After Lady Dilke's death, the Rev. W. and Mrs. Tuckwell, her brother- in-law and her elder sister, made their home with Sir Charles Dilke at Pyrford; and notes of his talk put together from memory and from diaries by the old scholar give a vivid impression of the statesman as seen in intimacy. Mr. Tuckwell says:
During the last five years of his life I breakfasted alone with Sir Charles whenever he was at Pyrford. It was his "softer hour," and showed him in a specially endearing light. Not only was he fresh from his night's rest, full, often, of matter interesting or amusing in his letters which he had just read, but the tête-à-tête brought out his finest social nature. In large companies, as we saw him at Dockett, he was occasionally insistent, iterative, expressing himself, to use a term of his own, with a "fierceness" corresponding to the strength of his convictions. With me at our breakfasts he was gentle, tolerant, what Sydney Smith called "amoebean," talking and listening alternately. I was told that before his death the two experiences to which he referred in anticipating a return to his Pyrford home were the forestry among his pines and the early breakfast table.
Much of his talk was, of course, Parliamentary, bearing on incidents or persons from the House. He often spoke of Harcourt, whom he dearly loved. When Harcourt's death was announced to a party at breakfast in Speech House, several in the company told anecdotes of the dead man or commented on his character. One lady spoke of him harshly. Sir Charles remained silent, but more than once during the meal his eyes filled with tears. He told me on another occasion that "Lulu" promised to be a greater man than his father, just as Winston Churchill is a greater man than Randolph. Lulu resembles his father curiously in all things except in the paternal habit of swearing. Once, when an attempt by the Opposition to snatch a victory in a thin House had been foiled, Harcourt said savagely across the table: "So that d——d dirty trick has failed!" Hicks Beach sprang up to ask the Speaker if such language were Parliamentary. Speaker Gully was too discreet to have heard the words. Dilke remembered being in company with Harcourt and Mrs. Procter, amongst several more. As she left the room, Harcourt said: "There goes one of the three most charming women I ever knew; the other two"—a pause, during which the ladies present looked keenly expectant—"the other two are dead!"
He turned to talk of Dizzy, to whom he had first been introduced in his early days by Lady Lonsdale, the great man wishing to know him. He quoted some of Dizzy's sayings. Dizzy called Spencer Walpole and Russell Gurney "those two whited sepulchres of the House of Commons." Walpole, consequential and lugubrious, he spoke of as "the high-stepping hearse-horse of public life." Of deaf Mr. Thomasson, who, ear-trumpet in hand, was wont to place himself near every speaker, he said that "no man had ever so neglected his natural advantages."
Of Gladstone Dilke rarely spoke, but used to describe the periodical entrance of Mrs. Gladstone into the meetings of the Cabinet with a large basin of tea for the old man. [Footnote: In the last years of Sir Charles's life, at a party given by Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Gladstone at Downing Street, he stopped in the room where Cabinet meetings used to be held, and pointed out to the editor of this book the door through which Mrs. Gladstone used to enter bearing the bowl of tea. For Sir Charles's recollections of Mr. Gladstone, see appendix at end of this chapter.] Once he had to work out with his chief some very difficult question. As they sat absorbed, Hamilton, the private secretary, entered with an apologetic air to say that ——, a well-known journalist, had called, pressingly anxious to see the Prime Minister on an important subject. Without raising his head, Gladstone said: "Ask him what is his number in the lunatic asylum."
He told of a Cabinet in 1883 at which —— talked a great deal, "and I told Chamberlain that at the Political Economy Club, where I had been dining on the previous night, there was a closure of debate in the shape of the introduction of hot muffins, which I thought would be excellent for Cabinets." At this Cabinet Lord Granville said: "We all agree that —— is a bore, but I have never been able to make up my mind whether that is a drawback or a qualification so far as public service is concerned."
Asquith he looked upon as one of the greatest Parliamentarians he had known, much superior in that capacity to Gladstone. His allocution on the King's death was noble; still finer his introduction of the Veto Bill in December, 1909. "His speech was perfect: forcible in manner, statesmanlike in argument, felicitous in epithet and phrasing." Balfour on the same occasion was at his worst: "hampered by his former contrary declarations, trivial in reasoning, feeble in delivery." He was ill, and ought not to have come. I asked if Balfour's frequent inconsistencies and vacillations were due to carelessness. He said no, but to the necessity imposed upon him, not of proclaiming principles, but of keeping together a divergent party. I asked what other notable recent speeches he could recall. He said the Archbishop of Canterbury's [Footnote: Dr. Randall Davidson.] on the Congo scandal, in the House of Lords: "a marvellous performance, nothing said which should not have been said, everything said which required saying; the speech of a great statesman." Bishop —— followed him with a mere piece of missionary claptrap. In the Commons on the same occasion our charming friend Hugh Law distinguished himself, silencing some of his compatriots, the Irish Roman Catholics, whose line was to support Leopold because the Protestant missionaries abused him. Leopold II. Sir Charles called "the cleverest—and wickedest—man living." He broke off to speak of the Archbishop, whom he met weekly at Grillion's, as a delightfully instructive talker, not only full, that is, of light agreeableness, but supporting the opinions he advances with convincing, cogent, logical force, yet never boring his hearers. As another powerful speech he instanced T. P. O'Connor on Sir R. Anderson's indiscretions, "most terribly crushing in its grim, ruthless exposition," Anderson sitting in the Gallery to hear it.
In his own great speech on Army Reform in April, 1907, Sir Charles said that Haldane was "all things to all men." His hearers perceived it to be a quotation (which in fact I had furnished), but no one localized it! An amusing misquotation was Arnold-Forster's in the same debate: he said that Haldane was like King David, who drilled his men by fifties in a cave. In March, 1909, Sir Charles told me sadly of Arnold-Forster's sudden death, which he had just learned. "With some defects of manner, he was very clever, writing and speaking well. As War Minister Balfour gave him no chance. His last speech in the House, a fortnight before his death, just preceded mine. 'I must speak,' he said to me, 'on those damned Special Reservists;' and speak he did for a good, well-sustained half-hour, going out as soon as he had finished." He had been with us at Dockett. He and Sir Charles sparred continually and amusingly, both equally aggressive, imperious, stentorian, iterative, each insistent on his own declamation and inattentive to his opponent's.
Sir Charles, while on this topic of oratory, went on to quote with much hilarity a speech by Lord —— in the Lords: "This Liberal Government injures friends no less than enemies. Look at me! I am a passive resister; I belong to the National Liberal Club; I have married my deceased wife's sister; and none of my children are vaccinated; yet they are meddling with my rights as a landlord." The Lords did not see the fun, the papers did not report it, but it is to be found in Hansard.
I asked Dilke how my old pupil, Sir Richard Jebb, comported himself in Parliament. He said: "Handsome, beautifully groomed, with a slight stoop, slow delivery, speaking rarely and on subjects which he thoroughly understood, his phrasing perfect, manner engaging: a man reserved and shy, not seeking acquaintance, but, if sought, eminently agreeable." University members, he added, should come always in pairs: one to represent the high University ideal, embodied only in a very few; his colleague reflecting the mob of country parsons who by an absurd paradox elect to Parliament. Jebb was the ideal Cantab.; didactic, professorial, the Public Orator; seeming incomplete without a gown: but for his rare and apt appearances, he might have overdone the part.