One Ash, Rochdale, Saturday.
Dear Toby,
The address from which I write to you is familiar in the public ear in connection with a long series which, such is the ignorance of mankind, I have heard described as petulant, querulous, self-adulatory notes. I have often wondered that it has not occurred to any one to notice the singular appropriateness of the name of my humble home. It is not for me, at my time of life, to claim anything like prescience of affairs. I may have been right in my views of the succeeding events of the past half-century, or I may have been wrong. I will just mention that my friend, T-nn-s-n, who has a pretty faculty for poetry, once summed me up in a couplet which I venture to think is not without its charm. "J-hn Br-ght," he wrote—
J-hn Br-ght
Is always right.
He told me in confidence that he had at one time contemplated a eulogistic poem of some seventy or eighty lines, price to the Nineteenth Century a guinea each. But, having thrown off this couplet, it appeared in itself so sufficient, so comprehensive yet so precise, that amplification would have rather reduced than increased its value. Therefore it remains a brilliant fragment.
But I am wandering from the theme, which, in the present instance, is not myself but my country address. What I thought might be interesting to point out is the curious felicity of the nomenclature, and the remarkable foresight of which it is proof. More than a generation ago it received this singular appellation. At that time nothing seemed more remote from ordinary apprehension than that in this year I should be what we call "a Unionist," an ally and supporter of Lord S-l-b-ry, pulling in the same boat as the H-m-lt-ns, and marching shoulder to shoulder with Ashm-d B-rtl-tt. In those days I was wont to pour forth torrents of angry contempt upon the Conservative party. D-sr-li was my wash-pot, over the Markiss I cast out my shoe; but even then my address was One Ash, Rochdale. Do you begin to see what I mean? One Empire, One Parliament, One Ash! Some of my old colleagues and disciples among the Radicals scoff at me because of my new companions. But, as usual, I have been right from the first. I have always been what the Marchioness called a "wonner." What has happened is that the Liberal Party and my old companions have moved away from me, whilst the Conservatives have moved towards me. I am the same to-day as yesterday, or as these fifty years past. "J-hn Br-ght, always right," and any change of relationship or appearance is due to the ineradicable error and fatal foolishness of others.
What I feel, dear Toby, in reviewing a long and honourable life, is the terrible feeling of monotony. I sometimes find myself envying ordinary men like Gl-dst-ne, who, looking back over their past life, can put their hand down and say, "There I blundered, there I was misled by circumstances." For a long time Gl-dst-ne kept pretty straight—that is to say I agreed with him. But he has gone wrong lamentably on this Irish Question, and all the righteous acts of his life—that is to say, steps in which he has chanced to walk in time with me—are obliterated. It is true that, at one time, it was I who was the foremost Apostle of Irish National feeling. At this date people with inconvenient memories are constantly raking up passages in my speeches about Ireland, and the English yoke which, except that they are too finely cut, and of too noble a style of eloquence, would exactly suit Gl-dst-ne to-day. I said these things then, it is true, and then they were right. I do not say them to-day, and therefore they are wrong. Quod erat demonstrandum. (You will observe that since, with a distinguished friend, I have joined the political company of gentlemen, I have forsaken my old habit of keeping to the Saxon tongue, and sometimes, as here, I drop into Latin. Occasionally I fall into French. Autres temps, autres mœurs.)
My nearest approach to human frailty, is, perhaps, to be found in a certain measure of absence of suavity. It is perhaps possible that my temper was,—I will not say soured, but—not sweetened by the vile attacks made upon me personally by Irish Members in Parliament during the last ten years. You remember what B-nt-nck said about me? I don't mean Big Ben, or Little Ben, but Lord George B-nt-nck. "If Br-ght," he said, "had not been a Quaker, he would have been a prize-fighter." I think there is about the remark some suspicion of lack of respect. But, also, it is not without some foundation of truth. I admit an impulse to strike back when I am hit; sometimes when I am not. Through two Parliaments the ragged regiment that live upon the contributions of their poor relations in domestic service in the United States have girded at me in the House of Commons. This was my reward for the rhetorical services I did for Ireland a quarter of a century ago. They pummelled me, kicked me, dragged my honoured name in the dust, and spat upon me in the market-place. That gross ingratitude I could never forgive, and if in reprisal, the cause I once advocated suffers, can I be held blameable?