On the other hand, what Wolseley loved to expatiate on in private conversation was the sterling virtue of the ordinary Chinese civilian. I recollect how on one occasion, when Sir Francis de Winton was dining at Ranger's House, and expressed some views over-indulgent to the Turks, Lord Wolseley turned upon him, sparkling with indignation, and swore that no Turk could hold a candle to a Chinaman, the cleanest, the most temperate, the most philosophical creature in the world. In vain did De Winton protest that he meant no dishonour to China. Wolseley was started on his hobby-horse, and gave us no peace till he had delivered quite a little oration on the wonderful merits of the disciples of Confucius. This was in 1889, and long afterwards the zeal for China was eating him up at intervals. I find a letter to myself, dated April 17th, 1901, in which he tells me that he is reading Professor H. A. Giles's History of Chinese Literature:
I wonder how deep he has gone in it. The only man I ever knew who had more than dipped into that vast subject was Sir T. Wade, an old friend of mine. I have known many men who spoke Chinese well, some even spoke it fluently—Sir Harry Parkes, for instance—but Wade was the only Englishman I ever met who had probed down deep into the Chinese classics. He often laughed at the notion of any Fan qui being well acquainted with them, so great was their volume and so numerous the works to be studied. Indeed very few Chinamen are thoroughly well read in their own classical literature. When we moved upon the Summer Palace in 1860, the Emperor fled in haste, leaving upon a little table the book he had just been reading. I always regretted not having taken possession of it, instead of letting it be destroyed. It was a classical work.
On the night of October 12th, 1899, when the Boer war was declared, my wife and I shared with Lord and Lady Wolseley a box at the performance of Shakespeare's King John. Like almost everyone else except Kitchener, the Commander-in-Chief assured us that the war would be a short one; he was radiant and calm on that memorable evening. There were many verses in the play which seemed appropriate to the occasion, and when King John declaimed—
Here have we war for war, and blood for blood,
Controlment for controlment.
Wolseley whispered "and Victoria for Mr. Krüger!" It was exhilarating, though as it turned out not wholly satisfactory, to listen to King John's proud reply to Chattilion:
For ere thou canst report, I will be there;
The thunder of my cannon shall be heard—
So hence!
But I must not trespass within the circle of our coming disenchantment.
A few months later Lord Wolseley handed over the Command-in-Chief to Lord Roberts, and he presently retired to a farmhouse at Glynde, near Lewes, where he resided for a number of years, more and more secluded from the world, but devoted to his garden and his books. Once more he became a voracious reader of miscellaneous literature. Here he liked to be informed of what was going on in the world of letters, and to see as frequently as he could a few friends who wrote. Among these, I think there was none whom he valued more than Henry James, a very old friend, earlier, I think, than Andrew Lang or myself. It might be supposed that there was little in common between the active soldier and the exquisite and meticulous dreamer, but, on the contrary, their mutual esteem was persistent, and Wolseley delighted in the conversation of Henry James, although he sometimes allowed himself to smile at the novelist's halting and deliberate utterance. Wolseley, on the other hand, was an emphatic, spontaneous talker, not very particular in selecting the very best word or in rounding the most harmonious period. It was amusing to hear them together, the one so short and sharp, the other so mellifluous and hesitating, yet their admiration, each for the other, was continuous.
I do not think that Wolseley was ever more happy than in the first years of his residence at Glynde, the world forgetting, by the world forgot. But a certain insidious melancholy soon began to invade him. He gradually cut himself off from all his round of London engagements, and he never once, if I remember right, attended the House of Lords after his retirement from the War Office. He was not in the least degree invalided or deprived of nervous energy, but he felt that in the long, strenuous years of service he had earned a holiday, and now he took it. He made, perhaps, few new friends, but he was careful to cultivate the old ones, and no one was ever more assiduous in the art of friendship. He clung to old associations and to old faces—"they can't escape me," I remember his saying. He liked to see them at Glynde, where they always received a glowing, almost a boisterous, welcome. The house lies in a sort of glen between two ranges of the beautiful Sussex downs, and Wolseley loved to climb these eminences with a familiar companion. He was particularly apt to take such a friend eastward along the lanes to Firle and then up to the summit of the beacon above Alciston. This was one of his favourite afternoon excursions, and from this vantage he would sweep the coastline from Seaford to Pevensey, and dilate on its strategic capabilities.
Of such excursions as these I have the happiest memory. The exercise always seemed to stir the General's brain to especial activity. His rapid, vehement voice rang out in full sonority in the silence of the great rolling Down, and his thoughts seemed to move with more ease than usual in the high, cold air of autumn. His imagination worked with a vitality which almost persuaded his ignorant companion that he also was a strategical genius, so easy did the problems of military movement seem when outrolled by Wolseley's warm voice and punctuated by the sweep of his walking-stick. It was impossible not to feel that "this exceptional combination of mental gifts with untiring physical power and stern resolution" made our wonderful friend unique in his class and time. One was amazed to find one's self entrusted with the professional secrets of which one was really so unworthy a recipient. But it was characteristic of Wolseley that, with all his fire and abruptness, he was incapable of the smallest element of patronage. He lifted his friends, in a whirl of generous illusion, up to a level with himself, and insisted on their sharing his conceptions. No one ever possessed a more fascinating gift for persuading the person he talked with that the friend's powers and capacities were equal to his own. The impression could only be momentary, but it was extremely grateful while it lasted.