Dec. 12.—Mr. Ruskin's health better, and no diminution of charm. 14.—Mr. Ruskin at dinner developed his political opinions. They aim at the restoration of the Judaic system, and exhibit a mixture of virtuous absolutism and Christian socialism. All in his charming and modest manner.
From a pleasing account of Ruskin at Hawarden privately printed, we may take one passage:—
Something like a little amicable duel took place at one time between Ruskin and Mr. G., when Ruskin directly attacked his host as a “leveller.” “You see you think one man is as good as another and all men equally competent to judge aright on political questions; whereas I am a believer in an aristocracy.” And straight came the answer from Mr. Gladstone, “Oh dear, no! I am nothing of the sort. I am a firm believer in the aristocratic principle—the rule of the best. I am an out-and-out inequalitarian,” a confession which Ruskin treated with intense delight, clapping his hands triumphantly.
The true question against Ruskin's and Carlyle's school was how you are to get the rule of the best. Mr. Gladstone thought that freedom was the answer; what path the others would have us tread, neither Ruskin nor his stormy teacher ever intelligibly told us.
IV
Writing on November 1 to Madame Novikoff, Mr. Gladstone said:—
Nov. 1, '78.—My opinion is that this government is moving to [pg 583] its doom, and I hope the day of Lord Granville's succession to it may be within a twelvemonth. It is not to be desired that this should take place at once. The people want a little more experience of Beaconsfield toryism.
Unfortunately this experience, whatever be the precise name for it, now came with disastrous promptitude, and the nation having narrowly escaped one war, found itself involved in two. The peril of a conflict in Europe had hardly passed, before the country found itself committed to an attack for which the government themselves censured their high-handed agent, upon the fiercest of the savage tribes of South Africa. A more formidable surprise was the announcement that, by a headlong reversal of accepted Indian policy, war had been declared against the Ameer of Afghanistan.