Thursday, Dec. 17.—Splendid morning for making acquaintance with a new place. Saw the western spur of the Pyrenees falling down to the Bidassoa and the first glimpse of the giant wall, beyond which, according to Michelet, Africa begins, and our first glimpse of Spain.
After breakfast we all sallied forth to look into the shops and to see the lie of the land. Mr. G. as interested as a child in all the objects in the shops—many of them showing that we are not far from Spain. The consul very polite, showed us about, and told us the hundred trifles that bring a place really into one's mind. Nothing is like a first morning's stroll in a foreign town. By afternoon the spell dissolves, and the mood comes of Dante's lines, “Era già l'ora,” etc.[288]
Some mention was made of Charles Austin, the famous lawyer: it brought up the case of men who are suddenly torn from lives of great activity to complete idleness.
Mr. G.—I don't know how to reconcile it with what I've always regarded as the foundation of character—Bishop Butler's view of habit. How comes it that during the hundreds of years in which priests and fellows of Eton College have retired from hard work to college livings and leisure, not one of them has ever done anything whatever for either scholarship or divinity—not one?
Mr. G. did not know Mazzini, but Armellini, another of the Roman triumvirs, taught him Italian in 1832. [pg 465]
Opinions On Statesmen
I spoke a word for Gambetta, but he would not have it. “Gambetta was autoritaire; I do not feel as if he were a true liberal in the old and best sense. I cannot forget how hostile he was to the movement for freedom in the Balkans.”
Said he only once saw Lord Liverpool. He went to call on Canning at Glos'ter House (close to our Glos'ter Road Station), and there through a glass door he saw Canning and Lord Liverpool talking together.
Peel.—Had a good deal of temper; not hot; but perhaps sulky. Not a farsighted man, but fairly clear-sighted. “I called upon him after the election in 1847. The Janissaries, as Bentinck called us, that is the men who had stood by Peel, had been 110 before the election; we came back only 50. Peel said to me that what he looked forward to was a long and fierce struggle on behalf of protection. I must say I thought this foolish. If Bentinck had lived, with his strong will and dogged industry, there might have been a wide rally for protection, but everybody knew that Dizzy did not care a straw about it, and Derby had not constancy and force enough.”
Mr. G. said Disraeli's performances against Peel were quite as wonderful as report makes them. Peel altogether helpless in reply. Dealt with them with a kind of “righteous dulness.” The Protectionist secession due to three men: Derby contributed prestige; Bentinck backbone; and Dizzy parliamentary brains.