Part 6 (1/2)

I believe it was on this very evening that I heard Sala utter one of those jocosely brutal sentences for which he was celebrated. The literary men who frequented Mrs. Riddell's house were not, I am sorry to say, so respectful to her husband as they might have been. They made it very clear, in fact, that it was the novelist and not the inventor of stoves whom they came to see, and they were impatient when the latter attempted to intrude his views upon them. A party of us were gathered in the dining-room, smoking and otherwise refres.h.i.+ng ourselves. We had been listening to story after story from some of the best talkers in the Bohemia of those days, and again and again the attempts of Mr. Riddell to contribute to our entertainment by some long-winded narration had been vigorously and successfully repulsed. At last the unhappy host found an opening, and had got so far as ”What you were saying reminds me of an interesting anecdote I once heard,” when Sala, striking his fist upon the table, thundered a stentorian ”Stop, sir!” Mr. Riddell looked at him, half frightened, half indignant. ”If the story you propose to tell us,”

continued Sala, ”is an improper one, I wish to tell you that we have heard it already; and if it is not improper, we don't want to hear it at all.” Yes, clearly one had wandered into Bohemia in those days.

My work in the Gallery of the House of Commons was of great interest. I watched Disraeli during his first brief premiers.h.i.+p in 1868, when he had to hold the reins of authority in a House in which his party was really in a minority, and when he had nightly to confront the fierce attacks of Mr. Gladstone, who was rallying his own followers, both in the House and in the country, for their successful onslaught upon the Government. It was a unique and most valuable experience to watch these two great men in their gladiatorial combats across the table of the House: Gladstone wielding the mighty broadsword of his powerful eloquence, and seeming as if at every moment he would annihilate his antagonist; Disraeli, with marvellous skill and exquisite adroitness, bringing the rapier of his wit to bear upon his opponent, and again and again pinking him with some stinging epigram or smart retort that set all the Tory benches roaring with delight. It made one's young blood grow warmer to watch the struggle from the impartial height of the Reporters' Gallery.

I was in the House on that memorable occasion when Disraeli made a speech which astounded his followers so much that they were only able to account for it by the hypothesis that he had taken too much to drink. This is a harsh way of stating the case, but there is no doubt a measure of truth in it. Disraeli was not a self-indulgent man, but in those days his devotion to his duties in the House was so great that he would sometimes sit all the evening listening to a debate without taking any food, and in his dinnerless condition the stimulant he took before making his speech in reply occasionally got into his head. Certainly, in the memorable speech on the Irish Church question, to which I allude, he was betrayed into excesses for which some justification was necessary. I remember seeing him, at the close of that speech, draw his handkerchief from his pocket and wave it round his head, before he sank back exhausted on the Treasury bench; and I can still see the pale and angry face of Mr.

Gladstone as he sprang to his feet to reply, and hear the stern tones in which he referred to ”the excitement--the too obvious excitement--of the right honourable gentleman.”

Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff has recently furnished the world with many volumes of personal reminiscences. He does not include among those reminiscences any reference to a scene which I witnessed in the House of Commons during Disraeli's first brief premiers.h.i.+p, although Sir Mountstuart was himself the hero of the occasion. It was one Wednesday afternoon. There was an empty House and a dull debate, but Disraeli was in his place on the Treasury Bench, so that anything might happen. It pleased the Mr. Grant Duff of those days to deliver himself of a philippic, at once voluminous and violent, against the Prime Minister. He quoted the opinions of foreign critics to the disadvantage of Mr.

Disraeli; he emphasised them by fine flights of his own imagination; and he ill.u.s.trated his speech with a wealth of gesticulation and a variety of intonation that convulsed his scanty audience with laughter. People wondered mildly what punishment was in store for the audacious man who was thus breaking one of the unwritten canons of the House, for in those days it was regarded as bad form on the part of a man not himself in the front rank to attack one in the position of Mr. Disraeli. As the speech proceeded, the Prime Minister sat in his favourite att.i.tude, his arms folded, his head slightly bent forward, and his vacant eyes fixed upon the points of his boots. He might have been carved in stone for any trace of emotion that he displayed. We in the Gallery antic.i.p.ated that this air of absolute indifference was to be the punishment of his rash a.s.sailant.

But to our surprise, when Grant Duff sat down, Disraeli instantly sprang to his feet. As he did so, he raised his single gla.s.s to his eye, and looked fixedly across the House to the spot where the member for Elgin was slowly composing himself after his mighty effort. For some seconds Disraeli, with an air of cold, cynical aloofness, continued to gaze at the unfortunate man. Then, with a favourite action, he suddenly dropped the gla.s.s from his eye, and, waving his hand with an airy gesture of contempt, said, ”I shall not detain the House, sir, by referring to the--the _exhibition_ we have just witnessed; but I merely wish to say in reply to an honourable member below the gangway,” and so on. This was, I think, the most cruel speech I ever heard Disraeli make, and for the moment it seemed to have a crus.h.i.+ng effect upon its subject.

In those days Disraeli was not the Tory idol he subsequently became. I well remember, on the historic evening when Mr. Gathorne Hardy moved the adjournment of the House because of the absence of Mr. Disraeli at Windsor, and the news instantly spread that Lord Derby had resigned and Mr. Disraeli had become Prime Minister in his place, that there was a hubbub--not merely of excitement, but of disapproval--in the Lobby. Tory members of the old school were furious at having ”that Jew,” as they contemptuously styled him, set over them. I walked from the House that evening with Sir Edward Baines and Mr.--afterwards Sir Charles--Forster.

They were both full of the dislike felt on the Tory side for the change in the leaders.h.i.+p of their party. It is strange to note how quickly the views of a party change with regard to its leaders. I remember the time when the idea that Mr. Gladstone would ever be Prime Minister was treated with ridicule by not a few of those who sat beside him in Parliament. I have myself heard Mr. Disraeli a.s.sailed in scornful and sarcastic terms by Lord Salisbury, and have listened to his sneering retort. Even after Disraeli became Prime Minister in 1868 it is notorious that the Duke of Buccleuch refused to entertain him as his guest when he visited Scotland to rally the party before the General Election of that year. It was on the occasion of this visit that he gave such offence to the graver section of the Tories by the speech in which, explaining the genesis of the Household Suffrage Act, he used the words, ”I educated my party.” A few years later the whole party was proud of having been educated by him; but when he made this speech his words were regarded as an insolent display of vanity on the part of an upstart who had elbowed his way to the front at the expense of better men.

My only personal encounter with the great Tory leader was connected with this same speech at Edinburgh. I went to Aylesbury, during the course of the 1868 election, in order to report a speech of his. He spoke in the Corn Exchange, which was crowded to excess. The accommodation for the reporters was quite unequal to their demands, and I had to stand among the crowd and take my notes as best I could. A good-natured farmer in front of me invited me to use his back as a desk, against which I placed my note-book. Disraeli had not proceeded very far with his speech before I found that my friend was not by any means in agreement with the ill.u.s.trious speaker. Again and again he interrupted him with exclamations and questions. For a long time Disraeli took no notice of these interruptions, but at last one stung him into action. The orator had paused for a moment, and my farmer friend, seizing his chance, bawled out in a stentorian voice, ”What about educating your party?” The Prime Minister instantly turned round, raised his gla.s.s to his eye, and with an angry and contemptuous glare, transfixed--me! The farmer's courage had given way when he found that his shot had told, and, to my unutterable disgust, he dropped upon his knees, and left me to face the music.

Disraeli looked at me for a perceptible s.p.a.ce of time, and then, dropping his gla.s.s, said, in those chilling tones of which he was a master, ”I shall certainly not try to educate _you_, sir.” Everybody stared at me; everybody groaned at me; and it was only the consciousness of my own innocence that kept me from dropping on my knees beside the treacherous author of my humiliation.

In that election of 1868 I recorded my first parliamentary vote. Living at 24, Addison Road North, I was an elector of Chelsea, and I duly supported at the polling booth the joint candidature of Sir Charles Dilke and Sir Henry h.o.a.re. This was the last General Election before the pa.s.sing of the Ballot Bill. Representatives of the different candidates sat on either side of the poll clerk, and duly thanked each elector as he recorded his vote for the man whom they represented.

I wrote an article in the _St. James's Magazine_ describing the opening day of the session of the new Household Suffrage Parliament. It was called ”The Birthday of an Era,” and, looking back, I think I was fully ent.i.tled to make use of that somewhat high-sounding phrase. It was the beginning of the Gladstonian epoch in English history, and, for good or for evil (in my own opinion mainly for good), it was destined to make a deep impression on the inst.i.tutions and fortunes of the nation. When Mr. Gladstone entered upon his first term of office as Prime Minister, he was certainly surrounded by a wonderful band of colleagues. They included Lord Granville, Lord Hartington, Lord Kimberley, Mr. Lowe, Mr. Bright, Mr. Cardwell, Mr. Childers, Mr. Bruce, and Mr. Forster. In my time no stronger ministry than this has had power in England. The men I admired most after Mr. Gladstone were Mr. Bright and Mr. Forster. I had not yet made the personal acquaintance of Forster, and did not dream of the close ties by which we were eventually to be united; but I was drawn to him from the very first by an instinctive feeling of liking and esteem. His blunt speech, his careless dress, his unpolished but genuine manners, all seemed to me to mark him out as that rare creature a thoroughly honest politician; and whilst I sat in the Reporters' Gallery, there was no one after Mr. Gladstone whose speeches delighted me more than did those of Forster.

Before the Ministry had been long in office I was brought into contact with one of its members, Mr. W.E. Baxter, the Secretary to the Admiralty.

Mr. Baxter was a great reformer and a financial purist. When he went to the Admiralty he found extravagance and confusion, not to speak of corruption, pervading all the departments connected with the provision of _materiel_ for the Fleet. He set to work at once, with the vigour of the new broom, to cleanse the Augean stable. Naturally he excited the bitter hostility of those whose personal interests were affected by his action, and these, being in many cases persons of influence, were able to inspire attacks upon his policy in the leading organs of the daily press in London. I, in my small way, as London correspondent of the _Leeds Mercury_, had defended him against some of these attacks. Baxter noticed my defence, and sought me out in order to thank me for it. He did more than this. He proposed that I should hear from him from time to time how he was advancing in his work of reorganisation and reform, and should make the facts known to the public through the columns of the _Mercury_. This was great promotion for me. In those days the provincial press had no direct connection with Ministers or the leaders of parties; and the ”London correspondent” was not in a position to supply his readers with news at first hand, or with any news, indeed, that was at once original and authentic. Through Mr. Baxter I suddenly found myself placed in a position that enabled me to provide the _Leeds Mercury_ with political and administrative news that was not only of the highest importance, but that had not appeared anywhere else. For Mr.

Baxter was better than his word. When I went, as I did several times a week, to see him at the Admiralty, he not only told me all that was going on in his own department, but all that could be published with regard to the proceedings of the Government as a whole. I think I am correct in saying that I was at that time the only correspondent of a provincial newspaper who was favoured in this way, and my letter to the _Mercury_ began to be read and quoted in many different quarters.

Certainly my position was made both easier and more important by this friends.h.i.+p with Mr. Baxter.

During the whole of 1869 I attended the debates in Parliament, and watched with eager sympathy the progress of the Government in the heavy task that it had set itself. The pa.s.sing of the Bill for disestablis.h.i.+ng the Irish Church was the chief business of that memorable session. The speaking on both sides was at the highest level. In the House of Commons, Gladstone, Disraeli, Bright, Lowe, and Gathorne Hardy distinguished themselves above all others. But the palm for oratory, as has so often been the case, was borne off by the House of Lords. That House presented a brilliant spectacle during the debates on the second reading of the Bill which the majority of the peers detested so heartily. The speaking against the measure was far more effective than that in its favour.

Indeed, at this distance of time I can only recall one speech by a supporter of the Bill which impressed itself so strongly upon me as to remain fresh in my memory after the lapse of more than thirty years. That was the speech of Dr. Connop Thirlwall, Bishop of St. David's, who was courageous enough to stand against his brethren, and to prefer the claims of justice to those of the Establishment in which he was a leading figure. On the other hand, two at least of the speeches delivered against the Bill are still vividly present to my mind. The first was the speech of Dr. Magee, Bishop of Peterborough, an extraordinary display of florid and flowing eloquence. It moved the House so greatly that when he sat down the Tory peers rose, almost in a body, and rus.h.i.+ng across the floor, offered him their personal congratulations and handshakes in recognition of his success. Such a scene, common enough in foreign Chambers, was almost without precedent in our cold and stately House of Lords. The other memorable speech was that of Lord Derby, ”the Rupert of debate.”

Though I had no sympathy with his views, I could not but admire the almost pa.s.sionate fervour with which he pleaded for the Irish Church, and the indignation with which he denounced those who were bent upon despoiling it. I remember his quoting with dramatic effect the curse uttered by Meg Merrilees upon Ellan-gowan--a curse which he intended, of course, to apply to Mr. Gladstone. It was the last speech that Lord Derby ever made. When the announcement of the final surrender of the Peers, after the Bill had pa.s.sed through Committee, was made by Lord Cairns, I saw Lord Derby rise from his seat and, with a face inflamed with indignation, hobble swiftly out of the Chamber. He never entered it again.

This incident belongs to the tragedy of politics; but the debates on the Irish Church Bill in the House of Lords were not without their touches of comedy. One of these was supplied by Lord Westbury, the ex-Liberal Lord Chancellor. He made a very amusing, a very bitter, and an almost wholly inaudible speech against the Bill. The older peers, with their hands behind their ears, cl.u.s.tered round him to catch his witticisms, some even kneeling on the floor in order to be near enough to hear him. They chuckled and laughed consumedly, but we unfortunate reporters in the Gallery had but the faintest idea of what it was they were laughing at.

One sentence I did indeed catch, and still remember. It was to the effect that if the Irish Church were disestablished there would be no provision for the celebration of holy matrimony in Ireland in accordance with Protestant rites. ”Was it possible,” Lord Westbury asked, with simulated indignation, ”that the authors of this iniquitous measure really meant to drive all the unmarried Protestants of Ireland into mortal sin?” The old peers around him enjoyed this effort of the imagination mightily.

The other comic incident I remember was of a different kind. The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Trench, on behalf of his fellow-prelates, made a long speech against the Bill. Dr. Trench was a man of very high character and fine talent, but he was not at home in the House of Lords, or, indeed, in a political speech. When he advanced to the table of the House, he caused a slight t.i.tter by producing an unmistakable black sermon case, and spreading it open before him. By-and-by, as he proceeded with his sonorous but somewhat melancholy discourse, everybody perceived that he was preaching a sermon. The intonation of his voice, the phraseology, the measured sweep of the hands, all smacked of the pulpit.

The whole House listened eagerly, and watched intently for the accident that was certain to happen. At last it came. ”I beseech you, my brethren,” said the Archbishop, in a moment of apostolic absence of mind, and the whole House exploded in a roar of long-suppressed laughter, which made it impossible to learn the nature of the Primate's appeal.

For any man of intelligence the position of a parliamentary reporter is one of great interest and full of great possibilities. In my days in the Gallery there was, as I have already stated, little communication between the Gallery and the House proper. The art of exploiting the Press had not yet become familiar to the politicians, and a great gulf seemed to be fixed between the reporters and the members. Since then, that gulf has almost disappeared, and not a few men have stepped down from the Reporters' Gallery to the floor of the House. But our very aloofness from the inner side of parliamentary life, with its personal interests and its incessant intrigues, strengthened our position as independent critics and observers. We looked on as at a play in which we ourselves had no part, and those who possessed the instinct for politics which is the gift of the born journalist were able to see more and learn more from our independent standpoint than many of the actual actors saw and learned.

Some of the most capable of our political writers and critics were trained in the Gallery. One of my most intimate friends in those days was Mr. Mudford, who subsequently became known to fame as the editor of the _Standard_, and who built up that journal's great reputation. Of Mudford's capacity as an editor it is hardly necessary to speak here, but I may note in pa.s.sing that even in his early days in the Gallery he displayed the marked characteristics which distinguished him when he was at once the ablest and the least known of London editors. His independence of character was even then combined with a strong indisposition to make many acquaintances, or to cut any figure in public.

It was my privilege to be counted thus early in his career among his friends, and I am glad to say that it is a privilege which I still enjoy.

My stay in London was brought to an end in the early part of 1870, amid circ.u.mstances that changed the whole tenor of my life, and for a time left me a crippled and wounded man. I have said nothing in these pages of my private life or my domestic happiness. My marriage had proved to be, in all respects save one, everything that the heart of man could desire.

The one drawback was my wife's delicate health; but she had shown such marvellous recuperative powers at times when the doctors had spoken in the gravest manner of her case, and she possessed so unfailing a flow of natural good spirits, that it was impossible for one who, perhaps, saw only that which he desired to see, to believe that her case was hopeless.

Yet hopeless it really was during the whole of the two short years of her married life. Her death--it took place on the 4th of February--was a blow that seemed to shatter my own life to its very foundations. I cannot dwell upon it, unless it be to say that at that time of unspeakable sorrow I first learned the value of human sympathy, and made the discovery that there are, happily, in this world not a few men and women who seem to have the gift of being able, not indeed to remove, but to share and to lighten the burdens of their fellow-creatures. It is only those who have gone through such an ordeal as this of mine who can fully understand all that human sympathy may be in that hour of darkest woe when a man, still standing on the threshold of life, finds himself alone in a world which to him has suddenly become an empty desert.

One incident, and one only, of those days I will venture to recall. I was walking along the Strand in the blackest hours of my misery, when I saw an old man approaching me whose depth of mourning showed that he had sustained the same bereavement as myself. There was probably a difference of fifty years in our ages, but we were alike in the sacred kins.h.i.+p of sorrow. As he drew near me I saw his eyes fixed upon mine with a long look of tenderness and sympathy that went to my very heart, and comforted me subtly. I envied him his age, which seemed to bring him so much nearer to the end. I do not think he envied me my youth. It was but for a moment that we were thus drawn to each other in the crowded street--”s.h.i.+ps that pa.s.sed in the night,” in the darkest night, indeed; but that moment I have never forgotten.