The spirit of frankness in which you write is ever acceptable to me. I fear there may be much in your sombre anticipations. But if there is to be a great schism in the liberal party, I hope I shall never find it my duty to conduct the operations either of the one or of the other section. The nonconformists have shown me great kindness and indulgence; they have hitherto interpreted my acts and words in the most favourable sense; and if the time has come when my acts and words pass beyond the measure of their patience, I contemplate with repugnance, at my time of life especially, the idea of entering into conflict with them. A political severance, somewhat resembling in this a change in religion, should at most occur not more than once in life. At the same time I must observe that no one has yet to my knowledge pointed out the expressions or arguments in the speech, that can justly give offence.
A few personal jottings will be found of interest:—
April 7, 1873.—H. of C. The budget and its reception mark a real onward step in the session. 23.—Breakfast with Mr. C. Field to meet Mr. Emerson. 30.—I went to see the remains of my dear friend James Hope. Many sad memories but more joyful hopes. May 15.—The King and Queen of the Belgians came to breakfast at ten. A party of twenty. They were most kind, and all went well.
To the Queen (May 19).—Mr. Gladstone had an interview yesterday at Chiselhurst with the Empress. He thought her Majesty much thinner and more worn than last year, but she showed no want of energy in conversation. Her Majesty felt much interest, and a little anxiety, about the coming examination of the prince her son at Woolwich.
June 8.—Chapel royal at noon. It was touching to see Dean [pg 459] Hook and hear him, now old in years and very old I fear in life; but he kindled gallantly. 17.—Had a long conversation with Mr. Holloway (of the pills) on his philanthropic plans; which are of great interest. 25.—Audience of the Shah with Lord Granville and the Duke of Argyll. Came away after 1-1/4 hours. He displayed abundant acuteness. His gesticulation particularly expressive. 26.—Sixteen to breakfast. Mme. Norman Neruda played for us. She is also most pleasing in manner and character. Went to Windsor afterwards. Had an audience. July 1.—H. of C. Received the Shah soon after six. A division on a trifling matter of adjournment took place during his Majesty's presence, in which he manifested an intelligent interest. The circumstance of his presence at the time is singular in this view (and of this he was informed, rather to his amusement) that until the division was over he could not be released from the walls of the House. It is probably, or possibly, the first time for more than five hundred years that a foreign sovereign has been under personal restraint of any kind in England. [Query, Mary Queen of Scots.]
Death Of Bishop Wilberforce
Then we come upon an entry that records one of the deepest griefs of this stage of Mr. Gladstone's life—the sudden death of Bishop Wilberforce:—
July 19.—Off at 4.25 to Holmbury.[290] We were enjoying that beautiful spot and expecting Granville with the Bishop of Winchester, when the groom arrived with the message that the Bishop had had a bad fall. An hour and a half later Granville entered, pale and sad: “It's all over.” In an instant the thread of that very precious life was snapped. We were all in deep and silent grief. 20.—Woke with a sad sense of a great void in the world. 21.—Drove in the morning with Lord Granville to Abinger Hall. Saw him, for the last time in the flesh, resting from his labours. Attended the inquest; inspected the spot; all this cannot be forgotten. 23.—Gave way under great heat, hard work, and perhaps depression of force. Kept my bed all day.
“Of the special opinions of this great prelate,” he wrote to the Queen, “Mr. Gladstone may not be an impartial judge, [pg 460] but he believes there can be no doubt that there does not live the man in any of the three kingdoms of your Majesty who has, by his own indefatigable and unmeasured labours, given such a powerful impulse as the Bishop of Winchester gave to the religious life of the country.” When he mentioned that the bishop's family declined the proposal of Westminster Abbey for his last resting place, the Queen replied that she was very glad, for “to her nothing more gloomy and doleful exists.”
“Few men,” Mr. Gladstone wrote later in this very year, “have had a more varied experience of personal friendships than myself. Among the large numbers of estimable and remarkable people whom I have known, and who have now passed away, there is in my memory an inner circle, and within it are the forms of those who were marked off from the comparative crowd even of the estimable and remarkable, by the peculiarity and privilege of their type.”[291] In this inner circle the bishop must have held a place, not merely by habit of life, which accounts for so many friendships in the world, but by fellowship in their deepest interests, by common ideals in church and state, by common sympathy in their arduous aim to reconcile greetings in the market-place and occupation of high seats, with the spiritual glow of the soul within its own sanctuary.