“He has been ramping up and down, seeing everything, questioning everybody, intent on making the most of his time, and keeping all the world in the condition of fuss and bustle which is the element in which he lives. It is almost too soon to judge the effect of his visit. I should say that he was popular rather than otherwise; not from his manners, which are queer and rather blunt; but there is a certain simplicity about him which pleases, as when he told the Windsor people, in answer to an address, that he had come ‘to see his grandmamma, who had always been kind to him.’ He had a good reception in the city, though not so enthusiastic as the press makes out. There was about as much interest shown in his state entry as in an ordinary Lord Mayor’s Show. He is understood to be well satisfied, and the visit has given people a subject to talk about, which they were beginning to want. None now lasts longer than a week. By that time, journalistic enterprise has said whatever is to be said, and the public grows weary. I am afraid one effect of this German visit will be to put the French in a bad humour, though with no good reason. But that cannot be helped.”
Lord Derby seems to have been somewhat reassured, as in August, after touching on home affairs, he writes:
“The other event is more important: the visit of the French fleet to Portsmouth, where it has been reviewed by the Queen, and civilities of every kind have been exchanged. I call the matter important, because the visit of the German Emperor made a great feeling of soreness in France, and led to endless talk about England having joined the anti-gallican alliance. All that nonsense is ended by the courtesy shown to French officers: and the relations of the two countries, if not absolutely cordial, are again comfortable. The business was well managed and does credit to the people in Downing Street.”
Lord Derby continued to send most interesting news, but unfortunately some of his later letters are missing, and alas! he died in the spring of 1893, so I never saw my kind and constant friend again.
LORD DERBY’S POEM
I never saw the following lines published. They were given me by Lady Galloway, who told me that Lord Derby believed that he had composed them, as he could not remember having heard or read them when he woke with them in his mind. She wrote down what he said with regard to them.
“Lines made, as I believe, in sleep, in the course of a dream, in which some fellow-student had asked me to complete a poem which he was sending in:
“We judge but acts—not ours to look within:
The crime we censure, but ignore the sin:
For who tho’ versed in every legal art
Can trace the mazes of the human heart,
Allow for nature, training, faults of race
And friendships such as make us brave or base,
Or judge how long yon felon in his cell
Resisted, struggled—conquered ere he fell?
Our judgments skim the surface of the seas,
We have no sounding-line for depths like these.
Jan. 1893, 5 to 7 a.m.”
One or two imperfect lines follow. The idea recalls Burns’s “Address to the Unco’ Guid”:
“Then at the balance let’s be mute,
We never can adjust it;
What’s done we partly may compute,
But know not what’s resisted.”