"I am your affectionate friend,
"F. W. Newman."
In briefly reviewing the year 1881 in its effects on nation and Government, it is necessary to cast one's thoughts back to the time when Lord Beaconsfield took office in 1874, in order to grasp the drift of Newman's next letter. In 1874 the former became Prime Minister for the second time. He had not been long in office before he made an end of Church patronage in Scotland. The next year he was carrying forward his design of procuring part ownership for England of the Suez Canal. He did not attach sufficient importance to the Bulgarian atrocities to set going any British interference. This in itself is an act which can find no defence. He declared Turkey must be upheld as a stronghold against the aggression of Russia. In the year 1878, Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury attended the Berlin Congress. This at once raised the former to the highest political importance, but it undid all the splendid work done by the English army, which had, at the order of a blundering, mistaken Government, been sent to obtain for England, through means of the Crimean War, a victory rendered completely null and void a short time later by the doings of this Congress at Berlin.
Then followed the Afghan and Zulu Wars and subsequent troubles and upheavals: trade depression in Ireland; and finally, in 1880, came the General Election, which restored the Liberal party to power.
"1st Oct., 1881.
"My dear Nicholson,
"I was glad to get your letter, but frightened when I found it open (the gum wholly fresh) and no photograph in it. [Footnote: I believe the photo given in this volume, of Dr. Nicholson, to be the one referred to here.] I feared it was taken out. But next day came the real thing. It is excellent. The slight excess of black in the left eye is perhaps quite natural. In a three-quarter face the light does not fall alike on both eyes, and we do not in real life compare a friend's two eyes (they move too quick); we see only one at a time. [Footnote: Francis Newman expressed once his theory that in the case of a photograph being taken of a man, unconsciously to himself, the expression of the portrait will in some curious manner change as his character changes.] The photo pleasantly renews my old memories….
"Immediate politics sicken me as well as you. I do not (with a zealous friend) groan over 1881 as unrelieved gloom, completed by the murder of an amiable and innocent President: but I deliberately conclude we are launched in a season of TRANSITION that must have its sadness just as has a war: and it is wise to look on beyond the troubled years…. The course of change may largely depend on events in India which not one Englishman in a thousand dreams of. In 1881, thus far, I rejoice in the incipient elevation of Greece, and the probable deliverance of Armenia. I think the great Powers will not quarrel over the carcase of Turkey: and though Frenchmen may justly make outcry against French ambition in North Africa, yet as an Englishman and a European I do not regret it. As I see no power but Russia who can impart improved rule to Armenia and Persia, so no one but France can give it in North Africa. My immediate interest in the politics of the High Powers is to see them combine against the Slave Trade, in Turkey, and in the Pacific. In domestic Politics I care most for the social and moral questions, which are painful, pressing, and disgracefully delayed. But all will come; and the great question of Landed Tenure will aid the best influences….
"I am your affectionate old friend,
"F. W. Newman."