Dilke told me one morning that he had been writing since five o'clock an article for the United Service Gazette, and had finished it to his satisfaction, adding that papers dashed off under an impulse were always the best. I demurred. "Those papers of mine," I said, "specially praised by you have been always the fruit of long labour." "Ah!" he answered, "but you have style—a rare accomplishment; that is what I have admired in yours." "Would you," I said, "admire the style if the matter were ill considered?" "Yes."
He often talked admiringly of the Provençal language, declaiming
more than once what he called a fine Homeric specimen:
"Pesto, liona, sablas, famino, dardai fou,
Avie tout affronta."
(Pestilence, lions, sandy deserts, famine, maddening sun-heat,
Ye have all this faced.)
He was fond, too, of quoting Akbar's inscription on the Agra bridge:
"Said Jesus, on whom be peace, Life is a bridge: pass over!"
He described the French Foreign Legion: two regiments employed by the French chiefly among the natives in the Tonquin settlement— desperate men most of them, many of high social position and of army rank, who had "done something" and had gone wrong; disgraced, hiding from society, criminals escaped from justice, with a sprinkling of young adventurers and riotous Germans. No enormity they would not commit, no danger they would not court; some even seeking death; all knowing that if left wounded in the bush by retreating comrades they would be tortured horribly by the Tonquin women. They had a hospital served by Roman Catholic nurses, to whom they paid every respect. When a man newly joined once whistled rudely while the Sister was praying, as was her custom before leaving the ward, his comrades severely punished him. Intra-regimental offences, such as theft, were visited with death.
He mentioned one morning that he had just received a Privy Council summons. I asked why the Bidding Prayer held a petition for the Lords and others of Her Majesty's Privy Council: old Regius Professor Jacobson used to tell us that it was a mistake, that all Privy Councillors were "Lords" of the Privy Council. He thought that the word "others" represented the Lord Mayor, who attends Accession Councils and signs the parchment, but, not being a Lord of Council, is then required to leave, while other business proceeds.
Twice in these years he dined at Oxford—once at All Souls as the guest of Mr. Spenser Wilkinson, again on the invitation of some undergraduates, sons mostly of his political acquaintances. He greatly enjoyed both; the young men were the pick and flower of Oxford; the All Souls high table was full of young teachers and professors. What a change from the aristocratic college of my time, whose head was Lewis Sneyd, its Fellows William Bathurst, Henry Legge, Sir Charles Vaughan, Augustus Barrington, etc.! Anson very charmingly presided; the talk was everything except political.
He was extraordinarily impressed by the funeral of the King—a wonderful and novel ceremony he called it. As a senior Privy Councillor he had an excellent place with Asquith close to the coffin. The most magnificent figure in the show was Garter King-of-Arms, but all the heralds were splendid. The Archbishop, with the Dean of Westminster and a cross-bearer, was the only prominent ecclesiastic, the Bishops in their places as peers being crowded out of sight. The colouring was most effective, black setting off the scarlet. The singing was somewhat drowned by the Guards' bands, but the Dead March came in grandly through the windows from Palace Yard. He mentioned a curious fact: that Westminster Hall is controlled, not by Parliament, not by any Government department, but by the Great Chamberlain. It is the sole remaining part of the royal palace, which was lent to Parliament by our early Kings. I said that it had not witnessed such a scene since, on Mary's accession, the Sovereign and the two Houses met there to receive Papal absolution from the Legate Pole. He wished I had told him so before.
He recalled the Cambridge Union debates of his time: the best he ever heard was on a personal question, the impeachment of a man named Harris for some breach of rule. Henry Sidgwick was in the chair, the speaking extraordinarily animated and well sustained. The finest orator of his time was a man called Payne. [Footnote: Payne belonged to the same college as Dilke, Trinity Hall, and was bracketed Senior in the Law Tripos of 1868. He had begun to make his mark both at the Bar and in the Press, when, still a very young man, he was killed in a mountaineering accident in Wales.] I said our best speaker in my day was Goschen; his Union reports caused Gladstone to pick him out and bring him forward. He said yes, but that Goschen never fulfilled his promise until his really powerful speech on Free Trade in 1903.