Part 20 (1/2)

Odo Russell[235] leaves a larger gap than he filled, and he is difficult to replace at a moment of peculiar soreness and strain. In the service, I should prefer Dufferin; out of it--Bedford! I understand that he would not accept. I find Lord Granville quite feels that our strongest diplomatist, Morier, is out of the question at Berlin, but it will be ten times worse to send Carlingford, and an indication of weakness.

Many, very many, thanks for your letter, which did not seem to me to suffer from the distractions and dissipations of Dalmeny. The best part of it is the good report of your father's health and spirits.

[Sidenote: _Cannes Nov. 12, 1884_]

Your delightful letter came from Munich this evening after I had posted mine.

It is an exquisite pleasure to look forward to meeting in such a short time. I should so much wish to have a glimpse of you, and a chat, before the plot thickens with us, so as to get the bearings. If all goes well, I have some chance of arriving pretty early on Monday, and my first business will be to ask if there is a line from you at the Athenaeum. There is an uncertainty about the through trains, as there are no travellers yet, and so I may be disappointed.

It is a very important crisis, as there is a possibility of such complete and perfect success for Mr. Gladstone's policy of Reform; and I do so hope he may have it in all fulness. There never was such personal ascendency; and I trust nothing will happen in Africa to disturb it.

{196}

Yes, I would give a trifle to have heard the discussion of our Revolution by our greatest statesman[236] and our greatest historian.[237] The latter betrayed his uncompromising Conservatism by half a parenthesis at Keble. It is very superficially disguised in his book, and he ought to have been more grateful to me than he was for abusing Macaulay. Brewer was just like him in judging those events, and Gardiner contrives only by an effort not to revile the good old Cause. We are well out of the monotonous old cry about Hampden and Russell.

[Sidenote: _La Madeleine Nov. 12, 1884_]

We have had a long journey from St. Martin, and are hardly settled down in the midst of a vast solitude, when the unreasonable success of the Government compels me to pack my bag once more.

What makes it a pleasure, I need not say. If all things go as I expect, I shall be in town on Monday night or early on Tuesday.

If you are so very kind as to send a line to the Athenaeum suggesting the right end and object and reward of travel, please put outside, _to wait arrival_.

I do not stay with the Granvilles this time, that I may vote against Ministers at my ease. And I do not bring M----, which is a grief; still, I look forward to a deal of riotous living, and to many sources of public and private satisfaction.

[Sidenote: _La Madeleine Dec. 9, 1884_]

... M-- received an account which pleased her, of my bath of goodness and spirituality at Oxford; and the writing to her about scenes and people she knows, {197} and trying to explain thoughts and facts, has been half the pleasure of my solitary journey.

The meeting at your door[238] of the professors of heterodoxy[239] and chatterboxy[240] in political economy is delightful, and I hope it will fructify. But my friend the ”nice little old gentleman”[241] will always be too strenuous and urgent for the Fra Angelico of Economists; and besides, we live in the Gladstonian era--and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. That, however, might be a bond of union between those Sophisters.

In London I could not escape a luncheon with ----, who threatens me with a friendly visit next month at Cannes. Next week I expect Bryce with Robertson Smith. Did I tell you of my pleasant dinner with them on Wednesday, and meeting Creighton?[242] He is an agreeable and superior man, whom you would like; and he is full of general knowledge.

But I am afraid you will find his book[243] a severe study.

Thursday--Rather an uninteresting dinner at ----; but one goes there to eat. Lord G. not in very good spirits. I conciliated Enfield, who ...

was a little shocked to find that I agree with Courtney.

There was not a gap of time for a farewell in Downing Street, and I had to decline dinners with the Granvilles, Mays, and Pagets, and a visit to Seac.o.x--Hamlet left out.

The journey succeeded beautifully, for it was the roughest pa.s.sage I remember, and I was none the {198} worse for it. At Calais one gets into a sleeping-car and gets out of it at Cannes, after dining and sleeping comfortably. A young Englishman described the Gra.s.se Hotel to me, where he had lived with Cross, who was writing a book. He did not discover that it[244] was the book in my hand. I have sent it back with some considerable suggestions.

Mrs. Green writes an amusing account of Dr. Stubbs's violent language in politics when she approaches him with her history. I have advised her to sacrifice everything and everybody to the object of securing his help. Leviathan will not aid her.

I have strongly urged May to write a new chapter of Const.i.tutional History, coming down to this our era of Good Feeling, as Americans call the last administration of Monroe.[245] It is the greatest landmark in English Politics; and it has the merit of all well-defined epochs, that it is not going to last.

At the British Museum, Gardiner was working, and I wished him joy on the endowment of Research.

[Sidenote: _Cannes Dec. 18, 1884_]