pleasure, and with more indignation. It is hard in a few crowded lines
to explain my meaning on a question so fundamental. The great object,
in trying to understand history, political, religious, literary or
scientific, is to get behind men and to grasp ideas. Ideas have a
radiation and development, an ancestry and posterity of their own, in
which men play the part of godfathers and godmothers more than that of
legitimate parents. We understand the work and place of Pascal, or
Newton, or Montesquieu, or Adam Smith, when we have measured the gap
between the state of astronomy, of political economy, &c., before {7}
they came and after they were gone. And the progress of the science is
of more use to us than the idiosyncrasy of the man. Let me try to
explain myself by an example of to-day. Here is Ferry's article 7.[11]
One way of looking at it is to reckon up the passions, the follies, the
vengeance of the republicans, to admire or deplore the victory of the
Conservatives, to wonder at the Democrats. But beyond the wishes of
the Democrats there are the doctrines of Democracy, doctrines which
push things towards certain consequences without help from local or
temporary or accidental motives. There is a state built on democratic
principles, and a society built, largely, on anti-democratic elements,
clergy and aristocracy. Those elements of society must needs react
upon the state; that is, try to get political power and use it to
qualify the Democracy of the Constitution. And the state power must
needs try to react on society, to protect itself against the hostile
elements. This is a law of Nature, and the vividness and force with
which we trace the motion of history depends on the degree to which we
look beyond persons and fix our gaze on things.--This is dreadfully
didactic prose. But this is my quarrel with Seeley. He discerns no
Whiggism, but only Whigs. And he wonders at the mistakes of the Whigs
when he ought to be following up the growth and modifications of their
doctrine, and its influence on the Church, on Toleration, on European
politics, on the English monarchy, the Colonies, finance, local
government, justice, Scotland, and Ireland. So you may read in Alison
of the profligacy of Mirabeau, the ferocity of Marat, the weakness of
Louis, the sombre fanaticism {8} of Robespierre. But what we want to
know is why the old world that had lasted so long went to ruin, how the
doctrine of equality sprang into omnipotence, how it changed the
principles of administration, justice, international law, taxation,
representation, property, and religion. Seeley is as sick as I am of
the picturesque scenery of the historians of sense, but he does not
like to go straight at the impersonal forces which rule the world, such
as predestination, equality, divine right, secularism,
Congregationalism, nationality, and whatever other ruling ideas have
grouped and propelled associations of men. And my great complaint is
that he so much dislikes the intriguers of 1688 that he does not
recognise the doctrine of 1688, which is one of the greatest forces,
one of the three or four greatest forces, that have contributed to
construct our civilisation, and make 1880 so unlike 1680. See H. of
L.,[12] page 50,000. All which things make me more zealous, eager,
anxious about the coming election than you who are in the midst of it,
mindful of the blessing of repose and credulous of Seeley. Therefore I
read with delight the address to Midlothian--more even than the speech
in Marylebone--and am daily refreshed by Lowe, John Morley, even
Rogers,[13] and fancy how happy the inquisitors were, who put a stop to
the people they disagreed with! But I can quite feel your sensation in
watching all this.
* * * * *
If we win, then there will be no rest in this life for Mr. Gladstone.
The victory will be his, and his only. And so will the responsibility
be. Then will come the {9} late harvest and the gathering in of its
heavy sheaves. And then there will be not much Hawarden for you.
I heartily wish your brothers success--even the riotous
one[14]--especially the riotous one. I will come and wish him joy. If
we are beaten, I shall be ashamed to let you see my grief. And as it
is, I am ashamed to tell you how much I should like to hear from you,
because you will suspect that I only want a supplement to the _Times_,
or a later edition of the _Echo_. But the next few weeks are going to
be a great turning-point in the history of our lifetime, and I believe
you know how to be generous. Be generous before you are just. Do not
temper mercy with justice.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _Cannes April 10, 1880_]
There is nothing to regret. Your brother has held a conspicuous
place[15] in the most wonderful election contest of this century. He
has held it in a manner which will never be forgotten in his lifetime,
and which will do as much for him as victory; and the picture of the
young untried son bursting into sudden popularity and turning men's
thoughts from the absorbing exploits of his father adds an affecting
domestic feature to that great biography. That meeting at Hawarden,
after such a revolution and such a growth, is a thing I cannot think of
without emotion.
So I cannot offer you anything sincere, except congratulation. We know
now, indeed, that the British Democracy is neither Liberal nor
Conservative in its permanent convictions, and therefore the party
triumph is not as altogether satisfactory and secure as it should be.
But the individual triumph, the homage rendered to a single name, could
not be greater; and {10} there could not be a fuller atonement for the
desertion of 1874, than a success so personal as to convey dictatorial
authority, apart from party merits and combinations.
Your idea has this advantage, that one must strike when the iron is
hot, and it is now at white heat, and our legislative measures, even
though they involve an early dissolution, ought to be begun soon. What
I should fear most would be that, content with the intense reality of
power, Mr. Gladstone should repeat the unhappy declarations of five
years since in a way that would commit him for all future time;
absolute abdication would be a misfortune all round, and the
Conservative reaction would soon set in. But if an eventual return to
power is not absolutely excluded, if no word is said of what might
happen under certain contingencies, then we should still feel that we
have an invincible reserve force, that, when our first line is broken,
we can proclaim the Jehad and unfurl the green flag of the Prophet.
For the patchwork settlement of 1875 depends on the life of a man who
is several years older than your father,[16] who is a duke, and who has
a deplorable habit of falling asleep early in the afternoon. But I
only express this premature fear in view of circumstances which I am
sure every influence in the country, except, perhaps, the influence of
Windsor, will be strained to avert.
Your description of Lowe's generous and feeling sympathy is really
touching. How little I thought, fourteen years ago,[17] when he was
the hardest hitter your father had to meet, and when your father said
he {11} might well shrink from crossing swords with such a man, that he
would close his active life as your brother's sponsor before vast
constituencies, or that we should come to think of him listening with
tears in his eyes to your brother's speeches, and muttering the words
you tell.
Please tell Herbert that I have followed his proceedings as carefully
as one could at a distance, that I don't think much of his defeat,
that, in short, I go halves with Lowe.[18]
I see that your sister made her way into the fray. I trust all the
worry and toil was not too much for Mrs. Gladstone.
We are ending the season here, not as far out of the world as you would
suppose; for I just saw your neighbour Westminster, and here are
Argyll, Cardwell, and Goldsmid.
If Disraeli waits to meet Parliament, and to fall in the daylight, I
may hope to have an opportunity of expressing to you myself all my
sense of the meaning of the victory, and my want of sympathy for you in
your defeat.[19]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _Paris May 23, 1880_]
I have been in Paris only a few hours, and have seen nobody yet but
Broglie, Gavard, and Laugel. I must see Scherer and talk to him about
your visit here in the autumn. I have not been here for two years, and
many of my friends are growing so old that I don't like putting off my
visit to them. So I must keep those who have not that defect for a
happier time.
{12}
[Sidenote: _Paris May 14, 1880_]
I shall be delighted to inaugurate breakfasting in Downing Street on
Thursday; and I should very much like to drop in the night before, as
you are to be there. But it seems very indiscreet; and if I dine with
Lord Granville, I shall not be able to get away until very late, when
you will be gone to bed. Tegernsee late hours cannot be kept in
London. I will hope for the best, and keep all I have to say, partly
for next week, partly for some more propitious season.
[Sidenote: _Wuerzburg May 23, 1880_]
Although ink was not invented to express our real feelings, I improve
my first stoppage between two trains to thank you for three such
delightful days in London. It was a shame to take up so much of your
busy time, and to persecute you with the serpentine wisdom. I did not
wish to turn into bitterness the sweetest thing on earth, but I fancied
that there are things good to be observed in your great position which
nobody will tell you if you do not hear them from the most wicked of
your friends. Hayward, indeed, who walked home with me the other
night, might claim that title and dispute my prerogative; and I thought
he would be useful to you in many ways until I found out that he is
only solicitous about getting invitations for ----.
Since you detected ... lending herself to a humble intrigue, you can
never be surprised at the revelations of disappointment and
self-seeking, and must not believe that the smiling faces you see
express unmixed loyalty and satisfaction. So I want you to be vigilant
not to resent, but to pursue the work of disarming resentment, and not
easily to persuade yourself that it is done.
To begin at the top. Here is Lowe, positively {13} wounded at the
letter offering him a peerage instead of power, and wounded by the very
thing which showed Mr. Gladstone's anxiety not to give him pain, by the
absence of any reason given for being unable to offer him office. For
one so often finds that acts specially showing delicacy and
considerateness, little supererogatory works of kindness, are taken
unkindly. Now that is just a state of mind you can improve away by an
initiative of civility, bearing in mind that what Lowe says to me, his
wife delivers from the house-tops.
* * * * *
The animosity of the defeated party is natural, manifest, and
invincible. They have offered Greenwood L110,000 for his newspaper,
besides general offers of indefinite sums--enough to start it four or
five times over. But the danger is not there, but at home; danger of
disintegration and drifting. Both in church questions, and,
ultimately, in land questions, your father is at variance with the
great bulk of colleagues and followers--Chamberlain and Argyll in one
Cabinet is an anomaly sure to tell in time, especially with Argyll
discontented. So do not undervalue, or neglect, or waste, the social
influence which centres in your hands.
Bismarck is so angry with Muenster, that I hope he will transplant him;
meanwhile it ought to be remembered that he, M., not only scouted the
idea of Tory defeat, but wrote most disparagingly of Mr. Gladstone's
influence and position.
Hayward will tell you what I learn from other sources, that Chenery
really wishes to bring the _Times_ round. Mr. Gladstone dislikes
thinking of those things, and allowed Delane to slip from him. Don't
leave the whole thing to be done at No. 18.[20]
{14}
I hope, towards the end of the session, you will consult MacColl about
the Bavarian mystery. It would be nice if Leeds does not require its
member just then. Above all things keep a very regular diary. You
will be so glad afterwards, unless you have some distant correspondent,
and make your letters to him, or her, do for a regular diary, which is
also a good plan.
[Sidenote: _Tegernsee June 1, 1880_]
I received your letter last night on my return from Italy, and read the
enclosure with interest. There are two things to be said in its
defence. It is true that Hartington has, of late, shown higher
qualities than the world attributed to him, and so far his adoring
kinsfolk may consider their higher estimate justified. His whole
attitude during the election was creditable, and his conduct towards
Mr. Gladstone was correct.
Then, there is a grain of truth in the notion that the force that
creates, and sustains in a crisis, is not quite the same that is wanted
in time of prose to continue and to preserve; or in other words, that
creative power makes a great consumption of party resources, and, if
Burke gave up to party what was meant for mankind, it is better still
to give up to mankind what some people mean to use for party. This is
only a half truth, because party is not only, not so much, a group of
men as a set of ideas and ideal aims; so that I do not admit
Goldsmith's antithesis.[21] But taking party in the practical and
popular sense, of an instrument for homing office, people are uneasily
conscious that Mr. Gladstone will sacrifice it to loftier purpose
sooner than they would like. Nothing is more untrue than the famous
saying of an ancient historian, that power is retained by the same arts
by which it is {15} acquired; untrue at least for men, though truer in
the case of nations.
But don't you see, pervading the letter and guiding the pen, the great
intellectual and moral defect of the present day? I mean, the habit of
dwelling on appearances, not on realities, of preferring the report to
the bullet, and the echo to the report. To spend and lose a majority
in some great cause, to be abused and ridiculed and calumniated, seems
to the writer a misfortune so great that it is worth while to haul down
one's flag rather than incur the risk of it. This is the power of
journalism, of salons and club life, which teaches people to depend on
popularity and success and not on the guide within, to act not from
knowledge, but from opinion, and to be led by opinion of others rather
than by knowledge which is their own. Not only ----, nearly everybody
yields up his conscience, his practical judgment, into the keeping of
others. I do not accuse Hartington, but it is clear from the words of
---- and ----, that there was a scheme to get Mr. Gladstone out of the
way. To expect him to take the first step was to expect him to resign.
It is so easy to do a dirty thing with self-satisfaction when it
consists in abstaining from action. The one letter is only the
plausible, affectionate, amplification of the other's impertinence,
with a saving clause, on the first page, inserted from dictation, when
the grievous indiscretion had been committed....
* * * * *
It does not matter seriously; but it serves to corroborate that grave
speech of mine: trust nobody. I don't want you to think ill of people,
or even to suspect them until the evidence is strong. It is not their
virtue I question, but their attachment, and {16} consequently their
discretion. And I question their attachment because I doubt their
thorough agreement with Mr. Gladstone. I don't say they are
perfidious; but they are bound by an alliance they do not mean to last
for ever.
* * * * *
I do not cite Northcote and Carnarvon in confirmation. Soon after his
resignation Carnarvon certainly wished to come over. At a solemn
dinner inaugurating him as President of the Society of Antiquaries, he
asked the secretaries to get me to propose his health. In a preceding
speech he spoke of himself as a true Conservative at heart; and so I
took those words up, congratulating him upon them in an Antiquarian,
and eventually in a Liberal sense, indicating that they meant no more
than we mean by constitutional, that there were no Pyrenees between us,
that we entirely agreed with each other. We became close friends from
that hour, and he made it very clear that he was pleased to be so
interpreted. But he got little encouragement afterwards; and I fancied
he honestly took this line--there are intelligent High Church men who
dread, in the looming future, an alliance between democratic
nonconformity and the predestined chief of the stern and unbending
Tories, on the basis of anti-Erastianism. They say that the late
election, swamping the vulgar Whig, has made those two allies stronger
than ever, making each depend upon the other. They would stand a
Liberal Government made up of Spencers and Cowpers, but they say that
the demagogues have been strong enough to force their way in, and will
make their power felt. So that property and the Church are in danger.
I am ashamed to say that I thought this was Carnarvon's line. But
Liddon knows what he says. {17} Be sure that I also know what I say
when I assure you that the victoria pilgrimage will be a help to your
father, and that Lady R.'s coachman will grease wheels more important
than her own. Do go on, this summer at least, and see whether it is
not true. Lady R. is, moreover, a friend of Lady Blennerhassett, and
will sympathise with your feelings.
* * * * *
I should not have supported our side in its attack on Sir Bartle Frere.
It was not merely a question of empire, but of lives he would be unable
to protect, against a savage army[22] far stronger than the whole armed
population of Natal. I fancy that the analogy, or apparent analogy,
with the Cabul policy, which he had so much promoted, turned Liberal
opinion against him. But Frere is a strong, an able, and a plausible
man. It is true that his strength is akin to obstinacy and self-will,
that he is rather too plausible, and that he will gain his ends by
crooked paths when he has tried the straight in vain. He is a
dangerous agent, but, I should think, a useful adviser. Indians are
not generally a healthy element in the body politic, and he has the
constant vice of Indians, belief in force. But he has a breadth of
mind that is rare among them; and I have known people who hated him,
because he is so good. I do not suggest that that is the motive of the
three Anabaptists who ply you with advice from which I disagree.
Thanks, a thousand thanks, for all the kindness of your letter. I
enjoyed the Sherbrooke-Airlie-Trevelyan dinner very much, and shall
envy Lady R. every Monday to come....
{18}
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _Tegernsee June 9, 1880_]
My letter was posted with the one to you, though written, I think, the
night before, so that it must have been stopped and opened by some
postmaster whom the direction attracted, and who, like yourself,
exaggerated its importance. There are truths so prosaic, so dense, so
dull, that one can hardly state them without suggesting the idea of
something subtler or more interesting beyond. Of course, to one who
spends his time in watching and trying to understand the progress of
political life and thought, no public event could equal the late
progress from Dalmeny to Downing Street, and no prouder thing could
happen than to be able to serve Mr. Gladstone's policy. Indeed, if I
was not lured by his genius, his persistent friendship, and a curious
sympathy in many deep questions, I should be, now, by qualities never
so apparent as in the last few days, by the power of grasping principle
in one hand and policy in the other, without clashing, which was shown
in the opium speech, and just before, in the speech on the liability of
employers. I don't know whether I could ever have been of use abroad,
in other circumstances, if my nearest relation was not Foreign
Secretary,[23] for there is only one place for which I could pretend to
any special fitness. But as to trying to qualify as a candidate for
anything at home, you would soon be satisfied that it is impossible, if
I had a good opportunity of talking--if we climb a mountain, a very
high mountain, or cross a broad and stormy lake some day.[24] But I
think I must remind you of the old lady at Carlisle in Forty-Five, who
shut herself up in terror of the Highlanders, and, not being pursued,
{19} grew impatient, and cried out: "When are they going to begin?"
I am a little disturbed at the highly ingenious and easy solution of
the great party[25] question. It is dangerous, at any time, to
multiply sources of weakness. Now there is a source of future weakness
in the idea of power assumed only for a term limited and defined. A
Parliament near its end becomes helpless and unable to act. When the
period fixed, or supposed to be fixed, is approaching, power will slip
away. Disappointed people, men impatient of having to wait, hungry,
jealous, reluctant supporters, will gravitate in other directions, will
promote rivalry, will speed the parting chief, will magnify the rising
sun. By having only Free and Easies, you establish a festive Centre
elsewhere, and the world, revolving in an improper orbit, may lose its
way. There has been, in this direction, a slight waste of capital....
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _June 9, 1880_]
Your card came just after my letter was posted. I shall be at Munich
on Friday, and have written to Hallam Tennyson, _poste restante_; but I
hope to waylay them at the station. It will be pleasant to pilot the
great man through Munich, or on the road to Achensthal, and I will do
my best....
I hope you will not quarrel with John Morley, for he seems to be making
the _Pall Mall_ the best Liberal paper in England. But he has so many
points of antagonism to Mr. Gladstone that I am afraid. He is a
sceptic; his studies are all French, eighteenth century; in political
economy he is a bald Cobdenite, and will do scant justice to the
political aspects of the {20} French treaty; he is a friend of
Lytton's, and I suspect, of the peccant Strachey;[26] he has the
obstinacy of a very honest mind. But I perceive that I am getting to
be a bore....
[Sidenote: _Tegernsee June 21, 1880_]
The Tennysons came and went, I am sorry to say, prematurely. They
spent two days with us, and would have gone by Achensee to Innsbruck,
but the rain sent them back to Munich, where they took the train for
Italy. You will be surprised to learn that the Poet made a favourable
impression on my ladies and children. He was not only a gracious Poet,
but he told us lots of good stories, read aloud without pressure,
walked repeatedly with M., and seemed interested in the books he
carried to his room. Lady Acton took him to Kreuth and round the lake,
and liked him well. Yet our ways were very strange to him, and he must
have felt that he stood on the far verge of civilisation, without the
enjoyments proper to savage life. Even I was tamed at last. There was
a shell to crack, but I got at the kernel, chiefly at night, when
everybody was in bed. His want of reality, his habit of walking on the
clouds, the airiness of his metaphysics, the indefiniteness of his
knowledge, his neglect of transitions, the looseness of his political
reasonings--all this made up an alarming _cheval de frise_.
But then there was a gladness--not quickness--in taking a joke or
story, a comic impatience of the external criticism of Taine and others
found here, coupled with a simple dignity when reading ill-natured
attacks, a grave groping for religious certainty, and a generosity in
the treatment of rivals--of Browning and {21} Swinburne, though not of
Taylor--that helped me through. He was not quite well, in consequence
of the damp and of the mountain fare.
I write for news to your hotel at Venice, the weather having been
against the Dolomites.
Hallam is a much better and clearer politician than his father, and the
only time we differed he was the truer Blue. If I add that I
discovered why he refused a baronetcy, I suspect it is no more than you
know very well already.
* * * * *
I have made Liddon's acquaintance at last. Nothing but Tennyson
prevented me from seeing more of him, for I found in him all that I
love Oxford for, and only a very little of what I dislike in it.
------------
... Let me suppress truths only when they are pleasant, and confess
that I have a doubt about the scene with O'Donnell. Mr. Gladstone
brought against him an engine as obsolete as the Veto,[27] not for the
sake of France, for he could have his say in another way, but for a
disorderly act which was not the worst on record. It seemed a stretch
of severity when the claim to have been severely treated is the most
telling feather in an Irish cap, when the fact of having been silenced
in a new way inflates the lungs, if it does not strengthen the hands,
of a Home Ruler. But perhaps I am so fresh from the history of the
Plebs and their Tribunes that I am not quite sound as to the management
of Obstructives.
{22}
Challemel Lacour is the scholar, the philosopher, the ascetic of that
republican school of which Gambetta is the Tribune and the platform
hero. He is their Minister in reserve; and Albert Gate is so
manifestly the stepping-stone to power, he is so conspicuous a leader
of untried policy, that the civility of his reception will be taken in
France as a tribute to his party in a way there has been no example of.
He is probably the most interesting specimen in existence of the school
from which Robespierre would have chosen his colleagues. I should
very, very much like to know how he impresses you; and there is so much
more I should very much like to know, that I must learn to be less
obtrusive.
... If the Bavarian Fawcett[28] opened one of my letters, I suspect it
was because they have not got over their perplexity at the Queen
informing the King of Bavaria of the Rammingen misalliance. Only, when
I ask indiscreet questions do not suspect me of asking for indiscreet
answers.
I think Reay deserves a seat in the H. of L. (in the vulgar sense of
those mystic letters),[29] because he would perhaps not recognise your
portrait of a barren, contradictory, envious, dissolving cynic. But
the cap fits only too well, and I must acknowledge the fidelity of the
likeness, and the art of Lenbach in the deeper shades. Do you
remember, now, my prophecy on the Piazzetta, when I rejoiced that you
would not stay long enough to learn to hate me?
In worldly quarters you will probably meet with the objection to Reay
that he is more instructive than amusing; but I hardly know a more
genuine good fellow. {23} Do you know Morier, who is in town? Another
man much objected to, but exceedingly able, resolute, and energetic....
* * * * *
I hope you will see Blennerhassett, and think him worthy of his wife,
who is still at Munich. Thank you for the good news you give from high
places, and for the greasy wheels. Your sister's ears ought to have
tingled at the good things said of her here last week.
[Sidenote: _Tegernsee July 1, 1880_]
... I hope you have not many correspondents as unmerciful as I am, or
as much inclined to forget that you are living the most interesting of
lives, by the intensest blaze of light in all the world. Only let me
just thank you for your letter of yesterday and for your kindness in
asking me to future entertainments. My prospects are too uncertain for
me to accept. I must come only if I am wanted, and we shall hardly
have any close divisions of importance until the end of July. Your
invitations have doubled in value since Reay, whose particular group of
friends is so well known as to betray him to the worst of guessers, has
supplied you with a key--a false key--to my Venetian Mystery.
Don't get tired too easily of London and its duties, for they are very
real. They will not get on without you. And it is of no use coming
over, if you are away on all kinds of larks.