Chapter XIV: “satan Absolved”—the Boer War (1)

“George is in high spirits, as he has just been appointed Under- Secretary for War, a less interesting place than the Foreign Office, but still important, especially at the present moment. Things look more and more warlike, as Russia seems to be backing France, and I suspect most of the Continental Powers are against us. It is impossible Lord Salisbury should maintain the full ground he has chosen, that of refusing to negotiate without a war. The French will not give in like that. The way out of the mess would seem to lie in the direction of a European Congress, or at least of European intervention in the interests of peace. George says that the British fleet has its programme ready, and the French fleet would be shut up in their ports in a few days. He and the ultra Jingo section of the party are all for war. He gets £1,500 a year by this appointment.

“_22nd Oct._—To Paris, by Newhaven and Dieppe, much the pleasantest route. I have not travelled by it since I landed at Newhaven in a storm with a shipload of frightened refugees flying from Paris after Sedan.

“_23rd Oct._—Neville came to breakfast with me, and later old Julienne, Francis Currie’s _bonne_; who amused us with her view of the political situation. The government of France, she said, was in the hands of ‘un tas de gueux, passez-moi le mot,’ who were pillaging the country, and there must be a new _régime_—Orleanist, Bonapartist, or what ever else, she did not care, so long as it was not Dreyfusist. As to the Fashoda trouble, it was all the rapacity of ‘la grosse Victoire,’ meaning our own gracious Majesty, who wanted all the earth for herself and would leave nothing to poor France. ‘Nous sommes bien bas, allez.’ I fancy this represents pretty fairly the general opinion at Paris.

“At 3 to Gros Bois, where I found our hostess entertaining two Parisian ladies, dressed up like Parisian dolls, a ci-devant Russian beauty, the Comtesse de Talleyrand, and Mme. Chevreau, her neighbours. We were a party of six at dinner, lively in the usual French way, which means all talking at once. I had some quiet conversation, however, with Wagram before the guests arrived. He refuses to believe in a war and thinks the thing will be arranged. Russia, if it came to war, would fight too, and we should be attacked in India. I see that Redmond is openly declaring himself at Dublin in favour of the French, but I doubt if either Ireland or India is really attackable.

“_24th Oct._—Wagram was away all day shooting at Chantilly with the Duc de Chartres. Prince Henri d’Orléans was there and showed him a number of abusive letters he had received, mostly from Germans, in connection with the Dreyfus case, he being a violent anti-revisionist. Wagram brought back with him in the evening the Fashoda Yellow Book just published.

“_25th Oct._—The new Yellow Book gives a much more dignified form to the French argument than it has received in our Blue Book, and I consider that, logic for logic, M. de Courcel has the best of it. It is also clear that, as I suspected, Lord Salisbury _has_ been negotiating, though it is equally clear that he has allowed his back to be stiffened by the London Press and his colleagues’ speeches and Lord Rosebery’s. The French terms are now pretty fairly formulated. They will evacuate Fashoda on being allowed to keep the Bahr el Gazal with access to the White Nile. A Cabinet has been called in London for to-morrow, when a final decision will be come to. In face of the extraordinary outburst of Jingo violence in England I doubt such terms being accepted and war seems probable; nobody, however, here seems of that opinion.

“M. Hanotaux, late Minister of Foreign Affairs, and M. Vandal were here to-day and I had much conversation with both. Neither would hear of war for such a trifle as Fashoda. M. Hanotaux maintained that no war would be popular in France, that nobody knew where Fashoda was, or cared three straws about the Marchand Mission. He even considered the Egyptian question itself one of small importance for France. As for the Bahr el Gazal, it was ‘a country inhabited by monkeys and by black men worse than monkeys.’ A war with England over such a dispute would be worse than a crime, a folly. He was of opinion that such a war would ruin both countries. It would last two years; it would be carried on interminably because neither could vitally attack the other. ‘I admit,’ he said, ‘that your fleet may destroy ours, that you may blockade our ports, and that we could not land troops in England, but what then? You could not touch us in France, or even in Algeria or Tunis; it would ruin your trade and leave you at the end worse off than ourselves. You would find yourselves faced by a triple coalition. I do not believe in the possibility of war.’ I told him of the military fever we were suffering from in England, but he refused to believe that Lord Salisbury, who was ‘un homme d’Etat,’ who looked at the future, would quarrel to this extent with France, England’s only possible ally, for any such cause.

“I asked him about the Army, what its feeling was, what line it would take? ‘The French Army,’ he said, ‘is always ready to fight when the word is given, but it does not busy itself with politics, and will not intervene to force on any policy. It can be counted on absolutely to obey its orders, whether for peace or war. No war would be popular now in France, and there was no such military fever now here as I had described in England.’ He added, however, that if the Army at any time found a leader in any popular general who should become Minister of War, the situation might change, the public might easily become excited. If an appeal were made to it by the Government against England then the Army would, doubtless, show its readiness to fight. The Dreyfus case was also discussed. Vandal and Wagram were against revision, Berthe and, cautiously, Hanotaux for it. This was continued between Berthe and Wagram to the point of violence all the evening, Wagram maintaining that there were secret pieces of evidence which if made public would ruin the Army and ruin France, Berthe that no conceivable evidence could have such effect, the only people to be ruined being the General Staff. Personally I am much charmed by Hanotaux, who talks well on many subjects and without display of vanity. He has a pleasant _regard_ and a sympathetic voice. He gave me his views on architecture and art and talked to me, as knowing him, of Herbert Spencer. Vandal also talked well, but is less interesting. Both are academicians.

“_26th Oct._—The Brisson Ministry has resigned and all is confusion in Paris. This will probably ease the tension towards England and make a peaceful solution more possible.

“M. et Mme. Sommier, the owners of Vaux, and a Mme. de Brie came to luncheon. Sommier is a man of cultivation and intelligence, who has taken in the ‘Times’ newspaper for years so as to get news of the outside world, a rare circumstance in France. Like all the rest he says war is impossible for such a trifle as Fashoda, that France is not prepared for war, and that nobody wants to fight.

“_27th Oct._—Three men arrived to shoot pheasants, M. Chevreau, Comte de Gontaut Biron, and Comte de Kergoulet, all men of great intelligence and good talkers as well as good fellows. We shot in the forest beyond the park, but had no great sport. In the evening there was an excellent political discussion, turning principally on the overthrow of the Brisson Ministry and the chances of their succession. They think it probable that Delcassé will remain at the Affaires Etrangères. None of them will hear of a war with England, in which they say they would be beaten. My neighbour at dinner, M. de Kergoulet, a young Breton gentleman of old family, did not scruple to say they would withdraw from the Nile and apologize rather than that. None of the party, except Wagram, expressed any very different sentiment. I proposed as a bridge of escape from an impossible situation that the French Government should express its willingness to acknowledge Egypt’s right to the whole of the Nile provinces, but not the right of England. I believe that this would practically save them from their dilemma without loss of honour, and would leave the Nile question for a more favourable moment for raising it in conjunction with the whole Egyptian question. The question of Alsace-Lorraine was also debated, and it was generally admitted that there must be sooner or later _prescription_, a limit of time beyond which resentment could not be continued, though that time had not yet come. But for this the German alliance was what would be most advantageous to France and a coalition against England. I asked them whether they thought it true that the Emperor William had proposed such a coalition two years ago, and they said it was most probable, but not certain. Such a coalition was impossible at present on account of the sentiment about the lost provinces, and nations live by sentiment, it was the mainstay of their patriotism. I had it on the tip of my tongue to say patriotism is the virtue of nations in decay, but I felt that that would be hardly civil, though the aphorism would be a good one. [A better one would be, ‘patriotism is the virtue of weak nations, it is the vice of the strong.’]

“M. de la Siseranne was also of our party, an excellent talker like the rest, but with more pose, as one would expect from his position as _conférencier_ and dogmatic art critic, a shock-headed man _taillé en brosse_, less attractive than the others. He was strong on the point of the time being nearly come when the animosity about Alsace-Lorraine could be decently buried. ‘There is,’ he said, ‘prescription for all things, one does not now refuse one’s hand to the descendant of him who guillotined one’s ancestors in 1793,’ meaning, no doubt, Carnot.

“_28th Oct._—To Paris on my way home. Called on Abu Naddara, who gave me some details of the Marchand mission. Marchand had come to him three years ago to ask his advice about penetrating to the Upper Nile, and how to make friends with the Khalifa, and he (Sanua) had given him papers inscribed with texts from the Koran, and as I understood him, introductions from one or two persons at Omdurman. Marchand’s idea was to go and make friends with the Mahdists and help them against England. He was certainly sent by the French Government. Sanua is severe on the stupidity of French diplomacy, and considers France very low down in the scale of European nations. He told me a good deal about his visit to the Sultan Abdul Hamid, who had received him with all honour, and allowed him to speak frankly and openly about affairs. He says the Sultan is acquiring an immense prestige from the Emperor Wilhelm’s visit, which is everywhere in the East regarded as an act of homage. It was Abdul Hamid who first suggested to the Emperor to get rid of Bismarck. On his first visit to Constantinople they were talking about Bismarck’s great power in Europe, and the Sultan said, ‘I should not like to have so powerful a servant, would your Majesty like to see how I treat mine?’ William said, ‘Yes.’ Abdul Hamid then touched a bell, and when the attendant entered said, ‘Send for Kiamil,’ the then Grand Vizier. Instantly horsemen were despatched at a gallop through the city seeking the Minister, who presently appeared and stood, with head bowed and folded hands, before them. The Sultan for awhile took no notice, and let him stand, then casually ‘You need not wait, it is of no consequence, go,’ and the Grand Vizier went. William took this lesson to heart, and dismissed his Chancellor hardly less brusquely.

“Dined with Neville and his friend Geoffroi, a young fellow art student of a modest serious kind at the hôtel where I was their entertainer. We discussed art, literature, and politics. The young man is rather socialistic, hates the army, in which he is just about to be obliged to serve, and is a Dreyfusard. He assures me military service is most unpopular, and war still more so. It is clear nobody in France will take up the quarrel thrust on them by us over Fashoda.

“_29th Oct._—Back to England. To-day it is announced that Marchand has left for Cairo, so the quarrel _solvitor ambulando_.

“_3rd Nov._—Newbuildings. Knowles has agreed to my writing on the Fashoda affair in the ‘Nineteenth Century,’ but says he hopes I will not forget the motto which is his, ‘my country right or wrong.’ What absurdity! One would think that England was a poor struggling nationality, oppressed by a strong neighbour, and in need of the help of all her sons, not what she is, the mill in which all the nations are being ground.

“_4th Nov._—Anne and Judith left for Egypt, I staying on in England for the winter. Lunched with George Wyndham at Willis’s Rooms, where he is near his work at the War Office. We discussed the Fashoda business about which there will certainly not be war, George said. Also that our Government had squared the Emperor William. The Duke of Devonshire and Henry Chaplin were lunching at another table, and greeted George as ‘dear George.’ Of Chamberlain, George said, ‘He is for war at any price.’ He (Chamberlain) has just come back from America, where they are going through the same absurd military fever that we are here.

“_7th Nov._—At Newbuildings with Cockerell. Delcassé has made his climb down about Fashoda, certainly a pitiful one, which reduces France almost to the level of a second-class Power. The Emperor William meanwhile has been touring it in Syria, and making speeches at Jerusalem. I fancy his concurrence with English policy has been bought by some promise of recognizing him as the Sultan’s protector with a future reversion of the Holy Land. Our Jingo papers, especially the ‘Chronicle,’ have been clamouring for the annexation of Egypt, or at least the declaration of an English Protectorate, but that is probably not within the limits of Lord Salisbury’s present agreement with Wilhelm.

“_9th Nov._—Left Newbuildings for Gorsey End, near Lyndhurst, for the winter, driving in beautiful weather by Rogate, where we are being entertained by Hugh Wyndham and his daughter Florence, stopping also to call on Charles Wyndham at Midhurst. Hugh, talking of the agreement with Waddington made in 1878 at the Berlin Congress in regard to Tunis, told me that he had had it from Odo Russell that the thing was transacted at the British Embassy. Odo Russell had said to him, ‘You must be prepared for some startling moves,’ and told him what had happened. This was soon after the agreement.” [Sir Hugh Wyndham had been Secretary of the Berlin Embassy at the time.]

The whole of this winter I spent in the New Forest, having been advised to go there for my health, as I could get easy hunting there, and so be much out of doors. My principal friend in the neighbourhood was Sir William Harcourt at Malwood, whom I saw frequently, but otherwise I was much cut off from political society, though I went up now and then to London. At Lyndhurst I was busy writing my poem, “Satan Absolved.”

“_20th Nov. (Sunday)._—To luncheon at Malwood. Sir William in excellent form, principally about the bishops, with whom he is now in violent conflict. He narrated to us a conversation he had had with the Duke of Devonshire as to the nomination to a bishopric. The Duke’s account of it was this: ‘He had written two letters to Salisbury, recommending a fellow, he couldn’t remember the fellow’s name, and Salisbury hadn’t even answered. He had written because Courtney and another fellow, he couldn’t remember his name either, had wanted it.’ On inquiry it had turned out that the proposed nominee was Page Roberts, and Sir William had taken an opportunity of asking Lord Salisbury why he hadn’t made Page Roberts a Bishop. ‘The fact is,’ said Salisbury, ‘I thought they were talking of Page Hopps, and we gave it to some one else.’ ‘That,’ said Sir William, ‘is the way they make bishops.’ Our luncheon was quite a feast, as Lady Harcourt has a very good cook. Rawnsley and his wife were there.

“_22nd Nov._—Knowles has returned me my article on ‘Fashoda,’ on the plea of its being too late, and that, besides, it would not be wise to publish it, doubtless the true reason.

“_28th Nov._—Cromer has consented to give Judith away at her wedding if I am prevented from being present. This is as it should be, for personally I have always been on pleasant terms with Cromer, much as we may tilt politically.

“_3rd Dec._—To London, where I saw George Wyndham. He tells me they had a tremendous dinner a few nights ago, all the Under-Secretaries, at which, after the consumption of much champagne, they toasted each other as ‘the youth of the day and the future Cabinet of 1910.’ All were present except Austin Chamberlain, who had been run over by a cab.

“_8th Dec._—Basil Blackwood came to breakfast with me in Mount Street, just back from a shooting expedition in East Africa. He gave me an account of it, as well as of Hubert Howard’s death. He and Hubert had been very close friends. Basil is a nice youth, not a little like what his father was when he was young.

“_10th Dec._—I have been buying books with Cockerell’s help at Morris’s sale, his ‘Gerarde’s Herbal,’ a Berner’s ‘Froissart,’ and Malory’s ‘King Arthur,’ the Copland edition of 1557, the last a book to lie always on one’s table.

“Last night there was given a great private dinner to George Curzon, at which most of the ladies who are our friends were present. [This was a farewell dinner to Lord Curzon of Kedlestone on his departure for India as Viceroy. I have an amusing letter from Curzon of that date, as member of the Crabbet Club, excusing himself for accepting an office which, according to our Rules, entailed a resignation of membership, but I cannot print it here.] Both George Wyndham and Sibell gave me an account of the feast. He, George Wyndham, recited a poem he had written for the occasion. Hugo (Elcho) proposed Curzon’s health in a speech which George declared beat even his (Hugo’s) record, and Curzon’s reply was also most amusing. No pressmen were invited except Harry Cust, if he can still be called one. It is described in the evening papers as a ‘congregation of the Order of the Souls.’

“_16th Dec._—The event of the day is Harcourt’s retirement from the leadership of the Liberal party. The true reason of his retirement is the conversion of the whole party, or at least the whole Liberal Press, to Jingo Imperialism. I wrote yesterday to congratulate him on his published letter. To-day I have a line from him in answer. He says: ‘_Anche io_ have escaped out of gaol and am a free man.’ I hope now that his tongue and Morley’s will be let loose to attack the militarism of the day, of which Rosebery is the most outrageous champion. They will have plenty to say and will give dissentients heart. There must be a few lovers of liberty left in England, but for the moment they have no voice more powerful than Labouchere’s. I consider Harcourt’s retirement a distinct gain for liberty, if not for Liberalism.

“_17th Dec._—To London on business, and dined at the ‘Travellers,’ where I was introduced by d’Estournelles to his new Ambassador, Cambon. I had a long talk with the latter about desert travelling, and my adventure at Siwah. Having mentioned that I was at Paris at the time of the late crisis they asked me ‘which crisis,’ and I without thinking said ‘the crisis of Fashoda.’ Cambon’s countenance fell at the word, and he changed the conversation, though heaven knows I meant no harm. It is arranged between d’Estournelles and me that I should get up a little dinner at Mount Street for the Ambassador after the _Jour de l’An_, but I fear I should disappoint d’Estournelles’ expectations. He counts, among other inducements, upon my inviting Lady Galloway, who, being Lord Salisbury’s sister, he thinks would interest Cambon. He wants Cambon to make a good impression in English society. When he finds out how little I am a _persona grata_ with the Government he will probably be less keen for my assistance; however, that is their affair. [N.B. Cambon had been sent to England after the Fashoda affair and the change of Ministry at Paris, expressly to bring about a good understanding between France and England, and in this he succeeded admirably. I believe it to have been due to him more than to any other Frenchman, except perhaps Delcassé, that the Entente Cordiale was come to four years later with the withdrawal of all French opposition to England in Egypt. It is probable that at the time of Fashoda an understanding was come to between Lord Salisbury and Delcassé for the partition of North Africa. England to have the East, France the West, Germany and Russia to be eventually allowed the spoil of Turkey and Persia. The full development of the plan being put off till the death, when it should happen, of Sultan Abdul Hamid.]

“_19th Dec._—Old Lord Napier and Ettrick, Mark’s father, is dead. He was a man of distinction, and no small ability. He was for many years in diplomacy, and was then sent as Governor to Madras. The last I saw of him was six or seven years ago, when I was at the Glen. His chief achievement in life was the making of Mark.

“_26th Dec._—I have been staying at the Danes for Christmas, a family party. To-day we drove over to North Mimms, to make acquaintance with Loulou’s _fiancée_. North Mimms, a beautiful old place, but turned inside out by a Victorian architect, who has been let loose on it regardless of expense. Loulou’s new relations are Americans, the young lady simple and unaffected, and tenderly attached to Loulou.”

I ended the year 1898 at Ockham with Ralph and Mary, more happily than was its beginning. “The first four months were of exceeding physical pain with the final breakdown, followed by a great contentment of mind and body. That great act of abdication, ‘the taking to one’s deathbed,’ teaches one the value of the smaller pleasures of life. Intellectually I still feel growth, and while growth continues one is not yet old. Judith’s marriage has been an event of supreme satisfaction.

“_1st Jan._, 1899.—I am back at Lyndhurst. Lady Lytton tells me that the Queen was greatly opposed to Neville’s marrying before he came of age, and that her Majesty is constantly inquiring about the date of the wedding, and has been soothed by being told that Neville will at least be twenty on his wedding day.

“_4th Jan._—To Malwood, where I had a long talk with Sir William Harcourt about the line he ought to take as an independent member of the Opposition. He told me that he intended to bring forward the whole anti- imperial case on grounds of economy. I told him that I did not think he would get much following that way. Nobody cared enough about economy to be enthusiastic over it. I thought he would have more success if he gave his opposition a moral basis, exposing the demoralization of England through the violence and bloodshed Imperialism entailed, the fraud, lying, and hypocrisy, and the growth of militarism. Carried away by my argument I pressed him so closely that he almost lost his temper, and as a final word said: ‘Well, what you say may be true, but this is my plan, and I mean to stick to it.’ Lady Harcourt, however, who was there, took my side, and afterwards made me go with her upstairs to see her boy Bobby, and repeat to him my argument. ‘It will do him good,’ she said, ‘for he is just at a moment of crisis when a very little may turn his ideas one way or the other.’ I found the boy in bed with a cold, writing his views on politics in a copy-book, and I turned my eloquence on him. Old Sir William’s ill-humour was almost pathetic, and did not last long, and Lady Harcourt said to me as we went upstairs, ‘He will not really mind, and he will remember what you said when you are gone.’ Really there never was a moment, when a man with convictions and some knowledge of foreign affairs, could do more in England.

“Bennett, one of the military correspondents in the Soudan, has written a powerful article in the ‘Contemporary,’ exposing the barbarity of the war, about which all the country has been shouting triumph, and about Gordon College at Khartoum. The British public are paying to ease their consciences for the incredible slaughter of Omdurman.

“_6th Jan._—The run of the season with the New Forest deer hounds, in pursuit of an old roebuck from Lady Cross Lodge right across the open heath of Beaulieu plain, very fast to the far side, when he turned back and again faced the open. About the middle of the plain, on his second journey, he lay down, and jumped up in the middle of the hounds, racing away for two miles in view with the pack at his heels to Hackett Pond, where he took the water and swam for ten minutes with the pack after him, and out again, and was run into and killed in the open. They say they never had so good a run before. It lasted seventy-five minutes. I was riding Mahruss, who carried me in the front rank all the way, the only heavy weight that went fairly with the hounds.

“_7th Jan._—Cromer has made a speech to the Soudanese Sheykhs at Khartoum, declaring they will now be ruled by the Queen of England and the Khedive of Egypt. This lets the cat out of the bag. I was quite sure the thing was in contemplation from the reticence of Lord Salisbury. All these weeks he has been allowing the rest of his Cabinet to make altruistic speeches about the Soudan having been ‘reconquered for Egypt,’ but has been mute himself, remaining by his telegram to Monson. The high moral nature of the transaction has been appealed to by every newspaper in England notwithstanding Bennett’s exposure of the atrocities of the campaign. I have written to congratulate Bennett on his courage.

“_13th Jan._—Indoors all day writing about the new settlement in the Soudan. It is ludicrous to follow the antics of the so-called Liberal papers, the ‘Chronicle,’ the ‘Westminster Gazette,’ and the rest, in their endeavour to make the seizure of the Upper Nile for England fit in with their moral heroics about England’s duty of ‘reconquering it for Egypt.’ What they don’t understand is that Lord Salisbury was very quietly playing with them. He was delighted at the time of his ultimatum to France to get the support of the Radical Press, and he let them run on to their hearts’ content about England being Egypt’s trustee and the Nile being Egypt and Egypt being the Nile—that was Rosebery’s phrase—and it pleased him that the Nonconformist conscience should call heaven and earth to witness what a moral and unselfish nation we were, and how abominable were the French, who would pilfer Egypt’s inheritance. He was glad to get the support of the Exeter Hall people and the bishops and the clergy by letting them boast of the evangelical missions they were going to start at Khartoum, all the while having up his sleeve this card of Kitchener’s, English Viceroyalty of the Soudan in the name of Her Gracious Majesty and a strictly Mohammedan Protectorate. The world are fools, or rather, they ask to be deceived, and deceived they are. The ‘Chronicle’ will very soon come fully into line with the ‘Telegraph,’ and find it an exceedingly clever trick to have made a cat’s-paw of the Egyptian Government in English interests. What can be more amusing than to add the Upper Nile to the British Empire, and make the Egyptian fellah pay for his conquest and maintenance, the profit being wholly for England. Meynell tells me that when Sir William Butler (who is his brother-in-law) met Kitchener on his arrival at Dover, he said to him, ‘Well, if you do not bring down a curse upon the British Empire for what you have been doing, there is no truth in Christianity.’ Kitchener only stared.

“_14th Jan._—Drove to Abbotsworthy to stay with George Lefevre,[19] where we have had a deal of talk about politics. Lefevre is of opinion that Rosebery’s retirement from the Leadership of the Liberal party was resolved on by him with the idea that he could get Lord Salisbury’s succession, if not as Unionist Prime Minister, at least as Unionist Foreign Secretary. This is likely enough. We went to look at St. Cross and the Cathedral at Winchester. The old ‘brother’ at St. Cross, one Joyce, who acted as showman, was describing to us the mechanism of an ancient confessional in the wall of a church there, and I asked him, ‘Do you hold, sir, with the modern practice of confession?’ His answer was amusing. ‘Modern confession, sir. I was taking a lady round the church last week, and when we came to this ’ole in the wall, I invited her inside. “Now, Madam,” I said, “have you nothing to confess to me?” And she was a pretty woman, sir. “I confess,” said she, “that I ’ave been in ’ere alone with you quite long enough.” That’s my idea of modern confession and you may let Sir William ’Arcourt know it with my compliments.’

“_15th Jan._—Back to Lyndhurst, stopping on the way at Malwood for luncheon. Sir William is immensely pleased with my confessional story, which exactly hits his humour. Loulou was there, and Bobby, the younger boy, and we had a great discussion about poetry and poets. I expounded to them the glories of Malory’s ‘Morte d’Arthur.’

“_20th Jan._—The papers give the text of a convention made between Cromer and Boutros Pasha—a leonine convention indeed. The text, however, shows it less of an annexation than Cromer’s speech suggested. As far as I can read its meaning it would become legally inoperative if England evacuated Egypt, for it provides only ‘a system for the administration and making of laws . . . giving effect to the claims which have accrued to Her Britannic Majesty’s Government by right of conquest to share in the present settlement and future working and development of the said system of legislation.’ This can hardly be construed into sovereign rights. Nevertheless, it is practically as bad as possible for Egypt, for it will saddle on her the whole cost and labour of the war of reconquest not yet completed and make her budget responsible for Soudan deficits.

“_21st to 23rd January._—At Hewell. I have made friends here with Rowton and have talked Egyptian and other matters over with him. He is, of course, a Jingo of the Jingoes, as becomes a courtier of the Queen and Disraeli’s once private secretary, but he can talk without asperity even on the delicate subject of the British flag at Khartoum.

“_2nd Feb._—To-day is Judith’s wedding day. I came up to London and joined Edith Lytton and the family dinner party, where we drank the health of bride and bridegroom. Edith had with her a telegram from Her Majesty expressing sympathy, and later another saying that she had telegraphed to Lord Cromer asking for news of the wedding and giving his reply, ‘_marriage duly performed_.’ This Her Majesty had underlined to show, Edith explained, her disappointment at the baldness of the answer. The Queen, she said, would have liked something gushing, but, of course, Lord Cromer treated it merely in an official way and would go to no expense. Both telegrams were signed ‘V.R.I.,’ which, Edith says, is always Her Majesty’s signature now. I thought the ‘I’ had been reserved for communications east of Suez, but the Queen is pleased with her title of Empress and uses it always. She has shown great interest in the marriage all through.

“_7th Feb._—The ‘Times’ publishes my Soudan letter in a prominent place, and as to-day is the opening of Parliament it may perhaps do good. Nubar Pasha is dead, and they are giving him a public funeral at Alexandria, while all the English papers are full of his praises, yet this wily Armenian arrived penniless in Egypt fifty years ago and has made four millions out of his various tenures of office. For this he is applauded by the London Press as an Egyptian patriot and statesman. He was unable, I believe, so much as to talk Arabic.

“_12th Feb._—Lord Salisbury has given certain explanations in the House of Lords about the Soudan which are better than nothing, but the Opposition is too flabby to push him farther than he condescends to go.

“_16th Feb._—Called at 44, Belgrave Square, where Mary, Pamela and Madeline are sitting for their portraits in a group to Sargent. It is being painted in the drawing-room. In the background there will be their mother’s portrait by Watts.

“_19th Feb. (Sunday)._—Faure, the French President, is dead, and there is a good deal of excitement over the event, but I do not anticipate anything final at present. The chiefs of the Army would like to overthrow the Republic, but in the absence of any popular candidate for the throne, they are afraid to move. The rank-and-file, especially the conscripts, would not follow them.

“_22nd Feb._—I have been helping to get up an agitation against the Parliamentary grant of £30,000 to Kitchener, and questions have been asked in the Commons. Brodrick admits the digging up of the Mahdi’s body and the throwing it into the Nile, and they are bringing further questions about the mutilation, that is to say, about young Bill Gordon’s having cut the head off to keep as a ‘curio.’ The whole thing is revolting—a piece of military revenge for the death of Gordon and the defeat of Wolseley and excused now on the absurd plea of its having been ‘a necessity in view of the possibility of a fanatical revival.’ What makes the desecration worse is that Sir Herbert Stewart’s grave had remained all these years untouched in the desert where he fell, but the Liberal front bench is ready to condone every horror, being more Jingo than the Jingoes.

“_24th Feb._—To the House of Commons for the Soudan debate which was led by Morley, ably and courageously. I heard Grey speak in good parliamentary style, but without eloquence, the Tories applauding him. [He had become Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs under Rosebery.]

“_26th Feb._—Morley’s speech reads well in the ‘Times,’ and is founded for the most part on my letter published a fortnight ago. There is to be a separate debate about the desecration of the Mahdi’s tomb.

“_1st March._—Gave a dinner to the two Ambassadors, Cambon and Staal—with Margot, Lady Windsor, and Mrs. Benson for other guests; it was very gay, thanks to Margot, who talked imperfect French with great courage and volubility, and amused us all. Staal was as usual witty and charming, and after dinner Cambon, who is a bit of a _poseur_, sat on a sofa between two of the ladies, telling stories of Pierre Loti and his fabulous love adventures. Loti, when at Constantinople, had made the acquaintance of an Armenian lady of the half world, and on that slender foundation of romance built up his tale of an intrigue with the Turkish inmate of a harem of the Eyub quarter who died of jealousy for his sake. So successfully had he done it that he had convinced himself of its truth, and to the point that when he returned to Constantinople, and was staying at the French Embassy, he came in one day from a walk, and assured Cambon, who knew the true story, and Loti knew that he knew it, that he had just been to weep in the spot in the Eyub quarter where he had been so happy. He had found the quarter burnt, and the house reduced to ashes. Cambon assured us that Loti did this in all good faith, having been able to persuade himself to believe in these _bonnes fortunes_ as things that had actually happened.

“_8th March._—Lunched at the French Embassy. Staal, Maxse and his daughter, Margot and others. I asked Staal, who sat next to me, how it was that Tolstoy managed to remain on in Russia, untroubled by the Government. He said it was entirely due to the great literary position he held in Europe. It was thought wiser to tolerate him at home than to send him away to exile.

“_9th March._—George Wyndham came to see me this morning, and I lunched with him and Madeline Adeane later at Belgrave Square, where we saw the first sketching in of Pamela’s head which Sargent had just done in a couple of hours’ work. It is wonderful as a likeness and as a bit of rapid execution, giving just her playful prettiness, and the peculiar wave of her hair, a sketch in the manner of Velasquez, with exactly his strong touches, unintelligible when looked close into, but alive when seen at a distance. Mary, too, has been sketched in not unsuccessfully, and Madeline less well. It should make a remarkable picture, probably Sargent’s best. He is to be allowed no licence with the magentas and mauves he loves. I met him on the doorstep as he was going out, a rather good looking fellow in a pot hat, whom at my first sight I took to be a superior mechanic.

“_10th March._—By early train to Guildford to sit to Watts. (It had been arranged for me by Madeline Wyndham that Watts should do my portrait, a special favour he accorded her in deference to their long friendship.) The sittings were to be at his house, about three miles off by the Hogsback, an ornamental, not too ornamented cottage of the usual Victorian kind, which he has christened ‘Limnerslease,’ much to his friends’ amusement, Cockerell tells me. Burne-Jones used to call it ‘Dauber’s Den,’ ‘Painter’s Palette,’ and other nicknames. The old man, well and alert, went to work at once on me, talking without interruption the whole time, and sometimes, finding me a good listener, with eloquence, though he complained of having been unable all his life to hit the right word in conversation, or even in writing. He is by nature, he says, a poet, but without the gift of expressing himself in any form of words. That is why he has worked all his life to express himself in colour, which after all he can only do imperfectly. He cares for his art, and desires to do it well, but principally as a means to his end of giving form to his ideas. He also wished to make these ideas intelligible to the widest circle of disciples, and for this reason he has refused to connect his art with any special epoch or any special creed. His figures are ideal figures, which will suit all ages and all beliefs. He once received a letter from a woman in Australia, who wrote to tell him that as a girl in Manchester she had found life so hard, she had intended to die, but by accident had seen a photograph of his ‘Love and Death,’ which had consoled her, and now she was married, and prosperous, and happy. She kept the photograph always hanging in front of her bed. This he said was a greater satisfaction to him than any success he had had merely as a painter.

“To some extent he blames Burne-Jones for being too much a man of one age. He (Burne-Jones) had locked himself up in the fourteenth century and had stayed there. Except for this he spoke warmly of him and of his charming qualities. He told how he had set Burne-Jones once on horseback at Little Holland House, starting him to canter round a ride he had made there, but he forgot some hurdles which had been put up and poor Burne- Jones fell off, nor would he ever be persuaded to mount again. Of Morris, he spoke with less enthusiasm, and I fancy there was a coolness between them in later years, though formerly he had seen much of them both. His heroes are Ruskin, Carlyle, and Rossetti, and he quoted ‘The lost days of my Life’ as the finest of all Sonnets, an opinion which has long been mine. He does not think very highly of Rossetti as a painter, rather as a poet. Millais and Leighton were his two special friends among artists, and how many charming and beautiful women! He spoke more than once of Lady de Vesci. The handsomest head he had ever painted was Sir Henry Taylor’s, but his best man’s portrait he considers to be Burne-Jones’, his best woman’s portrait, Madeline Wyndham’s. He sets greater store, however, on his allegorical subjects than on his portraits.

“_11th March._—To Limnerslease again, having slept the night at Milford. To-day we talked much on the subject of the destruction of the weak races by the strong, and, like so many people nowadays, while deploring it Watts excused it as inevitable, a law of nature and the fulfilment of destiny. I thought he must have been talking about this to Gerald Balfour, whose portrait he has just been painting, but he told me how he had hardly had any conversation with Gerald during their sittings. With me he has talked uninterruptedly, sometimes leaving his work for five minutes altogether to explain and illustrate his arguments. Two of his illustrations I remember. Speaking of the ritualistic controversy and the necessity of ceremony in all religions, ‘Ceremony,’ he said, ‘is the substance of religious belief, it is what outline is in a picture, it ought not to be required, indeed it does not exist in nature, but it is often impossible to understand what is meant without it.’ This seemed to me a particularly good illustration. Again, speaking of the part reason plays in our religious ideas, ‘Here,’ he said, pointing to his forefinger, ‘is sentiment, here is faith, here is charity, here is hope, all four fingers stand together on more or less equal terms, yet they can grasp nothing without this,’ bending down his thumb, ‘which is reason.’ He was intensely pleased when I applauded and said he had always thought it good.

“_12th March (Sunday)._—At Newbuildings, gathering the first spring flowers, which I am going to colour in my Gerarde’s Herbal, the one bought at Morris’s Sale.

“I have concluded the purchase of Fernycroft in the New Forest from Lord Montagu, 31 acres of woodland. It formed part of the hereditary lands of Beaulieu Abbey, an outlying croft where the monks kept their cows.

“_14th March._—Entertained York Powell with others at dinner. I have known him since 1863, when he was a boy, and I a quite young man, travelling in the Pyrenees, but we have hardly met since, though in correspondence now and then on literary and political subjects, where we mostly agree. He was made Professor of History at Oxford, some years ago, and is a good fellow, with a larger mind than Dons usually possess.

“_17th March._—Again at Limnerslease. Mrs. Watts took me to see Mrs. Hichens’ house close by, where there is a portrait of old Prinsep, the finest Watts ever did. Indeed, I think it almost the finest portrait ever painted in England. The house is set under a chalk pit looking south, and screened from all cold winds. Princess Christian came in, but seeing strangers, decamped.

“_24th March._—The Government has published a meagre parliamentary paper upon the doings at Omdurman, and the desecration of the Mahdi’s tomb. Of course everything is denied, or made to appear to be denied, except the fact, which could not be concealed, of the throwing of the Mahdi’s body into the Nile. As to the killing of the wounded, the denial does not include the general order which, without doubt, was given of killing men lying on the ground in battle after they had fallen. This is thought to be excused by the story, much exaggerated, of wounded men getting up and firing at our soldiers, but the true reason of the slaughter is that Kitchener was campaigning on the cheap, and did not wish to be encumbered with prisoners, and especially wounded prisoners. This, and the desire to have ‘a record bag’ as a revenge for Gordon. The destruction of the tomb is a crime of which Kitchener meanly excuses himself by saying he was away when it was done, though he had given the order, and for the political reason of preventing the tomb’s becoming a centre of pilgrimage, and so of fanatical feeling. This is mere fustian. The thing was done to emphasize the revenge taken, young Gordon, Gordon’s nephew, having been sent for from Cairo expressly for the job, and given command of the bombardment during the battle, with orders to fire at the tomb. Afterwards he was intrusted with the blowing-up of the ruins and the violation of the grave. Kitchener admits that ‘the skull was preserved and handed over to me for disposal,’ which leaves it to be implied that young Gordon performed the act of mutilation.

“_27th March._—To Brighton to see old Herbert Spencer at his house in Percival Terrace. I found him lying on a sofa in a dressing-gown, with slippers on of an ornamental feminine kind. He began by talking for ten minutes about his health, and explaining that his fresh, rosy colour was no sign of health; then he got round to the subject of my visit, the militarisms and brutalities of the day, the idealization of football and all games of force, the rehabilitation of Napoleon and other war-making scoundrels who had long been condemned as such, with the rewriting of history to suit the agressive ideas now in fashion. He repeated what he had said in his first letter to me, that if he did not believe there would be a return to humane doctrines, it might be in a hundred, it might be in two hundred or three hundred years, he would not move a hand to prevent the destruction of the whole human race. He applauded what I had said in writing to him of its being probably necessary that we should be first beaten and invaded here in England by a foreign enemy, and he thought it would be the best thing that could happen. ‘I am quite as pessimistic,’ he said, ‘as you are about the present, only I foresee a change in the remote future.’ ‘In the remote future,’ I replied, ‘it will be too late, everything that is interesting and beautiful and happy in the world will have been destroyed. The world will be inhabited then only by the ugly and dull, and miserable white races.’ This made him talk of the South Sea Islanders, the Burmese, and other unspoiled people. He said he had intended writing to William Watson to suggest a poem on the gradual degradation of a South Sea Island community by the missionary and the trader. Watson had not much backbone in his poetry, but he thought he could do this. Trade competition was only another form of war waged by the strong against the weak, less abominable, perhaps, than fire and sword. For this reason the Czar’s peace proposals should be supported, though they would not result in any real cessation of civilized aggression. We talked also about race hatred and the influence women had in fostering it, and I told him about India. He showed me some beautiful photographs he had had sent him from Burmah, of the happy poor people there, and contrasted them with the faces of our own poor. Then complaining of being tired, for he had been talking very energetically, he sent me down to have my luncheon with the two ladies who look after him, a housekeeper and a young lady who plays the piano to him. They are both new in the house, and he seems to have no relations or belongings except these two, and they are strangers. After luncheon I went upstairs again, but Spencer soon tired of talk, and, ringing the bell, he sent for the young pianist, whom he directed to play Masaniello and a piece by Purcell, which she did for twenty minutes. She did this very nervously, as he was continually interrupting her, begging her to play either a little faster or a little slower. This done, we fell to talk again about the domestication of animals. While talking he occasionally gets excited, and jumps up from his sofa and walks hurriedly about the room, until suddenly recollecting himself and his health, he stops. He explained to me that he had been an invalid since he was a young man, and he will be seventy-nine next Tuesday, and has a right to be careful.

“On the whole I am rather disappointed with Spencer. He is so very dry, and so much wrapped up in himself, his ailments, his work and his ideas, to the exclusion, it seems to me, of individual sympathies. His mind is clear and logical, he expresses himself well, but without eloquence or such power as compels attention; not once was I able to feel myself in the presence of a _great_ man, only of a very well-informed one, a pedagogue and able reasoner. There was nothing in him of the softening character which old age so often gives, and which is so touching. Still I am glad to have spent this day with him, for his is one of the great names of our time, and his work has been great. His rooms in Perceval Terrace are cheerful, facing the sea, and he seldom moves out, the ladies tell me, except for a drive in the afternoon, nor does he often see people, so I may take his asking me to visit him as a very high compliment. He has promised to send me a copy of his volume on Sociology. At three I left him and walked back to the station, and so home to Newbuildings, glad not to be a philosopher.

“_12th April._—Yesterday and the day before I have been entertaining Prince and Princess Sherbatoff, showing them the stud, with her brother, Count Strogonoff, both highly intelligent Russians, and breeders of Arab horses.” [Sherbatoff had travelled in our footsteps in Mesopotamia, and had started an Arab stud on his estate somewhere between Moscow and the Ural mountains, on the same principle of thorough breeding as our own.]

“Sir Wilfrid Lawson sends me the heads of a speech he intends making on the Soudan vote. It reads like the speech of Balaam, and I have answered him: ‘If English Liberals and humanitarians leave it to the Irish to express disapproval of Kitchener’s ways with the wounded and his treatment of the Mahdi’s head, I can only say that they had better vote in silence. You praise Kitchener for his deeds as a soldier. It is all the argument needed to justify the parliamentary grant. Kitchener did not make the policy of the war, for that he is not responsible, but he was responsible for the brutal way he conducted it, a brutality which makes his success, no very great one, a disgrace.’

“My final sitting to Watts. The old man was more agreeable and interesting than ever, and we parted on terms of real affection. The portrait is a fine one, the best, he said, he ever painted, but this is more than the truth, for it cannot compare with his great achievements of thirty and forty years ago. Our talk has never flagged for a moment during the sittings. I told him of my visit to Herbert Spencer, and asked whether he had ever painted him? ‘How could you expect me,’ he said, ‘to paint a man with such an upper lip?’ He has no opinion of the philosopher as a man, and declares him to be wholly selfish.

“_18th April._—The first nightingale.

“Young Oliver Howard came to dine and sleep, and to consult me about a hare-brained expedition he was bent on to Jerabúb and Kufra. I strongly advised him to turn his thoughts elsewhere. It is quite enough that his brother Hubert should have got killed in Africa without his doing the same, and for even a stupider reason. Neither he nor any of his proposed companions have had the smallest experience of the North African desert or know a word of Arabic, though one of the party has been in Somaliland shooting lions. For his father’s and mother’s sake I dissuaded him.

“_22nd April._—Anne returned from Egypt, having left Judith and Neville at Paris.