The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2

S >> Stephen Gwynn >> The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50

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 passed 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 Ambassador 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 Japanese, whom he had known in England and lived
with in Japan.... 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 Dictatorship,
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, Agassiz, 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 Duchess 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 L30,000 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 anticipated 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; fashionably 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 passed in or out, but speaking no word. People
gathered to look at him, and at last the Company gave him L1,000 a
year. He drove down in a carriage and four, and handed in a letter
stating that he had already amassed L5,000 a year in their service,
that they had now raised it to L6,000, and that he desired to
express his gratitude.

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 Dickens, an intimate friend
of his own grandfather and father, as a man of violent, noisy
passions, but very lovable; his attitude towards Dickens
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 passed 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.

In November, 1909, Sir Charles spent some days in the Record Office,
coming back each time in much need of a bath, after rummaging
amongst papers which had not been disturbed for a century. He found
amongst other papers a letter from a Grand Duke of Modena to
Castlereagh, written just after Napoleon's fall, saying how exultant
were his subjects at his return to them, and asking Castlereagh to
lend him L14. With the letter was the draft of Castlereagh's answer,
congratulating the Duke's subjects and himself, but adding that
there would be difficulty in applying to Parliament for the loan.

Sir Charles remarked on my _Athenaeum_ review of Francis Newman's
Life. He said that when he himself was in bad odour for his early
Civil List speeches, so that he had been exposed to serious
disturbances, and a break-up of his intended meeting at Bristol was
threatened, Newman, from sheer dislike to mob tyranny, came forward
to take the chair; and through a tempest of shouts and rushes, and
amid the stifling smell of burnt Cayenne pepper, sat in lean
dignity, looking curiously out of place, but serene in vindication
of a principle. [Footnote: See Vol. I, Chapter IX.]

The publication of the Life of Goldwin Smith led us to talk of
University reform. I said how by means of it my own college had
become _ex humili potens_, had arisen from depths to heights, from
obscurity to fame. Of his, he said, the contrary was true: his
college had been ruined by Parliamentary interference. Trinity Hall
was founded for the study and teaching of jurisprudence, the old
Roman canon and civil law, on which all modern law is based. It was
the only institution of the kind, a magnificent and useful monopoly.
This exclusive character was destroyed by Parliament; scholarships
in mathematics and classics were instituted; it is now like other
colleges, and men who wish to study law at its source no longer
frequent it. He talked to me of Cambridge, and related with mimicry
anecdotes of "Ben" Latham, Master of Trinity Hall. Dining at Trinity
Hall one Sunday in 1883, he said Latham told him that he had lately
been sitting on an inter-University committee with Jowett, and that
Jowett was so sharp a man of business that "it is like sitting to
represent the Great Northern against the London and North-Western.
His one idea is to draw away passengers from the rival line." Latham
went on to say that the students for India who were made to stay two
years at Cambridge or Oxford, under Jowett's scheme, "the first year
learn _Sandford and Merton_ in Tamil, translated by a missionary;
and the second year _Sandford and Merton_ in Telugu, translated by
the same missionary. Thus they acquire a liberal education."

He talked of Waterloo, the battlefield being known to us both. It
was, he said, as the Duke always owned, a wonderfully near thing. If
Napoleon had had with him the two army corps left in France to
overawe insurrectionary districts, who would have joined him in a
week; and if at Ligny he had persevered in so smashing the Prussians
as to leave them powerless--if these two "if's" had become
realities, Napoleon must have driven Wellington back on Brussels.
Then the Belgians would have joined him, and the Austrians would
have forsaken the Allies, Metternich wishing well to Bonaparte for
the sake of his wife and child. The mystery of his escape from Elba,
which the English fleet might easily have prevented, remains still
to be explained: for the Vienna Congress was riddled with intrigue.
[Footnote: Sir Charles Dilke discussed the whole question of
Napoleon's escape from Elba in an article in the _Quarterly Review_,
January, 1910, entitled "Before and After the Descent from Elba."]

He made me laugh at a parson who in moments of provocation used to
say "Assouan!" His friends at last remembered that at Assouan was
the biggest dam in the world.

He gave me a recipe for beefsteak pudding: _no beef_, fresh kidney,
fresh mushrooms, fresh oysters, great stress laid on the epithet:
serve the pudding in its basin.

He came in to breakfast one morning whistling an attractive air. I
asked what it was; he said from _Carmen_, and hummed the air
through. He went on to say that he had well known the composer,
Bizet, who founded his opera on Merimee's romance. It fell flat, and
Bizet died believing it a failure; afterwards it became the rage.

This whistling of music was a favourite practice with him. His
accurate ear enabled him to reproduce any tune which had at any time
impressed him. He would give Chinese airs, would go through parts of
a Greek Church service, would sing words and music of the _Dies Irae.
On the Sunday following the death of Florence Nightingale our
Chertsey organist played Chopin's Funeral March. Sir Charles said
its _motifs_ were Greek rustic popular airs, each of which he
hummed, showing how Chopin had worked them in.

The dinner given to him in April, 1910, in connection with the Trade
Boards Bill was a great success, and much delighted him. He said
Bishop Gore had made a splendid speech. Sir Charles had a long chat
with Gore, and was, as always, delighted with his information and
bonhomie.

He talked of a Parisian jeweller who lived by selling jewels and by
lending money to the great Indian native potentates, and had
establishments for that purpose in India. This man wished to be
employed by our Government as a spy: Sir Charles applied on his
behalf to Lord George Hamilton, who handed to him the man's
_dossier_, an appalling catalogue of crimes and misdemeanours. He
had an extraordinarily noble presence; Sir Charles said to him:
"_You_ ought to be Amir of Afghanistan." "No," he replied; "I should
never have the patience to kill a sufficient number of people."

Of a French gentleman who had come to tea, recommended by the French
Ambassador, Sir Charles said that he was a French fool, the worst
kind of fool, _corruptio optimi_.

He showed the number of peerages having their origin in
illegitimacy, although the official books conceal the fact where
possible. The facts come out in such memoirs as Lady Dorothy
Nevill's. He went on to talk of divorce in the Roman Church, and to
scout their boast that with them marriage is an indissoluble
sacrament. The Prince of Monaco was for years the husband of Lady
Mary Hamilton. They tired of each other, wished for a divorce; the
Pope, with heavy fees for the transaction, declared the marriage to
have been for some ecclesiastical reason null and void. Each married
again; but the son of the nominally annulled union succeeded his
father as legitimate heir.

Sir Charles spoke--this was in 1906--of Buelow's speech in the German
Parliament, as one of the best ever made by any statesman, and
creating universal astonishment. Its appreciation of France and of
Gambetta was magnificent as well as generous. The French, after the
_debacle_, behaved as a nation self-respecting and patriotic ought
to have behaved. His hint at the bad feeling between the Kaiser and
King Edward was dexterous; it was real and insuperable; none of our
Royal Family can forgive the seizure of Hanover by Prussia; and
added to this was our King's indignation at the Kaiser's treatment
of the Empress Frederick, a member of his family for whom he felt
strong affection.

Of Morny he said that he was very handsome, but in an inferior
style. His beautiful Russian wife never cared for him, but in
obedience to Russian custom cut off her wonderful hair to be laid
with him in his coffin.

He spoke of the brothers Chorley, one the supreme musical critic of
his time, the other a profound Spanish scholar, shut up through life
in his library of 7,300 volumes.

Dilke told me one morning that he had been writing since five
o'clock an article for the _United Service Gazette_, and had
finished it to his satisfaction, adding that papers dashed off under
an impulse were always the best. I demurred. "Those papers of mine,"
I said, "specially praised by you have been always the fruit of long
labour." "Ah!" he answered, "but you have style--a rare
accomplishment; that is what I have admired in yours." "Would you,"
I said, "admire the style if the matter were ill considered?" "Yes."

He often talked admiringly of the Provencal language, declaiming
more than once what he called a fine Homeric specimen:

"Pesto, liona, sablas, famino, dardai fou,
Avie tout affronta."

(Pestilence, lions, sandy deserts, famine, maddening sun-heat,
Ye have all this faced.)

He was fond, too, of quoting Akbar's inscription on the Agra bridge:
"Said Jesus, on whom be peace, Life is a bridge: pass over!"

He described the French Foreign Legion: two regiments employed by
the French chiefly among the natives in the Tonquin settlement--
desperate men most of them, many of high social position and of army
rank, who had "done something" and had gone wrong; disgraced, hiding
from society, criminals escaped from justice, with a sprinkling of
young adventurers and riotous Germans. No enormity they would not
commit, no danger they would not court; some even seeking death; all
knowing that if left wounded in the bush by retreating comrades they
would be tortured horribly by the Tonquin women. They had a hospital
served by Roman Catholic nurses, to whom they paid every respect.
When a man newly joined once whistled rudely while the Sister was
praying, as was her custom before leaving the ward, his comrades
severely punished him. Intra-regimental offences, such as theft,
were visited with death.

He mentioned one morning that he had just received a Privy Council
summons. I asked why the Bidding Prayer held a petition for the
Lords _and others_ of Her Majesty's Privy Council: old Regius
Professor Jacobson used to tell us that it was a mistake, that all
Privy Councillors were "Lords" of the Privy Council. He thought that
the word "others" represented the Lord Mayor, who attends Accession
Councils and signs the parchment, but, not being a Lord of Council,
is then required to leave, while other business proceeds.

Twice in these years he dined at Oxford--once at All Souls as the
guest of Mr. Spenser Wilkinson, again on the invitation of some
undergraduates, sons mostly of his political acquaintances. He
greatly enjoyed both; the young men were the pick and flower of
Oxford; the All Souls high table was full of young teachers and
professors. What a change from the aristocratic college of my time,
whose head was Lewis Sneyd, its Fellows William Bathurst, Henry
Legge, Sir Charles Vaughan, Augustus Barrington, etc.! Anson very
charmingly presided; the talk was everything except political.

He was extraordinarily impressed by the funeral of the King--a
wonderful and novel ceremony he called it. As a senior Privy
Councillor he had an excellent place with Asquith close to the
coffin. The most magnificent figure in the show was Garter
King-of-Arms, but all the heralds were splendid. The Archbishop,
with the Dean of Westminster and a cross-bearer, was the only
prominent ecclesiastic, the Bishops in their places as peers being
crowded out of sight. The colouring was most effective, black
setting off the scarlet. The singing was somewhat drowned by the
Guards' bands, but the Dead March came in grandly through the
windows from Palace Yard. He mentioned a curious fact: that
Westminster Hall is controlled, not by Parliament, not by any
Government department, but by the Great Chamberlain. It is the sole
remaining part of the royal palace, which was lent to Parliament by
our early Kings. I said that it had not witnessed such a scene
since, on Mary's accession, the Sovereign and the two Houses met
there to receive Papal absolution from the Legate Pole. He wished I
had told him so before.