We have had a long journey from St. Martin, and are hardly settled down in the midst of a vast solitude, when the unreasonable success of the Government compels me to pack my bag once more.
What makes it a pleasure, I need not say. If all things go as I expect, I shall be in town on Monday night or early on Tuesday.
If you are so very kind as to send a line to the Athenæum suggesting the right end and object and reward of travel, please put outside, to wait arrival.
I do not stay with the Granvilles this time, that I may vote against Ministers at my ease. And I do not bring M——, which is a grief; still, I look forward to a deal of riotous living, and to many sources of public and private satisfaction.
La Madeleine Dec. 9, 1884
... M— received an account which pleased her, of my bath of goodness and spirituality at Oxford; and the writing to her about scenes and people she knows, and trying to explain thoughts and facts, has been half the pleasure of my solitary journey.
The meeting at your door[[238]] of the professors of heterodoxy[[239]] and chatterboxy[[240]] in political economy is delightful, and I hope it will fructify. But my friend the "nice little old gentleman"[[241]] will always be too strenuous and urgent for the Fra Angelico of Economists; and besides, we live in the Gladstonian era—and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. That, however, might be a bond of union between those Sophisters.
In London I could not escape a luncheon with ——, who threatens me with a friendly visit next month at Cannes. Next week I expect Bryce with Robertson Smith. Did I tell you of my pleasant dinner with them on Wednesday, and meeting Creighton?[[242]] He is an agreeable and superior man, whom you would like; and he is full of general knowledge. But I am afraid you will find his book[[243]] a severe study.
Thursday—Rather an uninteresting dinner at ——; but one goes there to eat. Lord G. not in very good spirits. I conciliated Enfield, who ... was a little shocked to find that I agree with Courtney.
There was not a gap of time for a farewell in Downing Street, and I had to decline dinners with the Granvilles, Mays, and Pagets, and a visit to Seacox—Hamlet left out.