I hope you really like Sir James Paget. You know that he is one of my Blue Roses, and makes up for my manifold disbeliefs in great contemporaries. The author[[97]] of the novel just mentioned is here, and is our amiable and hospitable neighbour. There has been such a Whip for Candahar that five people asked to pair with me. They are not, on the whole, interesting travellers, except one, with a handsome and over-married wife. And we have had Sir Louis Mallet, very interesting, and very sound about Afghanistan.
I am just off to Rome, to bring my mother-in-law away, who has spent the winter there, and to see what ten years, and a new pope and new king have made of it. I am only allowed a week's holiday, and must crowd a good deal into it. The Sermons[[98]] will be my first resource when I come back next week. Thank you, beforehand, so very much for them. I did not guess the secret history, and, after your letter, the Arms Bill was a disappointment. When in England I convinced myself that there was, at that time, no threat of invasion or insurrection; but when I saw the Bill going on, I fancied "Endymion" might be right about that hidden danger.
*****
Your letter came in the middle of this one of mine, and I can hardly send a word of gratitude for such kindness. Until George Eliot I thought G.S.[[99]] the greatest writer of her sex in all literature. I cannot read her now. But that is individual taste, not deliberate judgment. She is as eloquent as one can be in French—the unreal, unhealthy eloquence that Rousseau brought in, that the Girondins spoke, that Chateaubriand, Lamennais, Lamartine made so popular, that nobody but Hugo strives after now, and that was modified in her case by Polish influences. Some of these Frenchmen live on nothing else; and if one plucks them, or puts their thoughts into one's own language, little remains. But she had passion, and understood it, and deep sympathy, and speculative thought, and the power—in less degree—of creating character. She could rise very high, for a moment, and her best prose is like a passage from good poets. It is a splendid exhibition, diffuse, ill-regulated, fatiguing, monotonous. There is not the mastery, the measure, the repose one learns from Goethe and the Greeks. She scatters over twenty volumes the resources her English rival concentrates into a chapter. There is beauty, but not wisdom; emotion, but not instruction; and, except in her wonderful eye for external nature, very little truth. I would call her a bad Second—such as Swinburne is to Shelley, or Heine to Schiller—comparisons which involve a great deal of disparagement.
The conversation of those three great men[[100]] is very curious—I should have liked to see and hear them.... If, by chance, there was a message or a commission for Rome, I shall be at the H. d'Angleterre until next Monday.
Cannes March 25, 1881
Rome is the cause of all my delinquency. I remained a week, very ill with sunshine and south wind, but very happy, and supremely grateful for your letters and Illingworth's Sermons. Travellers' Rome is what it was; but in the real city the change is like the work of centuries. The religious activity and appearance that were of old are gone, and their place is usurped by things profane. The State has so thrown the Church into the background, that the Leonine city sleeps like a faded and deserted suburb, and one must look behind the scenes for what used to be the glory and the pride of Rome. The bewildered Girondin[[101]] at the Vatican, who stands so well with the Castle,[[102]] I did not see, but heard much of his moderation, patience, and despair. I think he is the first Pope who has been wise enough to despair, and has felt that he must begin a new part, and steer by strange stars over an unknown sea.
I found a British ambassador devoid of political influence and understanding, but splendidly hospitable, and good-natured even to the friends of his own government. Layard, after serving the Court as a stick to beat Paget with, had left before I came. Almost all my time was spent with the two friends[[103]] whom you remember at a memorable examination at Venice, and seven days passed like hours. But why do I write all this? Am I not going to see you soon? I hear of a friendly yacht in the Mediterranean, and of his family accompanying the P.M. That can only mean embarkation at Cannes. It will be a joy for us indeed, and nothing shall be left undone to make your stay here as pleasant and as long as possible. You will not take long to understand that it is one of the sweetest spots in Europe. Let this be an assured element in all your Easter plans, that you will find here a haven of rest and friends not to be surpassed in affection by any elsewhere. Tell me what rooms to take at a neighbouring snug hotel. Or do you stay at Capodimonte? Nothing here spoken of must be to the detriment of six weeks with the Professor[[104]] at peaceful Tegernsee, between August and October.
Lecky seems to me to have composed unconscious of another tune running in his head. The likeness is greater in the description than in the reality. Chatham had public virtue, genius, energy, coupled with the magic power of transmitting it, the strength that comes with unselfish passion, and a grand way of spending popularity that others meanly hoard. He had few ideas, less instruction than Fox or Shelburne, too little political knowledge for a clear notion of his own place, of the stair he stood upon in history, or for any definite view of the English or European future. I admit no comparison,[[105]] except with the Burke of 1770-80. That early Burke would have made the peace with the Africanders, which is the noblest work of the Ministry.
When you seem to doubt what I think of it, you mean that Coercion has robbed me of my footing in your confidence. Four weeks ago a very eminent foreigner wrote to me that the discovery of the Afghan papers would chill your father's Russian sympathies. After explaining that the discovery was not new for Ministers, I begged my friend to dismiss sympathies for principles, and to understand that there are in the world men who treat politics as the art of doing, on the largest scale, what is right; and I informed him that he would presently see peace made with the Boers on terms of great moderation, after disasters unavenged, in defiance of military indignation, in spite of lost prestige. You see that I knew what I was saying. Bearing in mind how strong a weapon of offence is thus given to enemies at home, considering the strength the offended feelings lately showed, and the weakness that lies in the attitude of the Government down to the time of our defeats, I declare that I rejoice in this inward victory with heartier joy and a purer pride than I have been able to feel at any public event since I broke my heart over the surrender of Lee.[[106]]