"No, certainly not."
"Then what did you mean?"
"What I meant was that after my champagne I should not care whether they were answered or not."
It was Sir Andrew Clark who said of Mr. Gladstone, some fifteen years before his death at eighty-eight that there was no physiological reason why he should not live to be 120. If that was meant as a prophecy it had the fate of most prophecies.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
LORD ST. HELIER—AMERICAN AND ENGLISH METHODS—MR. BENJAMIN
If you care for a clear view of English life and of Englishmen you need not always go to the mountain tops in search of it. If you can find a man who stands for what is typical, who is in the front rank, but not among the very foremost, who has, in a high degree, the qualities by which the average Englishman, having them in a much less degree, succeeds, he is as well worth studying for this purpose as the most illustrious of them all. I could name many such men. I will take one whom I knew well for many years; to whose kindness I owed much; whom I saw often in London and stayed with often in the country; for whose memory I have that kind of affection which survives even a sense of many obligations. I mean Lord St. Helier.
He was Mr. Francis Jeune when I first knew him, and when he married Mrs. Stanley. Later he became Sir Francis Jeune, and finally found his way into that House of Lords which it is now the fashion among one set of politicians to decry. I suppose nobody would deny that, whatever be the merits or demerits of the hereditary principle, this House contains more distinguished and supremely able men than any other body that can be named. For such a man as Francis Jeune it was the natural and pre-ordained abode when his honourable career reached or approached its climax.
Sir Francis Jeune was a man who made the most of his abilities and opportunities. He was a good lawyer, a good judge, and, after his marriage with Mrs. Stanley, a considerable social force. It is among the peculiarities of English life that the Presidency of the Divorce Court should be one of four great prizes at the English Bar. The Lord High Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice, and the Master of the Rolls hold the other three most coveted places, and are rewarded by appointments such as the legal profession in no other country can hope for. The dignity of all these positions is very great, and the pay corresponds to the dignity.