*****
Tegernsee August 4, 1882
With all my heart I adopt your scheme, Reform, Dissolution, and then, let Politics make way for a still higher and worthier cause.
*****
Paris, August 12, 1882
Salisbury's collapse[[185]] is less decisive than mine, and although there is a pleasant corner in the House of Lords, my journey ends in nothing better than disappointment and in having set you to write notes all day. My accounts show that they are not comfortable at home, so that I have no right to be basking in the ethereal sunshine of Downing Street.
It was a monstrous thing to do, suggestive of Mrs. Todgers, but I left the Dante in his[[186]] room at the H. of Commons. It was too late to ring at No. 10,[[187]] for I kept him talking till near eleven. But there was some symbolic propriety about the title[[188]] of the unbound volume—unbound because they did not remember the binding of the rest. Of course the impression of my one well-filled day in town—even with the part of Cordelia left out—is the very opposite of that under which I lately wrote. The session ends with a great blaze of his mastery and power. But the best of it all is, that I found him so wonderfully vigorous and well and even content. It did indeed impress me most deeply.
It is remarkable how little he chooses to realise the tremendous loss of authority and power which the party will incur by his retirement, and he has no idea how little he would soon be in harmony with them. However, Ireland is not all right yet; and there are obvious complications impending in Egypt which he cannot leave unsolved. With that, there will still be time for the Reform Bill.
Late at night I found slipped under my door your rejected letter, which will be cherished with the rest. If writing made up for sight!
This letter is written by scraps, in various places and countries. I crossed with Forster, on his way to Russia, and got him to tell me his inner history. I shall be at St. Martin the day after to-morrow....