Part 43 (1/2)
I feel intensely all you say about laying aside, if it were possible, one's own personality and seeing the silent growth of all truth and goodness, without the disturbance of names and parties; but the world being as it is for the present, we can only keep our minds fixed on the good and the true, with whomsoever and with whatsoever party we may find it, and follow it with honest conviction. If I could, I would put an end to Party Government to-morrow, and my great wish for M.P.'s is that each one should, upon each subject, vote exactly according to his opinion, and no Ministry be turned out except upon a vote of want of confidence. I honour and love Mr. Gladstone, and while ardently sympathetic with him on Home Rule and all other Liberal measures, I am no less antipathetic on Church matters. Happily, however, they have become with him matters chiefly of personal attachment to Anglicanism, and no longer (I believe) likely to affect his legislation.
”Gladstonian” is a word he does not admit, nor do those of whom it is used.
_July_ 9, 1893.--Well, to go on with our politics: ”a new policy” Home Rule undoubtedly is, a new departure from the ”tradition” of any English party; but _not_ a departure from Liberal principles, only a new application of old ones, and I think it is a pity to speak of it as being against Liberal principles, for is there anybody of average intelligence who would not have predicted that if it should ever be adopted by any party it would be by the Liberals? Exactly the same thing was said about Turkey: the Whig tradition was to support her, Liberals were forsaking their principles by taking part with Bulgaria against her. It is the proud distinction of Liberals to _grow_ perpetually, and to march on with eyes open, and to discover, as they are pretty sure to do, that they have not always in the past been true to their principles. There is no case exactly parallel with that of Ireland; but there are some in great measure a.n.a.logous, and it is the Liberals who have listened to the voice of other countries, some of them our own dependencies, in their national aspirations or their desire for Parliaments of their own, expressed by Const.i.tutional majorities. I admire the Unionists for standing by their own convictions with regard to Home Rule, and always have done so; but I cannot call it ”devotion to the Union _and to_ Liberal principles,” and I am not aware of there being a single Home Ruler not a Liberal. The Unionists, especially those in Parliament, have been, and are, in a very dangerous position, and have yielded too readily to the temptation of a sudden transference of party loyalty upon almost every question from Liberal to Tory leaders. But for those, whether in or out of Parliament, who have remained Liberals--and I know several such--I don't see why, after Home Rule is carried, they should not be once more merged in the great body of Liberals, and have their chances, like others, of being chosen to serve their country in Parliament and in office....
I am reading a book by Grant Allen, ”Science in Arcady.” ... He brings wit and originality into these essays on plants, lakes, spiders, etc.
_Lady Russell to Lady Agatha Russell_
PEMBROKE LODGE, _September_ 22, 1893
... With regard to the modern attraction of ugly subjects (_not_ when the wish to remedy gross evils makes it a duty to study and live among them; but as common talk between young men and young women), I feel very strongly that the contemplation of G.o.d, and all that is G.o.d-like in the souls that He has created, is our best safeguard against evil, and that the contemplation of the spirit of evil, and all the hideous variety of its works, gradually taints us and weakens our powers of resistance.
_Lady Russell to Lady Agatha Russell_
PEMBROKE LODGE, _October_ 21, 1893
... I entirely agree with you, that poetry and music ”teach us of the things that are unseen” as nothing else can do. Music especially, which is an unseen thing, not the product of man at all, but found from man as a gift from G.o.d's own hand. I don't know what at some periods of my life I should have done without these blessed sympathizers and outlets and uplifting friends.
_Lady Russell to Mrs. Drummond_
PEMBROKE LODGE, _December_ 16, 1893
Your long interesting letter is most welcome. You are very good and brave to do so much for the good of others, while suffering yourself. How much harder it is to _bear_ patiently, and keep up sympathy and fellow-feeling within us in spite of illness, than to do any amount of active work while in health. I always find my highest examples in those who know how to ”suffer and be strong,”
because it is my own greatest difficulty.
Oh, my dear child, what opinions _can_ poor I give on the almost insoluble problems you put before me? I wish I knew of any book or any man or woman who could tell me whether a Poor Law, even the very best, is on the whole a blessing or a curse, and how the ”unemployed” can be chosen out for work of any useful or productive kind without injury to others equally deserving, and what are the just limits of State interference with personal liberty. The House of Lords puzzles me less. I would simply declare it, by Act of the House of Commons, injurious to the best interests of the nation and for ever dissolved. Then it may either show its attachment to the Const.i.tution by giving its a.s.sent to its own annihilation, or oblige us to break through the worn-out Const.i.tution and declare their a.s.sent unnecessary. It is beyond all bearing that one great measure after another should be delayed, or mutilated, year after year, by such a body, and I chafe and fret inwardly to a painful degree. Oh for a long talk with you! I will not despair of going to you, ”gin I be spared” till the days are reasonably long.
_Lady Russell to Lady Agatha Russell_
PEMBROKE LODGE, _October_ 10, 1894
... Alas! for our dear Oliver Wendell Holmes! He has left the world much the poorer by his death, but much the richer by his life and works.... Lord Grey gone too, and with him what recollections of my young days, before and after marriage, when he and Lady Grey and we were very much together. We loved them both. He was a very trying political colleague to your father and others, but a very faithful friend. The longer I live the more firmly I am convinced that in most cases to know people well is to like them--to forget their faults in their merits. But no doubt it is delightful to have no faults to forget.
PEMBROKE LODGE, _March_ 3, 1894
Touching accounts of meeting of the Cabinet--the last with dear n.o.ble old Gladstone as Minister. Tears in the eyes of his colleagues. He made his last speech as Minister in the House of Commons, a grand and stirring one.
PEMBROKE LODGE, _January_ 23, 1895
Finished ”Erasmus” a few days ago--a great intellect, much wit, clear insight into the religion ”falsely so-called” of monks and clergy, but a soul not great enough to utter his convictions aloud in the face of danger, or to perceive that conciliation beginning by hypocrisy must end in worse strife and bitterness. He saw the evil of the new dogmas and creeds introduced by Luther, of _any_ new creed the rejection of which was penal, but he did not or would not see the similar evil of the legally enforced old creeds and dogmas.
PEMBROKE LODGE, _May_ 15, 1895
Armenian refugees here to tea--a husband and wife whose baby _she_ had _seen_ murdered by Turkish soldiers, and a friend who is uncertain whether his wife is alive or murdered--these three in native dress; hers very picturesque, and she herself beautiful. The three refugees, all of whom had been eye-witnesses of ma.s.sacres of relations, looked intensely sad. She gave an account of some of the hards.h.i.+ps they had suffered, but neither they nor we could have borne details of the atrocities.