The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke Volume II Part 52

In French poetry his taste was eclectic. His feeling for Charles d'Orleans and his contemporaries barely stopped on this side idolatry; but the cla.s.sics of the seventeenth century had no message for him, and Victor Hugo as a poet left him, for the most part, unmoved. Indeed, he a.s.serted that all French verse between Ronsard and Verlaine was purely rhetorical, and without genuine poetic quality. But in some modern poets, he thought, the true spirit of French poetry had revived. Early he proclaimed the genius of Charles Guerin, whose claim to high place in his country's literature remained unrecognized till after his death; early, too, he hailed a new poetic star in Francois Porche. The star seemed to him later to wane in brilliancy, but the disappointment with which he read the poems of M. Porche's second period never weakened his admiring recollection of the splendour of the poet's Russian verses and the searching pathos of _Solitude au Loin_.

His familiarity with French literature, his hearty affection for it, his understanding of the national spirit by which it is informed and quickened, const.i.tuted one of the strongest ties which bound him in sympathy to his French friends. The literary forms which have had so much attraction for the best French minds both before and after 1789-- the chronicle and the memoir--were precisely those to which his unfailing interest in human nature led him by choice. Paradin and Froissart were companions of whom he never grew tired; and it would be difficult to decide whether he found more absorbing matter of entertainment in Sully or Mme. de Dino.

But if he read these authors for delight, he read them also as a serious student. On this point the testimony of one of the most learned men in contemporary France is clear. M. Salomon Reinach writes: [Footnote: In a letter addressed to the editor, and written in English.]

"Talking with Sir Charles Dilke about Renaissance and modern history, I soon perceived that he had taken the trouble of going to the sources, and that he had read and knew many things of importance which a man of letters, and even a scholar, are apt to ignore. It was Sir Charles, to give only one instance, who revealed to me the value of Guillaume Paradin's _Histoire de Notre Temps_ and _Chronique de Savoie_, which he admired to such a degree that he put the now forgotten author (the name of whom is not in the British Encyclopaedia) on the same level as Guicciardini and the great historians of antiquity. I would like to know how he discovered Paradin, and if copies of his rare works were in his library. When I happened to get hold of Major Frye's ma.n.u.script, afterwards published by me (thanks to Sir Charles Dilke's recommendation) at Heinemann's, he was the first to appreciate its interest, and gave me much information about abbreviated names and other allusions which occur in that diary. He chanced to dine with me the very evening when I first had brought the ma.n.u.script to my house, and he remained till past one in the morning, picturesquely seated on the edge of a table, reading pa.s.sages aloud and commenting upon them. He also knew many secret and unrecorded facts about recent French history; some of them have been given by him in unsigned articles of the _Athenaeum_, in reviews of books relating to the Franco-German War. I hope he may have left some more detailed notes on that subject. I would have had the greatest pleasure in corresponding with him, and regret I did not do so; but his handwriting was as mysterious as his mind was clear, and I soon found that I could not make it out."

CHAPTER LXI

TABLE TALK

After Lady Dilke's death, the Rev. W. and Mrs. Tuckwell, her brother- in-law and her elder sister, made their home with Sir Charles Dilke at Pyrford; and notes of his talk put together from memory and from diaries by the old scholar give a vivid impression of the statesman as seen in intimacy. Mr. Tuckwell says:

During the last five years of his life I breakfasted alone with Sir Charles whenever he was at Pyrford. It was his "softer hour," and showed him in a specially endearing light. Not only was he fresh from his night's rest, full, often, of matter interesting or amusing in his letters which he had just read, but the tete-a-tete brought out his finest social nature. In large companies, as we saw him at Dockett, he was occasionally insistent, iterative, expressing himself, to use a term of his own, with a "fierceness" corresponding to the strength of his convictions. With me at our breakfasts he was gentle, tolerant, what Sydney Smith called "amoebean," talking and listening alternately. I was told that before his death the two experiences to which he referred in antic.i.p.ating a return to his Pyrford home were the forestry among his pines and the early breakfast table.

Much of his talk was, of course, Parliamentary, bearing on incidents or persons from the House. He often spoke of Harcourt, whom he dearly loved. When Harcourt's death was announced to a party at breakfast in Speech House, several in the company told anecdotes of the dead man or commented on his character. One lady spoke of him harshly. Sir Charles remained silent, but more than once during the meal his eyes filled with tears. He told me on another occasion that "Lulu" promised to be a greater man than his father, just as Winston Churchill is a greater man than Randolph. Lulu resembles his father curiously in all things except in the paternal habit of swearing.

Once, when an attempt by the Opposition to s.n.a.t.c.h a victory in a thin House had been foiled, Harcourt said savagely across the table: "So that d----d dirty trick has failed!" Hicks Beach sprang up to ask the Speaker if such language were Parliamentary. Speaker Gully was too discreet to have heard the words. Dilke remembered being in company with Harcourt and Mrs. Procter, amongst several more. As she left the room, Harcourt said: "There goes one of the three most charming women I ever knew; the other two"--a pause, during which the ladies present looked keenly expectant--"the other two are dead!"

He turned to talk of Dizzy, to whom he had first been introduced in his early days by Lady Lonsdale, the great man wis.h.i.+ng to know him.

He quoted some of Dizzy's sayings. Dizzy called Spencer Walpole and Russell Gurney "those two whited sepulchres of the House of Commons." Walpole, consequential and lugubrious, he spoke of as "the high-stepping hea.r.s.e-horse of public life." Of deaf Mr. Thoma.s.son, who, ear-trumpet in hand, was wont to place himself near every speaker, he said that "no man had ever so neglected his natural advantages."

Of Gladstone Dilke rarely spoke, but used to describe the periodical entrance of Mrs. Gladstone into the meetings of the Cabinet with a large basin of tea for the old man. [Footnote: In the last years of Sir Charles's life, at a party given by Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Gladstone at Downing Street, he stopped in the room where Cabinet meetings used to be held, and pointed out to the editor of this book the door through which Mrs. Gladstone used to enter bearing the bowl of tea. For Sir Charles's recollections of Mr. Gladstone, see appendix at end of this chapter.] Once he had to work out with his chief some very difficult question. As they sat absorbed, Hamilton, the private secretary, entered with an apologetic air to say that ----, a well-known journalist, had called, pressingly anxious to see the Prime Minister on an important subject. Without raising his head, Gladstone said: "Ask him what is his number in the lunatic asylum."

He told of a Cabinet in 1883 at which ---- talked a great deal, "and I told Chamberlain that at the Political Economy Club, where I had been dining on the previous night, there was a closure of debate in the shape of the introduction of hot m.u.f.fins, which I thought would be excellent for Cabinets." At this Cabinet Lord Granville said: "We all agree that ---- is a bore, but I have never been able to make up my mind whether that is a drawback or a qualification so far as public service is concerned."

Asquith he looked upon as one of the greatest Parliamentarians he had known, much superior in that capacity to Gladstone. His allocution on the King's death was n.o.ble; still finer his introduction of the Veto Bill in December, 1909. "His speech was perfect: forcible in manner, statesmanlike in argument, felicitous in epithet and phrasing." Balfour on the same occasion was at his worst: "hampered by his former contrary declarations, trivial in reasoning, feeble in delivery." He was ill, and ought not to have come. I asked if Balfour's frequent inconsistencies and vacillations were due to carelessness. He said no, but to the necessity imposed upon him, not of proclaiming principles, but of keeping together a divergent party. I asked what other notable recent speeches he could recall. He said the Archbishop of Canterbury's [Footnote: Dr.

Randall Davidson.] on the Congo scandal, in the House of Lords: "a marvellous performance, nothing said which should not have been said, everything said which required saying; the speech of a great statesman." Bishop ---- followed him with a mere piece of missionary claptrap. In the Commons on the same occasion our charming friend Hugh Law distinguished himself, silencing some of his compatriots, the Irish Roman Catholics, whose line was to support Leopold because the Protestant missionaries abused him. Leopold II. Sir Charles called "the cleverest--and wickedest--man living." He broke off to speak of the Archbishop, whom he met weekly at Grillion's, as a delightfully instructive talker, not only full, that is, of light agreeableness, but supporting the opinions he advances with convincing, cogent, logical force, yet never boring his hearers. As another powerful speech he instanced T. P. O'Connor on Sir R.

Anderson's indiscretions, "most terribly crus.h.i.+ng in its grim, ruthless exposition," Anderson sitting in the Gallery to hear it.

In his own great speech on Army Reform in April, 1907, Sir Charles said that Haldane was "all things to all men." His hearers perceived it to be a quotation (which in fact I had furnished), but no one localized it! An amusing misquotation was Arnold-Forster's in the same debate: he said that Haldane was like King David, who drilled his men by fifties in a cave. In March, 1909, Sir Charles told me sadly of Arnold-Forster's sudden death, which he had just learned.

"With some defects of manner, he was very clever, writing and speaking well. As War Minister Balfour gave him no chance. His last speech in the House, a fortnight before his death, just preceded mine. 'I must speak,' he said to me, 'on those d.a.m.ned Special Reservists;' and speak he did for a good, well-sustained half-hour, going out as soon as he had finished." He had been with us at Dockett. He and Sir Charles sparred continually and amusingly, both equally aggressive, imperious, stentorian, iterative, each insistent on his own declamation and inattentive to his opponent's.

Sir Charles, while on this topic of oratory, went on to quote with much hilarity a speech by Lord ---- in the Lords: "This Liberal Government injures friends no less than enemies. Look at me! I am a pa.s.sive resister; I belong to the National Liberal Club; I have married my deceased wife's sister; and none of my children are vaccinated; yet they are meddling with my rights as a landlord." The Lords did not see the fun, the papers did not report it, but it is to be found in Hansard.

I asked Dilke how my old pupil, Sir Richard Jebb, comported himself in Parliament. He said: "Handsome, beautifully groomed, with a slight stoop, slow delivery, speaking rarely and on subjects which he thoroughly understood, his phrasing perfect, manner engaging: a man reserved and shy, not seeking acquaintance, but, if sought, eminently agreeable." University members, he added, should come always in pairs: one to represent the high University ideal, embodied only in a very few; his colleague reflecting the mob of country parsons who by an absurd paradox elect to Parliament. Jebb was the ideal Cantab.; didactic, professorial, the Public Orator; seeming incomplete without a gown: but for his rare and apt appearances, he might have overdone the part.

He told a story of Major O'Gorman. A professed Roman Catholic, he was dining in the House one Friday on a devilled chicken, when his parish priest was announced. "Waiter," he said, "take away the devil, and show in the priest."

When Sir Charles first took office, he was cautioned by his colleague, Lord Tenterden, not to read the newspapers: "If you do, you will never distinguish between what you know and what you have just read."

He mentioned ----. I said that his elaborate manners and bridegroom dress marked him out as _natus convivio feminali_, meant by nature to be a guest at ladies' tea-tables. Dilke a.s.sented, adding that he was less bland to men than to women. "Tommy" Bowles said of him in the House: "The right honourable gentleman answers, or, rather, does not answer, my questions with the pomposity of a Belgravian butler refusing twopence to a beggar."

He spoke of the decadence in costume characteristic of the present day. I said that, according to Wraxall, we must go back for its beginnings to Charles Fox, who came down to the House in boots. I added that, when I first went up to Oxford, a frock-coat and tall hat were imperative in walking out; that a "cut-away" coat, as it was called, would have been "sconced" in Hall; that men even kept their boating-dresses at King's or Hall's, changing there; that a blazer in the High would have drawn a crowd. He said that till very lately--he was speaking in 1907--the custom of dress in Parliament had been equally rigid; that Lord Minto had recently scandalized his peers by wearing a straw hat; that when, some years before, a member whose name I forget had taken the same liberty in the Commons, the Speaker sent for him, and begged that he would not repeat the offence.

In February, 1908, we talked of the Sweating Bill. Two years before, he said, it could command so little support that, having obtained for it the first private members' night, he withdrew it. Now it was accepted with enthusiasm, and the second reading pa.s.sed without a division--the change, he added, entirely due to the Women's Trade-Union League.

He expressed satisfaction with the stiffening procedure rules of April, 1906, but added that they would make great Parliamentary orations impossible. I said: "All the better, we want business in the Commons; for oratory there are other occasions." He said how transient is the public interest in men and questions; the community is like a kitten playing with a cork: so soon as it is tempted off by something else, the cork becomes dead to it. He instanced Rosebery; the Aliens Act; Tariff Reform, in spite of Chamberlain's galvanizing efforts. Of Campbell-Bannerman, then alive and well, he said that all his work was done for him by his subordinates: "he had only to read novels, prepare jokes, look inscrutable and fatherly."

In July, 1909, he attended the memorial service for Lord Ripon at the Roman Catholic Cathedral. Knowing that the leading statesmen on both sides, Protestant to a man, would be present, the ecclesiastics made the show as fine as they could, bringing out all their properties. All the monks and priests in London attended; the Archbishop, in gorgeous attire, sat on a stool, with two boys behind holding up his train. The music was exquisite; Sir Charles had never heard anything so sweet as the warbling of the Requiem by the chorister boys. But the whole was palpably a show, the actors intent on their acting, never for a moment devotional; where changes in the service involved changes in position, they were prepared while the part before was still unfinished, so that the stage might never be empty nor the transformations lag: the whole thing a Drury Lane pageant; while the richly decorated catafalque in the centre, on which the ceremonial supposed itself to converge, was empty-- _sepulchri supervacuos honores_--the body being at Studley. Of Ripon himself, whom everyone loved, he spoke affectionately.

Of talks on miscellaneous topics I recall the following. We spoke of the Tilsit Secret Articles, revealed mysteriously to the English Government. Sir Charles thought the informant was a Russian officer, betraying it with or without the connivance of the Tsar. Evidence has since come out connecting the disclosure with a Mr. Mackenzie, who is supposed to have obtained the secret from General Benningsen.

Or Canning may have learned it through the Russian Amba.s.sador in England, who was his intimate friend, and strongly adverse to his master's French policy. [Footnote: See for a recent discussion of the evidence J. Holland Rose's _Life of Napoleon_, ii. 135-140.] Sir Charles went on to say that in history lies find easier credit than truth. All the books have said and say that England refused to buy Delagoa Bay from Portugal. He always denied this alleged refusal; and now Lord Fitzmaurice has caused search to be made, and finds no confirmatory evidence. Again, he maintained in Paris, against all the experts, that Nigra engineered the Franco-Prussian War. His words were repeated to the Empress Eugenie, who said, "Yes, he is right: Nigra was a false friend."

He talked of the j.a.panese, whom he had known in England and lived with in j.a.pan.... Their only religion is patriotism, and their prayers to the Emperor are formal merely, yet they are reckless of life and eager to die for Fatherland; indeed, so incapable of retreating before an enemy as sometimes seriously to damage strategic plans. Were they launched against the West, they would go through any European army.

He spoke of the durability of the Third French Republic. It will be unbroken while peace lasts. War may bring a temporary Dictators.h.i.+p, but the republic will of necessity revive again. The immense majority of Frenchmen are opposed unalterably to a monarchy.

He quoted what was said to be Napoleon's only joke. In opening negotiations with the British Government, he found it to be demanded as a preliminary that, as matter of principle and without prejudice, he should formally recognize the Bourbon rights, "Most certainly,"

he said, "if, also as matter of principle and without prejudice, the British Government would formally recognize the Stuart rights."

Dilke spoke of the old Political Economy Club, to which he was introduced by John Stuart Mill. The President was Lord Bramwell; its dominant member William Newmarch, a rough man of powerful intellect, of whose ferocious criticisms everyone stood in awe, and who was habitually hard on Mill.

He told a story of a well-known dandy, now a peer. The talk turned on "Society" in the second intention of the word ---- had enumerated certain houses in which you must be at home if pretending to the exclusive social set. It was objected that the inmates of some amongst these houses were persons whom the Queen (Victoria) would not receive. "The Queen!" said ---- in a tone of pained surprise--"the Queen was _never_ in Society."

I had been to church unwittingly on "Empire Day," and reported a sermon stuffed with militarism. He poured cold water on the idea.

"Ireland won't have it; Canada won't have it; South Africa loathes it; India has an Empire Day of its own. Only Australia cares for it.

It is a vulgar piece of Tory bluff, and a device for annoying the Dutch."

He had lately visited Dropmore: said how frequently the Dropmore Papers upset accepted history, but that the historian will answer, _Mon siege est fait_. He explained the phrase. A man had written a history of some famous siege; after it was published fresh facts were brought to his notice: he declined them--"Mon siege est fait."

[Footnote: Ascribed to the Abbe Dubois.]

He talked of Marlborough's victories: he hummed the opening verse of "Malbrook s'en va-t-en guerre." I said it was our "For he's a jolly good fellow": he said yes, but the tune goes back to the time of the Crusaders. I asked who wrote the words. He said an unknown French soldier on the night of Malplaquet, when Marlborough was believed to have been killed. Napoleon, who knew no music, often mounted his horse at the opening of a campaign singing the first line as he put his foot into the stirrup.

He spoke often of Grillion's which he habitually frequented and much enjoyed. He told of its formation in 1812; of old members whom he had known--Sir Robert Inglis, Chenery of the _Times_, regal old Sir Thomas Acland, Fazakerley, Gally Knight, Wilmot Horton; of its effect in socially harmonizing men bitterly opposed in politics. He told the story of "Mr. G." dining there by accident alone, and entering himself in the club book as having drunk a bottle of sherry and a bottle of champagne. He said what care was taken to exclude undesirables, preserving thereby a high tone of company and of talk.

I asked him what was the finest conversation to which he had ever listened. "In Boston," he said; "at Lowell's breakfast-table; the company Lowell, Wendell Holmes, Longfellow, Aga.s.siz, Asa Gray."

[Footnote: See Vol. I., Chapter VI.]

We talked of precious stones, recalling the Koh-i-noor in its small gas-lighted tent at the 1851 Exhibition. He said that modern paste is more beautiful and effective than diamonds. The finest pearls known belonged to the d.u.c.h.ess of Edinburgh: she showed Sir Charles a collar valued at two millions sterling. I named the Hope jewels, shown also in 1851. He knew the "rich Hope," Henry, who built the house in Piccadilly. The "poor Hope," Beresford, had only 30,000 a year. They were a Dutch family, "Hoop" by name. Beresford's wife, Lady Mildred, aped the Queen, driving in the Park dressed in black, with a large hat, and finely mounted outriders. The same thing was done by Mme. Van de Weyer. Beresford bought the _Morning Chronicle_ in order to promulgate his High Church views, writing under the signature D.C.L. He ruined the paper.

He more than once sang the praises of Sir George Grey--honoured in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand; statesman, aristocrat, Radical, creator of the Australian Labour Party, terror of our Colonial Office at home; one of the few men who have done great things by themselves. Bismarck told Sir Charles that Cavour, Crispi, Kruger, were greater than himself. "I had the army and the State behind me; these men had nothing." Amongst Bismarck's minor desires was a hope that he might outlive his physician, Dr. Schweininger, who plagued him with limitations as to diet. "To-day potatoes will we eat; to-morrow comes Schweininger." He owned to having over-eaten himself once, and only once: "Nine nine-eyes (lampreys) did I eat."

"People," he said, "look on me as a monarchist. Were it all to come over again, I would be republican and democrat: the rule of kings is the rule of women; the bad women are bad, the good are worse."

Sir Charles spoke of Botha, whom he met here in 1907. People were unexpectedly charmed with him: they antic.i.p.ated a replica of old Kruger; instead of that they beheld a handsome man, with the most beautiful eyes and mouth ever seen. His daughter with him was very pretty; fas.h.i.+onably dressed, in the style of a French American.

He told of an Indian official under the old East India Company stationed in a remote place, a "Boggley Wallah," who for several years sent in no reports, money, or accounts. An emissary, commissioned to bring him to book, found him living in great luxury on the borders of a lake. He said that he did his work and kept his papers on an island in the lake, and sent a boat for them; but the returning boat somehow sank in mid-water, and books and papers went to the bottom. The Company dismissed him without a pension: he came to London, took his seat daily in ragged clothes just outside the offices in Leadenhall Street, standing up to salaam when any Director or official pa.s.sed in or out, but speaking no word. People gathered to look at him, and at last the Company gave him 1,000 a year. He drove down in a carriage and four, and handed in a letter stating that he had already ama.s.sed 5,000 a year in their service, that they had now raised it to 6,000, and that he desired to express his grat.i.tude.

I quoted from some book I was reading a dictum that no woman nowadays can be called perfectly beautiful. He said he had known only two, Lady Dudley and Madame Castiglione. The latter was in the pay successively of Victor Emanuel and Louis Napoleon; in the second capacity supposed to have been a spy employed by Cavour.

He spoke of John Forster, biographer of d.i.c.kens, an intimate friend of his own grandfather and father, as a man of violent, noisy pa.s.sions, but very lovable; his att.i.tude towards d.i.c.kens pathetically affectionate.

He described two German Princesses whom he had met at lunch; dowdy and of the ordinary Teutonic type, looking on their brother "Billy"

as the greatest of mortals. They had been shopping up and down Oxford Street, delighted with their purchases, and with their escape from Court ceremonial. He went on to say how common every Prussian officer looks when in plain clothes. Wearing them very rarely, the officers never look at ease in them; and the swagger which they adopt in uniform is highly ridiculous in mufti.

When Napoleon's death was known, one of George IV.'s Ministers went to his master with the news: "Sir, your greatest enemy is dead."

"Good G---! they told me she was better," was the royal answer. Sir Charles spoke of Jerome Bonaparte, whom he knew; a dull man, a thorn in the side of Napoleon III. "You have nothing of the great Napoleon about you," Jerome said one day. "I have his family," answered the worried Emperor. From him we pa.s.sed to the death of the Duc d'Enghien. The Princes were notoriously plotting against Napoleon's life; by slaying a Prince of the blood he made it clear that two could play the game. The first copy of Mme. de Remusat's book was thought to deal too plainly with this and other topics; it was destroyed, and rewritten in a softer tone.