I have some hesitation in speaking of Mr. Chamberlain in his private and "at home" character, though in these days I hardly know that I need be very timid or scrupulous. The public has a ready, I might almost say a greedy, ear for personal details concerning the lives and habits of public men, and there are plenty of writers willing to gratify its desires in this respect, and that, too, with the knowledge and consent of the eminent personages themselves. Many people like to hear all about the characteristics of prominent men, and have a keen appetite for all particulars concerning their personal habits and peculiarities. They love to hear what a celebrated man eats, drinks, and avoids, what time he rises and at what hour he usually goes to bed; and even a little thimbleful of scandal touching his shortcomings, delinquencies, and, possibly, his small vices, is as nectar to the gossip-loving taste. To tell some people what they have no right to know is often to delight them.
Without at all professing to be in any sense an intimate friend of Mr. Chamberlain's, I may, perhaps, say that I have many times had the pleasure of sitting at his table, and a more genial and interesting host it would be difficult to describe. He is bland and gentle to a degree that might surprise those who only know him as a vigorous, fighting politician.
I remember that once when Sir William Harcourt was a guest of Mr. Chamberlain's at Highbury, he said that he went to stay with his honourable friend with feelings almost amounting to trepidation, but he soon found that Mr. Chamberlain was by no means the ogre he had been represented. Mr. Chamberlain eat his meals with an ordinary knife and fork; and he rose up in the morning and went to bed regularly like any other sane and well-conducted person. Indeed, he found him quite a tame and inoffensive creature compared with the rampant, rampageous autocratic being he had so often heard him described.
I do not pretend to quote Sir William Harcourt's words literally. I am repeating entirely from memory, but I give the gist of some of his amusing, characteristic remarks when speaking in the Birmingham Town Hall at the time he was Mr. Chamberlain's friend and guest. Certainly, I have always found Mr. Chamberlain a delightfully pleasant host. He is not given to monopolizing the talk. He does not dogmatize or lay down the law; in fact, when acting as host he is so mild, docile, and pleasant that a fossilized Tory, or even a fiery Nationalist, might play with him.
Sometimes I have been among a favoured few who have been asked to stay after most of his guests have left, and have a cigar with Mr. Chamberlain in his library. On such occasions there has been some rare good talk. I remember on one occasion the conversation did become warmly political, and there was quite a smart little tussle between our host and Mr. Jesse Collings. At that time Mr. Collings had a trifle more sympathy with Irish patriots than I fancy he has now, and with his naturally warm sympathetic feeling he was for liberating Mr. Parnell, who was then a prisoner at Kilmainham. But Mr. Chamberlain would have none of it. He maintained that Mr. Parnell and his friends had broken the law and must pay the penalty. He was quite willing to consider their demands, and what they considered to be their wrongs, but they must not defy the law. Yes, there was some pretty sparring between these two friends on that occasion, very earnest but, of course, perfectly good-tempered on both sides.
I have before remarked upon Mr. Chamberlain's self-command and imperturbability. Some persons are, perhaps, inclined to think that because he keeps himself so well in hand and so rarely indulges in sentiment that he is devoid of feeling and emotion. Not so. I recollect that on the death of Mr. John Henry Chamberlain—no relation of his, but a gentleman whose personal character, artistic skill, and intellectual gifts he, and many others, held in high esteem—a meeting was held to consider the desirability of having some memorial of one whose loss was so deeply deplored. Mr. Chamberlain took a prominent part in the proceedings, and I well remember how deeply affected he was when, in the course of his touching references to his deceased friend, he said, "I feel that his death, then, is the crowning of a noble life. He has been called from us in the moment of victory, and we who remain behind are to be pitied, for we have lost a great leader, and there are none to take his place."
"The task which is imposed upon us is certainly a very melancholy one. One by one our leaders are removed from us. The gaps in our ranks are becoming painfully apparent. Still, there is much work to be done, and we shall best honour those who are gone by endeavouring, as best we may, to continue and complete the work which they have so well commenced. In this spirit we may be content to bide our turn, hoping that when we, too, are called away our record may not shame the bright example of those who have gone before us."
When making these touching remarks Mr. Chamberlain's voice became tremulous with emotion. He evidently experienced the greatest difficulty in commanding his feelings, and when he sat down I saw tear-drops in his eyes. Never have I seen him so overcome, and it is only justice to him to cite this incident as showing that sentiment and feeling, though rarely manifested, are not foreign to his real nature.
With respect to Mr. Chamberlain's personal appearance his form and features are now well known, but for a time he was a somewhat troublesome subject to caricaturists. When he was first budding out into national importance the clever artist of Vanity Fair at that time came down to Birmingham to draw him. He succeeded in making a good caricature, but it was said that he found his task by no means an easy one. It was the nose, I believe, that puzzled the artist. Mr. Chamberlain has a pointed, slightly upturned nose, and some cynical people may be disposed to say that it has become more pointed and sharp the more he has poked it into political business. Anyway, it is a characteristic, perhaps the characteristic, of Mr. Chamberlain's face, and the skilful Vanity Fair artist caught it after a time, and just sufficiently exaggerated it to make a genuine caricature. Seeing, however, that Mr. Chamberlain was born to be a much-pictured man, one thing has stood him in fine stead—his eye-glass. When "Mr. Punch" first took him in hand he could make little or nothing of him, but the eye-glass saved the Fleet Street artists from failure. They found nothing they could lay hold of at first, not even his nose. They saw a man with a pleasant, good-looking, closely-shaven face, some dark hair brushed back from his forehead, but there was nothing they could hit off with success, and the only way they could secure identity was by the eye-glass. "Mr. Punch" used at one time to represent Mr. Bright as wearing an eye-glass, but I don't think he ever used one. Certainly I never saw Mr. Bright with an eye-glass, and never saw Mr. Chamberlain without one. Great and prominent men should have some characteristic peculiarity that should be their own special personal brand, and if they have it not, it must be made for them—as in the case of Lord Palmerston and the wisp of straw that "Mr. Punch" always put in his mouth. Mr. Chamberlain, however, has kindly obliged, and given caricaturists and others something by which he can be unmistakably "featured."