Letters of Lord Acton Part 16

[Sidenote: _St. Martin Ried Haute Autriche July 20, 1882_]

Alexandria, Bright, and a vote of censure have been a great distraction from our Irish troubles. If Bright, the Minister, agreed to the orders, and if Bright, the Quaker, woke up at the execution of the orders, then his conduct is unstatesmanlike and weak. I conclude,--not having Monday's debate yet,--that he resigns not because of the bombardment, but because, having troops on the way, remembering the example of Paris, warned by the terrified correspondents, we nevertheless bombarded without taking precautions against consequences that were not improbable. If he takes that ground, he will, I suppose, be angry and mischievous, and his position will encourage the disaffected Whigs; and it will be awkward even if part of the blame rests on the Powers; because, when we took things into our own hands, we were bound to do all that was necessary.

I very much wish for a completer defence than {157} I have seen yet; and at the same time I think that a good defence, with some measure of political success in Egypt, will be a source of new strength, and if there is some blame, I anxiously ask myself whether it lies at the Foreign Office, at the War Office, or at the Admiralty.

It is provoking not to know most of the names of the people going out on this difficult errand. That is one side of the question. The other, nearer home, for me, is that you are still going through terrible worry, and that the wear and tear must be telling on Mr.

Gladstone. I ask myself one question, which most people would think an unlikely one, whether he thoroughly controls his colleagues, and whether the work of the House absorbs him too much.... I hope you sat next to Bright....

[Sidenote: _St. Martin July 29, 1882_]

We are living here in my brother-in-law's house; and I will tell him that he must prepare for better guests, as soon as you tell me that it is not the baseless fabric of a vision. He is not married; so that there is no one to be on ceremony with; and his house is as big as many Tegernsees. Alfred[183] will be as welcome here as he is wherever his bright face is shown.

It is impossible not to feel that the Ministry grows weaker by the a.s.sociates it has lost as well as by the a.s.sociates that decline to join. There are now the ingredients of an alternative Liberal Cabinet, consisting of men fairly equal to those now in office--with the necessary exception--and hostile to them. The ground is getting narrow under our feet, and the full {158} force of the party does not support Ministers. The want of a successor to Bright indicates too clearly that Mr. Gladstone, though still master of his majority, is not what he has been, master of his party. I hope for new arrangements at the end of the session, and for a real gain of strength from ultimate success in Egypt. But, like Ireland, it is a harvest that will ripen slowly.

I wonder whether things have seemed to you as gloomy as this, or whether the light before you dispels the darkness.

Mozley's book, and all others published in England since January, I have not seen. He interests me more than almost any other of our divines, and I look forward to a good time with his reminiscences, if, as I understand, it is the divine, and not the manifold writer.[184]

[Sidenote: _Tegernsee August 4, 1882_]

With all my heart I adopt your scheme, Reform, Dissolution, and then, let Politics make way for a still higher and worthier cause.

[Sidenote: _Paris, August 12, 1882_]

Salisbury's collapse[185] is less decisive than mine, and although there is a pleasant corner in the House of Lords, my journey ends in nothing better than disappointment and in having set you to write notes all day. My accounts show that they are not comfortable at home, so that I have no right to be basking in the ethereal suns.h.i.+ne of Downing Street.

It was a monstrous thing to do, suggestive of {159} Mrs. Todgers, but I left the Dante in his[186] room at the H. of Commons. It was too late to ring at No. 10,[187] for I kept him talking till near eleven. But there was some symbolic propriety about the t.i.tle[188] of the unbound volume--unbound because they did not remember the binding of the rest.

Of course the impression of my one well-filled day in town--even with the part of Cordelia left out--is the very opposite of that under which I lately wrote. The session ends with a great blaze of his mastery and power. But the best of it all is, that I found him so wonderfully vigorous and well and even content. It did indeed impress me most deeply.

It is remarkable how little he chooses to realise the tremendous loss of authority and power which the party will incur by his retirement, and he has no idea how little he would soon be in harmony with them.

However, Ireland is not all right yet; and there are obvious complications impending in Egypt which he cannot leave unsolved. With that, there will still be time for the Reform Bill.

Late at night I found slipped under my door your rejected letter, which will be cherished with the rest. If writing made up for sight!

This letter is written by sc.r.a.ps, in various places and countries. I crossed with Forster, on his way to Russia, and got him to tell me his inner history. I shall be at St. Martin the day after to-morrow....

Shorthouse's[189] letter could not go with Dante, and I will enclose it in my next. I have got Democracy. The Mays, considered an authority on the subject, do {160} not think much of it. Forster does, and says it is not by Mrs. Adams. He says that Bright has no idea that he left either too early or too late. Will you--very earnestly--put my excuses before Mrs. Gladstone for my way of dealing with her boundless hospitality?

[Sidenote: _La Madeleine Cannes Feb. 2, 1883_]

I wonder whether you would come to lunch to-morrow, Sat.u.r.day? Perhaps I could inscribe in your most private book the list of the hundred works that have most influenced human history.

[Sidenote: _Feb. 13, 1883_]

... These books are enclosed to show Mr. Gladstone what good German prose is, in expounding difficult, very difficult, questions. Also, a little book, by a very famous Dane who has grown more and more to be a power since his death....

[Sidenote: _La Madeleine March 3, 1883_]

After seeking a moment's distraction at a chateau near Ma.r.s.eilles I came home to find your letter, so kindly written in the intervals of Parisian dissipations.

The failure of Challemel was truly sad, but I hope that Fedora,[190]

following the little dinner on the Boulevard, made up for it. The tranquillity and sameness of Cannes will soon be thrust far out of sight by the centre of European life. We do our best, in your absence, to be a little worldly. Bright, Houghton, and the Mallets lunch to-day. I am to meet Colonel Hay at tea, and the little bishop[191] at dinner this evening.

... It is pleasant to think that Lyons made you enjoy Paris, and divined the one thing you all have a pa.s.sion for, and he seems to have done the political part of his work very well by bringing you into contact {161} both with the ruling men and with the Left Centre. That was just what was wanting to redress the Wolvertonian balance.

I am a little sorry that the visit at the Elysee was not more interesting. Grevy's speeches in 1848 were very sensible indeed, but he seems to be pus.h.i.+ng the theory of the _roi faineant_ much beyond the American, or even the Merovingian, limit, if he avoids politics with such a visitor. Then I rejoice much at the visit to Jules Simon, though you don't say whether it was spontaneous or a return, and a curious question is, where was the limit drawn? Did he and Broglie, Decazes, Harcourt, avoid each other? If these former amba.s.sadors did not call, it is matter for speculation. At Ma.r.s.eilles, I found myself in a nest of Legitimists, and learnt that the chief of them, Coriolis, lately asked the Count of Chambord for leave to raise the white flag.

If there was more of this kind, it is odd that the advocates of expulsion made so little of it. If it had been possible to stay longer at Paris, it would have been a very desirable thing, for they do not really know or understand him,[192] and the conflict of forces there would be worth observing otherwise than in Blowitz' or Lyons's despatches.

It is a pity to have missed Mrs. Craven, who would take to you intensely if you saw more of each other--a woman of great talent and elevation of mind, but who has just written on the Salvation Army a paper that seems to portend the approach of mental decay. Lady Blennerha.s.sett is very far her superior. Tell her all about Cannes if you see her.... Mrs. Green writes me a touching letter to say that she has no hope left....

{162}

[Sidenote: _La Madeleine, March 7, 1883_]

This is only a hasty line of thanks and congratulation on your prosperous journey. I have not yet seen either the Wolvertons or the Anson family, and to-day there are a couple of inches of snow over Cannes. Incorrigible Potter circulates the Financial Reform Almanack in the name of the Cobden Club, for which Reay, A. Russell, and others have denounced him. He asked me to read it through, which has been the melancholy occupation of a whole day, ending in agreement with the critics.

I am losing Mallet, who is less well and goes to Mentone. Also, Colonel Hay,[193] Lincoln's secretary and biographer, who proved a most agreeable acquaintance. Yesterday, there was an expedition to Pegomas (Houghton, Dempsters, &c.) and I find that the old lady[194] is the original of St. Monica in Ary Scheffer's picture. Myers, translator of Homer, is here, with a nice, newly-married wife, and Cross is in great force, writing the biography[195] and wanting me to read the papers.

Thanks for the MS., with the answer for which pray express my acknowledgments.

You have heard that the Ashburnham MSS. are offered to the Museum, and that some of them were stolen from public libraries in France. We propose, if we buy at all, to resell to France as many of these as can be proved to be stolen, and Delisle, the French Panizzi, comes this week to produce his evidence, amicably, before the Museum experts.

I say nothing about the purchase, and have only insisted that ---- was a thief, and that we must, as we did before, make terms with Paris.

But I want you to know that Leopold Delisle is one of the most eminent {163} scholars in France, that he is a most estimable and high-minded man, tho' not a conspicuous bookmaker or litterateur, that he stands as high in Germany as any Frenchman living, and that I have long enjoyed the privilege of his friendly acquaintance. So that, if it should be otherwise feasible, any civility shown him by the P.M.[196] on this his very peculiar international mission, would be taken in France as a marked sign of courtesy and goodwill, just after the visit to France.

This is quite independent of the decision the Treasury may come to about the grant. I may add that Delisle is perfectly trustworthy, and that we are safe in the hands of the Museum people, to come to right judgments as to the MSS....