associates it has lost as well as by the associates that decline to
join. There are now the ingredients of an alternative Liberal Cabinet,
consisting of men fairly equal to those now in office--with the
necessary exception--and hostile to them. The ground is getting narrow
under our feet, and the full {158} force of the party does not support
Ministers. The want of a successor to Bright indicates too clearly
that Mr. Gladstone, though still master of his majority, is not what he
has been, master of his party. I hope for new arrangements at the end
of the session, and for a real gain of strength from ultimate success
in Egypt. But, like Ireland, it is a harvest that will ripen slowly.
I wonder whether things have seemed to you as gloomy as this, or
whether the light before you dispels the darkness.
Mozley's book, and all others published in England since January, I
have not seen. He interests me more than almost any other of our
divines, and I look forward to a good time with his reminiscences, if,
as I understand, it is the divine, and not the manifold writer.[184]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _Tegernsee August 4, 1882_]
With all my heart I adopt your scheme, Reform, Dissolution, and then,
let Politics make way for a still higher and worthier cause.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _Paris, August 12, 1882_]
Salisbury's collapse[185] is less decisive than mine, and although
there is a pleasant corner in the House of Lords, my journey ends in
nothing better than disappointment and in having set you to write notes
all day. My accounts show that they are not comfortable at home, so
that I have no right to be basking in the ethereal sunshine of Downing
Street.
It was a monstrous thing to do, suggestive of {159} Mrs. Todgers, but I
left the Dante in his[186] room at the H. of Commons. It was too late
to ring at No. 10,[187] for I kept him talking till near eleven. But
there was some symbolic propriety about the title[188] of the unbound
volume--unbound because they did not remember the binding of the rest.
Of course the impression of my one well-filled day in town--even with
the part of Cordelia left out--is the very opposite of that under which
I lately wrote. The session ends with a great blaze of his mastery and
power. But the best of it all is, that I found him so wonderfully
vigorous and well and even content. It did indeed impress me most
deeply.
It is remarkable how little he chooses to realise the tremendous loss
of authority and power which the party will incur by his retirement,
and he has no idea how little he would soon be in harmony with them.
However, Ireland is not all right yet; and there are obvious
complications impending in Egypt which he cannot leave unsolved. With
that, there will still be time for the Reform Bill.
Late at night I found slipped under my door your rejected letter, which
will be cherished with the rest. If writing made up for sight!
This letter is written by scraps, in various places and countries. I
crossed with Forster, on his way to Russia, and got him to tell me his
inner history. I shall be at St. Martin the day after to-morrow....
Shorthouse's[189] letter could not go with Dante, and I will enclose it
in my next. I have got Democracy. The Mays, considered an authority
on the subject, do {160} not think much of it. Forster does, and says
it is not by Mrs. Adams. He says that Bright has no idea that he left
either too early or too late. Will you--very earnestly--put my excuses
before Mrs. Gladstone for my way of dealing with her boundless
hospitality?
[Sidenote: _La Madeleine Cannes Feb. 2, 1883_]
I wonder whether you would come to lunch to-morrow, Saturday? Perhaps
I could inscribe in your most private book the list of the hundred
works that have most influenced human history.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _Feb. 13, 1883_]
... These books are enclosed to show Mr. Gladstone what good German
prose is, in expounding difficult, very difficult, questions. Also, a
little book, by a very famous Dane who has grown more and more to be a
power since his death....
[Sidenote: _La Madeleine March 3, 1883_]
After seeking a moment's distraction at a chateau near Marseilles I
came home to find your letter, so kindly written in the intervals of
Parisian dissipations.
The failure of Challemel was truly sad, but I hope that Fedora,[190]
following the little dinner on the Boulevard, made up for it. The
tranquillity and sameness of Cannes will soon be thrust far out of
sight by the centre of European life. We do our best, in your absence,
to be a little worldly. Bright, Houghton, and the Mallets lunch
to-day. I am to meet Colonel Hay at tea, and the little bishop[191] at
dinner this evening.
... It is pleasant to think that Lyons made you enjoy Paris, and
divined the one thing you all have a passion for, and he seems to have
done the political part of his work very well by bringing you into
contact {161} both with the ruling men and with the Left Centre. That
was just what was wanting to redress the Wolvertonian balance.
I am a little sorry that the visit at the Elysee was not more
interesting. Grevy's speeches in 1848 were very sensible indeed, but
he seems to be pushing the theory of the _roi faineant_ much beyond the
American, or even the Merovingian, limit, if he avoids politics with
such a visitor. Then I rejoice much at the visit to Jules Simon,
though you don't say whether it was spontaneous or a return, and a
curious question is, where was the limit drawn? Did he and Broglie,
Decazes, Harcourt, avoid each other? If these former ambassadors did
not call, it is matter for speculation. At Marseilles, I found myself
in a nest of Legitimists, and learnt that the chief of them, Coriolis,
lately asked the Count of Chambord for leave to raise the white flag.
If there was more of this kind, it is odd that the advocates of
expulsion made so little of it. If it had been possible to stay longer
at Paris, it would have been a very desirable thing, for they do not
really know or understand him,[192] and the conflict of forces there
would be worth observing otherwise than in Blowitz' or Lyons's
despatches.
It is a pity to have missed Mrs. Craven, who would take to you
intensely if you saw more of each other--a woman of great talent and
elevation of mind, but who has just written on the Salvation Army a
paper that seems to portend the approach of mental decay. Lady
Blennerhassett is very far her superior. Tell her all about Cannes if
you see her.... Mrs. Green writes me a touching letter to say that she
has no hope left....
* * * * *
{162}
[Sidenote: _La Madeleine, March 7, 1883_]
This is only a hasty line of thanks and congratulation on your
prosperous journey. I have not yet seen either the Wolvertons or the
Anson family, and to-day there are a couple of inches of snow over
Cannes. Incorrigible Potter circulates the Financial Reform Almanack
in the name of the Cobden Club, for which Reay, A. Russell, and others
have denounced him. He asked me to read it through, which has been the
melancholy occupation of a whole day, ending in agreement with the
critics.
I am losing Mallet, who is less well and goes to Mentone. Also,
Colonel Hay,[193] Lincoln's secretary and biographer, who proved a most
agreeable acquaintance. Yesterday, there was an expedition to Pegomas
(Houghton, Dempsters, &c.) and I find that the old lady[194] is the
original of St. Monica in Ary Scheffer's picture. Myers, translator of
Homer, is here, with a nice, newly-married wife, and Cross is in great
force, writing the biography[195] and wanting me to read the papers.
Thanks for the MS., with the answer for which pray express my
acknowledgments.
* * * * *
You have heard that the Ashburnham MSS. are offered to the Museum, and
that some of them were stolen from public libraries in France. We
propose, if we buy at all, to resell to France as many of these as can
be proved to be stolen, and Delisle, the French Panizzi, comes this
week to produce his evidence, amicably, before the Museum experts.
I say nothing about the purchase, and have only insisted that ---- was
a thief, and that we must, as we did before, make terms with Paris.
But I want you to know that Leopold Delisle is one of the most eminent
{163} scholars in France, that he is a most estimable and high-minded
man, tho' not a conspicuous bookmaker or litterateur, that he stands as
high in Germany as any Frenchman living, and that I have long enjoyed
the privilege of his friendly acquaintance. So that, if it should be
otherwise feasible, any civility shown him by the P.M.[196] on this his
very peculiar international mission, would be taken in France as a
marked sign of courtesy and goodwill, just after the visit to France.
This is quite independent of the decision the Treasury may come to
about the grant. I may add that Delisle is perfectly trustworthy, and
that we are safe in the hands of the Museum people, to come to right
judgments as to the MSS....
Cross has shown me, with some secrecy, a very curious letter of
Dickens, declaring that only a woman could have written the "Scenes
from Clerical Life." But he gives no good reason, and I am persuaded
that he had heard the secret from Herbert Spencer, who at once detected
it. I dare not express my doubt. John Morley writes pleasantly, but
says he still feels like a fish out of water on the benches.
This is written at your table in considerable solitude and vacancy.
* * * * *
I have just heard that Green is dead, and I must go to Mentone....
[Sidenote: _La Madeleine March 21, 1883_]
I hope to see them at the station, and then we can make plans for next
week. The hotel is very full, but Cross tells me that there is just
room for them. Ill-timed is really all I say against that passage of
the {164} lecture;[197] and, if other people had gone straight, it
would not even have been ill-timed. My censure has never gone farther
than that.
Nobody can well be more strongly persuaded than I am of the necessity,
the practical and moral necessity, of governing nations by consent,
national consent being proved both by the vapour of opinion, and by the
definite mechanism of representation. I am not even surprised that
many Irishmen should be suspicious of the goodwill of a country which
turns as readily to a Tory government as to a Liberal, which is seldom
awake to its sins and the consequences of its sins, unless roused by
terror, and which has made amends only under compulsion, or under the
intense, but not permanent, influence of one resolute mind. Even that
is not all that I concede to them. Therefore, in substance, Herbert
has all my sympathy; only, if anything awkward arises, it is his father
who has to find the remedy or bear the burden. The danger now is that
the great wave, of his own raising, that has sustained his policy of
generosity, and even of eventual confidence, will fall. People will
lose, not only sympathy, which is not to the point, but hopefulness. I
cannot even say that they will be wrong to lose hope. But if men cease
to look forward to success, they cannot be made to go straight by
looking back to their own evil deeds. Nobody, then, would stand by the
P.M. except pure Democrats, like Chamberlain and Morley. If I was a
Minister, I would say, not that we shall devise new schemes to disarm
this new evidence, not that we shall relax our efforts in just
indignation and despair, {165} but that we shall go on with our appeal
from the ill-disposed to the well-disposed, pursuing a policy which is
not dictated by momentary hope or momentary fear, but proceeds from the
heart and spirit of the principles which are our _raison d'etre_ as a
party and as a government. But I don't say that I should succeed.
If flurry and apprehension penetrate Downing Street, nothing can
sustain Mr. Gladstone better than your own serenity. Be true to him
and to his cause even if these odious crimes continue, even when you
feel that the harvest will not be reaped in his time. The mills of God
grind slowly.
It is very easy to speak words of wisdom from a comfortable distance,
when one sees no reality, no details, none of the effect on men's
minds. What is glorious is the way in which Mr. Gladstone rides on the
whirlwind. You need not wonder much what I am thinking of it all.
As long ago as 1870 I ceased to be sanguine that we could govern
Ireland successfully. The best influence over the Irish people is the
influence of the clergy, and an ultramontane clergy is not proof
against the sophistry by which men justify murder or excuse murderers.
The assassin is only a little more resolutely logical or a little
bolder than the priest.
I hope you will read and like Montegut's articles on George Eliot,
especially the second, in the _Revue_ of March 15. See pp. 307 and 329
for some very excellent criticism.
Miss B. met Cross here at lunch, was intensely excited, and explained
it by saying that he is Ladislaw. But I cannot believe it. They say
that Dorothea is here too. H---- has been in great force. He is
unwell now, but looks forward to M----'s arrival to-day, {166}
declaring, with accurate self-knowledge, that he likes nothing so much
as an impostor.
He has given me Bradley's Recollections to read, from which I learned
very little, and Stephen's very curious history of our criminal law.
Oscar Browning is here, divided between the French Revolution and the
Gracchi--the most interesting of all purely secular topics.
[Sidenote: _La Madeleine March 31, 1883_]
The Wickhams are most inaccessible people, only to be seen on the road
to Gourdon or St. Cezaire. I have had only a glimpse of them; but we
hope to overtake them between Chateau Scott and S. Paul's on Sunday.
They have some wild scheme of visiting Languedoc.
Cross told me that he had asked for some criticisms of mine which you
told him of. I answered that I did not believe you would send them,
and he said that if you did, he would forward them unread. But I am
sure there is nothing of any possible use to him. He is very
communicative, and I am to see her letters and to advise as to
publication. What I have seen is of such a kind that merely strung
together with a few short notes, it would make a very interesting book:
"Memorials of George Eliot."
The real answer to your remark[198] about that list[199] is that which
Johnson gave about fetlock.[200] I have nothing to say about physical
science that is not a reminiscence of conversations with Owen or
Hooker, Paget or Tyndall; and it would be important to put down all the
decisive works in those branches. I have {167} tried to know the books
on the history and method of discovery, the laws of scientific
progress, and the tests of truth and error; and I find that this is a
matter which very few scientific men take any interest in.
If I must defend my list, this is the sort of sophism I would employ:--
We all know some twenty or thirty predominant currents of thought or
attitudes of mind, or system-bearing principles, which jointly or
severally weave the web of human history and constitute the civilised
opinion of the age. All these, I imagine, a serious man ought to
understand, in whatever strength or weakness they possess, in their
causes and effects, and in their relations to each other. The majority
of them are either religious or substitutes for religion. For
instance, Lutheran, Puritan, Anglican, Ultramontane, Socinian,
Congregational, Mystic, Rationalist, Utilitarian, Pantheist,
Positivist, Pessimist, Materialist, and so on. All understanding of
history depends on one's understanding the forces that make it, of
which religious forces are the most active, and the most definite. We
cannot follow all the variations of a human mind, but when we know the
religious motive, that the man was an Anabaptist, an Arminian, a Deist
or a Jansenist, we have the master key, we stand on known ground, we
are working a sum that has been, at least partially, worked out for us,
we follow a computed course, and get rid of guesses and accidents.
Thirdly (I am thinking, let us say, of my own son), we are not
considering what will suit an untutored savage or an illiterate peasant
woman who would never come to an end of the Imitation or the Serious
Call. Her religion may be enough for heaven, without other study. Not
so with a man living in the world, in constant friction {168} with
adversaries, in constant contemplation of religious changes, sensible
of the power which is exerted by strange doctrines over minds more
perfect, characters that are stronger, lives that are purer than his
own. He is bound to know the reason why. First, because, if he does
not, his faith runs a risk of sudden ruin. Secondly, for a reason
which I cannot explain without saying what you may think bad psychology
or bad dogma--I think that faith implies sincerity, that it is a gift
that does not dwell in dishonest minds. To be sincere a man must
battle with the causes of error that beset every mind. He must pour
constant streams of electric light into the deep recesses where
prejudice dwells, and passion, hasty judgments and wilful blindness
deem themselves unseen. He must continually grub up the stumps planted
by all manner of unrevised influence. The subtlest of all such
influences is not family, or college, or country, or class, or party,
but religious antagonism. There is much more danger for a
high-principled man of doing injustice to the adherent of false
doctrine, of judging with undeserved sympathy the conspicuous adherent
of true doctrine, than of hating a Frenchman or loving a member of
Brooks's. Many a man who thinks the one disgraceful is ready to think
the other more than blameless. To develop and perfect and arm
conscience is the great achievement of history, the chief business of
every life, and the first agent therein is religion or what resembles
religion. That is my sophism, beyond Dr. Johnson. But I think I
represent Anglicanism by only one book, or two at most. Others, such
as books on Church and State, cover much secular ground. Luckily, the
paper limit stops me in the middle of a long prose.
{169}
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _Hotel Klinger Marienbad Sept. 1, 1883_]
... Here, at last, I am resting from hard times at Marienbad, where the
waters get into one's head, as my letter will probably show. You
insist on my recording everything on which you will disagree, so I must
say that I should have voted more in royal than episcopal company.[201]
In our Church and in the countries I have lived in much, one is so
accustomed to those marriages that one does not think of a law to
prevent them. Then as to Egypt, I was not orthodox as to the policy of
the argument in favour of Lesseps, but vehemently comforted by the line
taken, to make no sordid profit out of our military position, and to
resist every entanglement that would indefinitely prolong the
occupation. When I consider that our presence there should be the
pivot for the settlement of the Eastern question, and the means of
civilising Africa, I can see so much to dazzle ambitious politicians
that I fear no Minister but one will ever be strong enough--in
ascendency as well as in moral power--to evacuate, and I complacently
take note of that additional steam to my propeller, whenever the
question of retirement stirs again; and my third heresy is about the
Pope. His declaration was concerted, I suppose, to hit some of the
clergy between wind and water, and so had a political, not a moral aim.
We may get embarrassed if we prompt and promote the political influence
of the Pope, whose principles are necessarily, whose interests are
generally, opposed to our own. It is as dangerous for us that his
political authority should be obeyed in Irish confessionals as that, in
this instance, it should be defied. Having morally supported the
movement which upset his sovereignty, being prepared to oppose {170}
any movement to restore it, we come with a bad grace to ask him to prop
and protect our authority in our dominions. Long ago I remember
writing to headquarters that it would become impossible--impossible for
Liberals--to govern Ireland after the Council; and although I am
avowedly the worst of prophets, this prophecy has had a good deal of
confirmation. It was an interesting question whether the Pope would
definitely and unconditionally condemn murder, whether from religious
or political motives. It would have borne untold consequences, as a
direct revocation of the Vatican system, which stands or falls with the
doctrine that one may murder a Protestant. But I don't believe that so
audacious a change of front would have moved a single priest in Ireland.
Of George,[202] in the sixpenny edition, I had a glimpse at Cannes.
The better part of him, with more moderation and philosophy, and a
wider induction, may be found in the writings of the academic
Socialists, who, in the last ten years, have occupied almost all the
Chairs of Germany, and who have been the warmest admirers of the Irish
policy.