A good deal of conversation about the Irish Church Bill which is just now in the crisis of the Lords' amendments. H.I.H. asked me my opinion. I replied that they were now disputing about nothing at all—i.e. the application of a surplus which will not exist for many years. Brunnow said he was of the same opinion.
Lord Clanwilliam and I had a great deal of talk. He had been with Lord Castlereagh at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818. Spoke a good deal of Metternich, justly. When M. met Guizot in London after 1848, he was struck by the motto G. had adopted—via recta brevissima. Lord Clanwilliam said that the shortest way was also the best. 'Yes,' added Metternich, 'and it has also the advantage that on that path you don't meet anybody'—'auf diesen Weg wird niemand begegnet.'
Sitting upstairs after this dinner I had a curious conversation with Brunnow and Lord Granville on the causes of the Crimean War. They agreed that had either Aberdeen or Palmerston been in power alone, the war would have been prevented; but that the combination of the two rendered it inevitable.
Brunnow said that there was, at one moment, a period of about ten days during which the war might have been prevented, if Lord Granville had been sent off on a special mission to St. Petersburg, but the Cabinet refused; and then came Sinope. He declared that he had always told the Emperor that Aberdeen, though averse to war, had not the power to prevent it; and in proof of his own sincerity he caused a million of Russian money which was in the Bank of England to be removed, as early as September 1853, though this was against the opinion of Nesselrode.
After his return to England on the peace, Lord Aberdeen said to him, with great emotion, 'I never deceived you, my dear Brunnow.' To which B. replied: 'No; my dear lord, you never did.' He said that at Paris in 1856 Walewski had at once told him that the Emperor Napoleon was resolved to have peace.
It was a most pleasant and curious evening, and everyone went away in good humour.
25th—Went to Aix with Helen Richardson. Over to Cologne and Kreuznach with the Watneys and Boothbys. Dined with Goldsmid at Bonn. Saw Professor Sybel there.
The following letter, on a subject in which Mrs. Oliphant took much interest, was addressed to Reeve rather in his editorial than his personal capacity. The two were very well acquainted, but do not seem to have corresponded in ordinary course.
Dunkerque, August 14th.
Dear Sir,—You will, I have no doubt, think it extremely womanish and unreasonable on my part to have proposed writing a paper on such a much-discussed subject as Mr. Mill's book, without indicating the manner in which I should treat it; but my object was, first, to know whether it was open, and if you would be disposed, other things harmonising, to entrust it to me. I will not say, as was my first impulse, that your own intention of taking up the subject is quite sufficient answer for me; for, of course, you are the best judge in that respect, and I am really anxious to have an opportunity of saying my say, with gravity and pains, on a matter so important.