II.
Sir Charles Dilke in this year has record of meeting with many interesting
persons, some of them links with a vanishing past, such as the daughter of
Horace Smith, who with his brother wrote Rejected Addresses. Miss "Tizy"
Smith was, he says,
'the last survivor of that school of noisy, frolicsome, boisterous old ladies given to punning and banging people on the back; but she was very witty, and, for those who had spirits to bear her spirits, most entertaining. She was for many years known as the "Queen of Brighton," but her sway was not despotic.'
In February he
'dined with Lady Waldegrave to meet the Duc de Chartres—no better and no worse than the other Princes of his house…., not excepting the Duc d'Aumale, who had, however, the reputation of being brilliant, and who … was interesting from his great memory of great men. They all grew deaf as they grew old, and the Comte de Paris is now (1890) almost as deaf as the Prince de Joinville, who was put into the navy in his youth, because, not hearing the big guns, he alone of all the family was not frightened by them.'
In March, 1878, Gambetta sent to Dilke with an introduction 'Henri Hecht, who was deep in his secrets, and in the habit from this time forward of visiting for him Germany as well as England.' Going backwards and forwards to his house at Toulon, Sir Charles always broke the journey at Paris to see Gambetta. He writes to Ashton Dilke:
"Gambetta says that he shall say at Grenoble that MacMahon said: 'J'irai jusqu'au bout,' and that he must—i.e., he must complete his term. He won't have him again. 'J'en ai assez d'une fois.'"
At Easter Sir Charles was using his influence with Gambetta on behalf of a great artist who had been politically compromised in the troubles of 1871 —Dalou the sculptor, who had done to Dilke's commission a copy in has- relief of Flaxman's "Mercury and Pandora."
'When I was leaving for Paris I had several interviews with Dalou as to getting him leave to return to France without his asking for it. He had been sub-curator of the Louvre under the Commune, and had helped to preserve the collections from destruction; but after he fled the country he had always refused to ask for leave to return, which, had he asked, would at once have been granted to him. Gambetta always insisted, when I spoke to him upon the matter, that Dalou should write some letter, however private and however personal, to ask for leave to return; but this was just what Dalou's pride would never let him do, and although he was willing to ask me verbally, and even to refer to the matter in a private letter to myself, he never would write about it to anyone in France. Dalou was afterwards selected to make the official statues of the Republic, and may be said to have become, after the general amnesty, Sculptor-in-Ordinary to the Government of France.'
There is a story of Count Beust's difficulties when the Empress of Austria suddenly asked herself to dine with him at the Austrian Embassy at six on Sunday, at twenty-four hours' notice. Beust's cook was out of town; but worse was the difficulty of finding guests of adequate importance. The Prince of Wales had a dinner-party of his own at Marlborough House, so recourse was had to another Royal couple, the Duke and Duchess of Teck. They were engaged to the Marlborough House dinner, but suggested a heroic expedient. "Why not dine with you at six, and go on at a quarter-past eight and dine again!" So it was settled.
An eccentric dinner took place at 76, Sloane Street, when the Maharajah of Johore returned the visit which Sir Charles had paid him in his States near Singapore. Lord Randolph Churchill and other people interested in India were among the guests, and the Maharajah brought his own cook, who prepared enough for all, so that the guests had their choice of two menus. The host took the Maharajah's, 'which was good but rich,' and 'suffered, as did all who ate his garlics and his grease.'
'On March 21st I breakfasted with Lord Granville to meet Lord Lyons, there being also there Lord Ripon, Lord Acton (a man of great learning and much charm), Lord Carlingford (Chichester Fortescue that had been), Grant Duff, Sir Thomas Wade (the great Chinese scholar, and afterwards Professor of Chinese at Cambridge), Lefevre, Meredith Townsend of the Spectator, old Charles Howard, and "old White," roaring with that terrible roar which seems almost necessary to go with his appearance. I have known two men, both in the Foreign Office service, that looked like bears—Lord Tenterden, [Footnote: Permanent Under-Secretary of State, afterwards Dilke's colleague at the Foreign Office.] a little black graminivorous European bear, and "old White," a polar bear if ever I saw one, always ready to hug his enemies or his friends, and always roaring so as to shake the foundations of your house. "Lord Lyons," I noted in my diary, "does not make any mark in private, but that may be because he does his duty and holds his tongue. The diplomatists who talk delightfully, like Odo Russell, are perhaps not the best models of diplomacy." But White afterwards made a great Ambassador.
'On March 3rd Goschen dined with me, asked by me to meet "Brett, Hartington's new secretary"' (now Lord Esher). 'Reginald Brett was, and is, an extremely pleasant fellow, and he was the ablest secretary, except Edward Hamilton, that I ever came across; but he was far from being a model secretary, because … he always behaved as if he held delegated authority from Hartington to represent Hartington's conscience when it would not otherwise have moved, and "Hartington's opinion" when the chief had none…. But Brett in all he did had public ends in view….
'On July 30th I dined at a dinner given by a lion-hunter who managed to get together some remarkable and some pleasant people—Cardinal Manning, Ruskin, Greenwood, and Borthwick. But whether it was the influence of the host, or whether it was because Manning did not like his company except me, and Ruskin did not like his company at all, the dinner was a failure. No one talked but Ruskin, and he prosed, and his prose of speech was not his prose of pen. Manning wished to see me about some education matter, and I called on him on August 2nd, and from that time forward saw a good deal of the Cardinal.'
Next came members of what was to be the Fourth Party, although then 'isolated individuals.' In February Sir Charles had a long talk with Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, and 'found him holding very different views upon foreign affairs from those which afterwards united him with his future leader. In fact, he had nothing at this moment in common with Lord Randolph except a personal detestation of Lord Derby.'
Sir John Gorst had acted with Sir Charles to preserve the rights of native races, especially the Maories; and thus a friendship had grown up, in which Dilke was anxious to include Mr. Chamberlain.
'On July 26th Chamberlain dined with me to meet Richard Power, the new Irish Whip, and Gorst, the latter soon afterwards to join with Randolph Churchill in the formation of the memorable Fourth Party, and to be known as "Randolph's Attorney-General." Many years afterwards, when Randolph Churchill had quarrelled with Gorst, and the Fourth Party had finally gone to pieces, Lord Randolph said to me: "Gorst was the best adviser I ever had. I often failed to follow his advice, and have always regretted not following it." When the Fourth Party was first formed, he advised that we should sit immediately behind the leaders—I with my knees in Northcote's back. I overruled him, and we sat below the gangway; but he was right. We should have done far more execution if I had been nearer to "the Goat." Lord Randolph never alluded to Sir Stafford Northcote except by this playful appellation, based upon the long, straggling, yellow-white beard of the Conservative Chief. When he was in good humour the Fourth Party leader alluded to the Conservative leader as "the goat"; but when angry as "the old goat," and often with many of those disrespectful adjectives in which in private conversation he delighted.
'At dinner at the Harcourts' on August 10th, Arthur Balfour present:
… I am the greatest of admirers of his "charm."'
Ireland, which makes or breaks politicians, made Mr. A. J. Balfour. Here is some detail of one of the men whom Ireland broke. Towards the end of the Session came to Sir Charles a letter from the Duchess of Manchester at Aix-les-Bains:
"Please back up Mr. Forster. I think he is quite right. Fancy, to be chosen and proposed by a Committee, adopted by 300 idiots or geniuses, and to have to submit, when you can stand on your own merits."
'A German Conservative Duchess was not likely to be able to understand the Caucus. Forster was her friend, going and sitting with her almost every day, and chuckling over her politics with his extraordinary chuckle, and playing cards with her at night. To his card-playing, indeed, he ultimately owed his life, for the Invincibles in Dublin used to wait for him night after night outside his club to murder him (as afterwards came out in the Phoenix Park trial), and, tired out with waiting, at last fancy that he must have gone home. Forster was at this moment at loggerheads with his Bradford constituents, and hence the letter of the Duchess; but I did not "back up" Forster, being myself an absolute believer in the wisdom of the Caucus system. I had, indeed, invented a Caucus in Chelsea before the first Birmingham Election Association was started.'
Sir Charles left for Paris, and—
'on September 6th I met Émile Ollivier, who said that there had never been in France a personal power equal to that of Gambetta at this moment; even that of Napoleon, when First Consul, was not so great. Then the Bourbons were dimly seen behind. "Now there is nothing behind; nothing except Clericalism, and Clericalism can be bought."
'Ollivier I found still full of burning hatred for the Empress, but he had forgiven Rouher and the Emperor for making him the scapegoat. I discussed with him once more the origin of the war of 1870, and he maintained most stoutly that France had been driven into it by Bismarck, and had only put herself in the wrong by herself declaring war, and had done this because her army system gave her a fortnight's start, the advantage of which was lost through the Emperor's hesitations. He thinks that in that fortnight the German Army could have been destroyed. It is on this point that he is wrong.'