical brutality, sneered at the rumour as "Coffee-house babble," and
made odious jokes about the Oriental way of executing malefactors. But
Christian England was not to be pacified with these Asiatic
pleasantries, and in the autumn of 1876 the country rose in passionate
indignation against what were known as "the Bulgarian Atrocities."
Preaching in St. Paul's Cathedral, Liddon made a signal departure from
his general rule of avoiding politics in the pulpit, and gave splendid
utterance to the passion which was burning in his heart. "Day by day we
English are learning that this year of grace 1876 has been signalized by
a public tragedy which, I firmly believe, is without a parallel in
modern times.... Not merely armed men, but young women and girls and
babes, counted by hundreds, counted by thousands, subjected to the most
refined cruelties, subjected to the last indignities, have been the
victims of the Turk." And then came a fine burst of patriotic
indignation. "That which makes the voice falter as we say it is that,
through whatever misunderstanding, the Government which is immediately
responsible for acts like these has turned for sympathy, for
encouragement, not to any of the historical homes of despotism or
oppression, not to any other European Power, but alas! to England--to
free, humane, Christian England. The Turk has, not altogether without
reason, believed himself, amid these scenes of cruelty, to be leaning on
our country's arm, to be sure of her smile, or at least of her
acquiescence."
And soon a mightier voice than even Liddon's was added to the chorus of
righteous indignation. Gladstone had resigned the leadership of the
Liberal Party at the beginning of 1875, and for sixteen months he
remained buried in his library at Hawarden. But now he suddenly
reappeared, and flung himself into the agitation against Turkey with a
zeal which in his prime he had never excelled, if, indeed, he had
equalled it. On Christmas Day, 1876, he wrote in his diary--"The most
solemn I have known for long; I see that eastward sky of storm and of
underlight!" When Parliament met in February, 1877, he was ready with
all his unequalled resources of eloquence, argumentation, and
inconvenient enquiry, to drive home his great indictment against the
Turkish Government and its champion, Disraeli, who had now become Lord
Beaconsfield. For three arduous years he sustained the strife with a
versatility, a courage, and a resourcefulness, which raised the
enthusiasm of his followers to the highest pitch, and filled his
antagonists with a rage akin to frenzy. I well remember that in July,
1878, just after Lord Beaconsfield's triumphant return from Berlin, a
lady asked me as a special favour to dine with her: "Because I have got
the Gladstones coming, and everyone declines to meet him." Strange, but
true.
1878 was perhaps the most critical year of the Eastern question. Russia
and Turkey were at death-grips, and Lord Beaconsfield seemed determined
to commit this country to a war in defence of the Mahomedan Power, which
for centuries has persecuted the worshippers of Christ in the East of
Europe. By frustrating the sinister design Gladstone saved England from
the indelible disgrace of a second Crimea. But it was not only in
Eastern Europe that he played the hero's part. In Africa, and India, and
wherever British arms were exercised and British honour was involved, he
dealt his resounding blows at that odious system of bluster and swagger
and might against right, on which the Prime Minister and his colleagues
bestowed the tawdry nickname of Imperialism. In his own phrase he
devoted himself to "counterworking the purpose of Lord Beaconsfield,"
and all that was ardent and enthusiastic and adventurous in Liberalism
flocked to his standard.
"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven."
One could not stand aloof--the call to arms was too imperious. We saw
our Leader contending single-handed with "the obscene empires of Mammon
and Belial," and we longed to be at his side in the thick of the fight.
To a man born and circumstanced as I was the call came with peculiar
power. I had the love of Freedom in my blood. I had been trained to
believe in and to serve the Liberal cause. I was incessantly reminded of
the verse, which, sixty years before, Moore had addressed to my uncle,
Lord John Russell,
"Like the boughs of that laurel, by Delphi's decree
Set apart for the Fane and its service divine,
So the branches that spring from the old Russell tree
Are by Liberty claimed for the use of her shrine."
In 1841 that same uncle wrote thus to his eldest brother: "Whatever may
be said about other families, I do not think ours ought to retire from
active exertion. In all times of popular movement, the Russells have
been on the 'forward' side. At the Reformation, the first Earl of
Bedford; in Charles the First's days, Francis, the Great Earl; in
Charles the Second's, William, Lord Russell; in later times, Francis,
Duke of Bedford; our father; you; and lastly myself in the Reform Bill."
These hereditary appeals were strong, but there were influences which
were stronger. A kind of romantic and religious glamour, such as one had
never before connected with politics, seemed to surround this attack on
the strongholds of Anti-Christ. The campaign became a crusade.
Towards the end of 1879 I accepted an invitation to contest "the Borough
and Hundreds of Aylesbury" at the next General Election. The "Borough"
was a compact and attractive-looking town, and the "Hundreds" which
surrounded it covered an area nearly coextensive with the present
division of Mid Bucks. Close by was Hampden House, unaltered since the
day when four thousand freeholders of Buckinghamshire rode up to
Westminster to defend their impeached member, John Hampden. All around
were those beech-clad recesses of the Chiltern Hills, in which,
according to Lord Beaconsfield, the Great Rebellion was hatched. I do
not vouch for that fact, but I can affirm that thirty years ago those
recesses sheltered some of the stoutest Liberals whom I have ever known.
The town and its surroundings were, for parliamentary purposes, a
Borough, and, as all householders in Boroughs had been enfranchised by
the Reform Act of 1867, the Agricultural Labourers of the district were
already voters.
It happens that Agricultural Labourers are the class of voters with
which I am most familiar; and an intimate acquaintance with these men
has taught me increasingly to admire their staunchness, their
shrewdness, and their racy humour. Two or three of the old sayings come
back to memory as I write. "More pigs and less parsons" must have been a
survival from the days of Tithe. "The Black Recruiting Sergeant" was a
nickname for a canvassing Incumbent. "I tell you how it is with a
State-Parson," cried a Village Hampden: "if you take away his book, he
can't preach. If you take away his gown he mayn't preach. If you take
away his screw, he'll be d--d if he'll preach." A Radical M.P. suddenly
deserted his constituency and took a peerage, and this was the verdict
of the Village Green: "Mister So-and-so says he's going to the House of
Lords to 'leaven it with Liberal principles.' Bosh! Mr. So-and-so can't
no more leaven the House of Lords than you can sweeten a cartload of
muck with a pot of marmalade."
Aylesbury returned two Members to Parliament, and its political history
had been chequered. When first I came to know it, the two members were
Mr. Samuel George Smith and Sir Nathaniel de Rothschild (afterwards Lord
Rothschild). Mr. Smith was a Tory. Sir Nathaniel professed to be a
Liberal; but, as his Liberalism was of the sort which had doggedly
supported Lord Beaconsfield all through the Eastern Question, the more
enthusiastic spirits in the constituency felt that they were wholly
unrepresented. It was they who invited me to stand. From the first, Sir
Nathaniel made it known that he would not support or coalesce with me;
and perhaps, considering the dissimilarity of our politics, it was just
as well. So there were three candidates, fighting independently for two
seats; there was no Corrupt Practices Act in those days; and the
situation was neatly summarized by a tradesman of the town. "Our three
candidates are Mr. S. G. Smith, head of 'Smith, Payne & Co.;' Sir
Nathaniel de Rothschild, head of 'N. M. Rothschild & Sons,' and Mr.
George Russell, who, we understand, has the Duke of Bedford behind him.
So we are looking forward to a very interesting contest." That word
_interesting_ was well chosen.
Now began the most vivid and enjoyable portion of my life. Everything
conspired to make it pleasant. In the first place, I believed absolutely
in my cause. I was not, as Sydney Smith said, "stricken by the palsy of
candour." There were no doubts or questionings or ambiguities in my
mind. My creed with regard both to foreign and to domestic politics was
clear, positive, and deliberate. I was received with the most
extraordinary kindness and enthusiasm by people who really longed to
have a hand in the dethronement of Lord Beaconsfield, and who believed
in their politics as part of their religion.
After my first speech in the Corn Exchange of Aylesbury I was severely
reprehended because I had called Lord Beaconsfield a "Jew." If I had
known better, I should have said "a Semite" or "an Israelite," or--his
own phrase--"a Mosaic Arab," and all would have been well. I had and
have close friends among the Jews, so my use of the offending word was
not dictated by racial or social prejudice. But it expressed a strong
conviction. I held then, and I hold now, that it was a heavy misfortune
for England that, during the Eastern Question, her Prime Minister was
one of the Ancient Race. The spiritual affinity between Judaism and
Mahomedanism, founded on a common denial of the Christian Creed, could
not be without its influence on a statesman whose deepest convictions,
from first to last, were with the religion of his forefathers. In 1876
Mr. Gladstone wrote--"Some new lights about Disraeli's Judaic feeling,
in which he is both consistent and conscientious, have come in upon me."
And similar "lights" dictated my action and my language at the crisis of
1879-1880.
Another element of enjoyment was that I was young--only twenty-six.
Youth is an invaluable asset in a first campaign. Youth can canvass all
day, and harangue all night. It can traverse immense distances without
fatigue, make speeches in the open air without catching cold, sleep
anywhere, eat anything, and even drink port with a grocer's label on it,
at five in the afternoon. Then again, I had a natural and inborn love of
public speaking, and I have known no enjoyment in life equal to that of
addressing a great audience which you feel to be actively sympathetic.
Yes, that spring of 1880 was a delightful time. As the condemned
highwayman said to the chaplain who was exhorting him to repentance for
his life of adventure on the road--"You dog, it was delicious." It was
all so new. One emerged (like Herbert Gladstone) from the obscurity of
College rooms or from the undistinguished herd of London ball-goers, or
from the stables and stubbles of a country home, and became, all in a
moment, a Personage. For the first time in one's life one found that
people--grown-up, sensible, vote-possessing people--wished to know one's
opinions, and gave heed to one's words. For the first time, one had
"Colours" of one's own, as if one were a Regiment or a University; for
the first time one beheld one's portrait, flattering though perhaps
mud-bespattered, on every wall. For the first time one was cheered in
the street, and entered the Corn-Exchange amid what the Liberal paper
called "thunders of applause," and the opponent's organ whittled down to
"cheers."