Lord Beaconsfield’s long friendship with me was in a great measure caused by his sincere affection and regard for my dear brother, the late Lord Orford, with whom he was ever on the most intimate terms, as the following graceful letter will show:—
2 Whitehall Gardens, S.W.,
December 28, 1876.
My Dearest Orford—A little line to thank you for remembering me. One likes to be remembered by those whom one never forgets. I am here alone, at this dreary season, in consequence of the confusion in those waters where we once passed happy hours. I was going to pass my Xmas at Weston with our friends the Bradfords, and then to Trentham for a few days, when my Sovereign Lady appealed to me not to leave her at this moment, and declared it an act of high imprudence for myself and Derby to leave town at this conjuncture.
Our friends, the Turks, are better diplomatists than Europeans in general, and the affair will probably be longer than the common mind imagines. It requires one’s wits about one. I feel as if sailing on a sea full of torpedoes. My profound conviction is, that the Russians dread war, and never contemplated it except with a crowd of allies. When the pinch comes they find themselves quite isolated, and Mephistopheles Bismarck scarcely suppresses his laughter when he beholds that gentle Faust, the Emperor of Russia, struggling in his toils. But to get them out of the scrape with honour, Hic labor, hoc opus est. There must be a golden bridge, and if necessary, it must even be gilt: every possible facility—perfume on the violet.
I hope you are well and tolerably happy.—Remember sometimes, your affectionate
Beaconsfield.
BEACONSFIELD’S DIFFICULTIES
Lord Beaconsfield in his early political days, it must be remembered, had many difficulties of a widely different sort with which to contend. In addition to the disadvantage of not being favourably looked upon by many, some did not scruple to call him a mere dandy who should not be taken too seriously. Later on he had to educate his party, being obliged, as was once rather wittily said, “to drag an omnibus full of country gentlemen uphill.”
His Reform Bill of 1859 even excited a certain amount of ridicule. I remember it being described as “a piece of Downing Street millinery,” whilst his “Fancy Franchise,” as it was called, was declared to be “not at all the thing for the people of England.” A more serious criticism called it “change without progress.” It is very difficult to say what Lord Beaconsfield’s real view of politics was, but my own impression is that he was deeply attached to the traditions of government by aristocracy, the romantic side of which appealed to his imagination and nature. At heart I think he feared the eventual triumph of a sort of mob rule, the coming of which it was ever his object to delay. Undoubtedly in his last years he was extremely pessimistic as to the future, having, rightly or wrongly, no particular confidence in the political sagacity of an English democracy, the judgment of which he thought could be easily swayed by unprincipled and specious agitators.