Letters of Lord Acton Part 8

[Sidenote: _La Madeleine Feb. 2, 1881_]

There is no way of describing the light and the joy which your letters bring to this place of exile, with all the reality of the old country, and with the ideal which belongs only to you and yours. I was hoping that you had heard the glorious speech.[71] It must have been a treat for you; and we saw at once, from our _Pall Mall_ itself, how profound the impression had been. My imaginary listener, if he had listened, might not have remained unconverted. Certainly, as you say, the strongest confirmation of both speech and policy is the att.i.tude of these ill-conditioned Irishmen. As I have paired with Lord Limerick (who has married a Miss Colquhoun of Cannes, and prefers bondage at his father-in-law's villa to the protection of the land-league in his ancestral domain, and who would support the Bill), I have virtually paired against it, and am, I dare say, the only peer on that side, unless Henry Stanley[72] escapes from Clare, where he is detained, under pretence of Boycotting, by the transparent artifices of friends....

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I was prepared to believe the _Standard_ account by a visit from Wolverton, who offered to show me his last letter from Downing Street, and I told him I thought he could do it. He was delighted to find the Hawarden photograph at Cannes. You will not see him for a fortnight, unless he lost all his money to-day at Monte Carlo. He deserves to lose it. He wants a strong Coercion Bill and an illusory Land Bill; but his party and personal loyalty make up for much obdurate deafness to the Morley predications.

I am very much obliged indeed for your message about Trevelyan. I talked about bringing in outsiders, and men not of one's own politics; and I spoke of Trollope and Morley in the former capacity, and of Goschen in the latter. Trollope is condemned as noisy. There are obvious objections to a newspaper editor, and the particular Lyttelton objection was urged, in a letter to me, by Reeve.[73] Derby and Arthur Russell put forward G.O.,[74] and I leave Goschen in the lurch until he answers my letter from Paris pointing out the error of his ways; but I hope you will be gracious to him before he goes. Goschen is above sordid motives. He dreads the Radicals, detests ----, despises ----, and, if left to himself and the nearest influences, he will drift away.

His lips have never been touched with the sacred fire of Liberty. His international soul has never glowed with the zeal of the good old cause. He is moved by the fears to which City men are p.r.o.ne, and there are people more calculating than he is, who work those fears, partly to check the Government, partly to provide a new chief for the Opposition.

n.o.body can keep him straight but Mr. Gladstone. There is nothing present to offer him, as {66} I take it for granted that one Budget will not satisfy his--the P.M.'s--vast financial designs. But he can employ the plan of Napoleon, who said to reluctant tribunes: "Que ne venez vous discuter avec moi, dans mon Cabinet? Nous aurions des conversations de famille." It is not a profound const.i.tutional view of the uses of an opposition; but there is a hint in it for Mr. Gladstone, who underrates his own power over men in private. The bill as sketched by the _Standard_ will strengthen his hold on Goschen.

Chamberlain has been often as indiscreet as the theory he expounded to F. Cavendish implies, but he can hardly have prompted the _Standard_.

I am glad to think of Dizzy dining at No. 18. I wonder whether it is because Lord Granville has heard he is Rowchester.[75] Your choice of topics shows how you were on your guard with Sir Bartle. The true thing about him is the strength, not the softness. I know that many have been taken in by that a.s.sumed quality, and much resented it. The right place for him would be in Asia Minor.

If you were to see those letters you would say that Burne-Jones is not the only hand at missing a likeness; but in politics you would recognise exactly what must have been your impression, that I had strung my expectations a little above practicable height, and came down with anguish to the baseness of prose--like the heroine of my dreams (I mean Dorothea, not the lady whose name is in your letter).

I fear there is a perceptible change for the worse in Cardwell.

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[Sidenote: _La Madeleine Feb. 10, 1881_]

You have gone through an anxious time, and I need not say where my thoughts were fixed during the week of Revolution.[76] I trust you are well out of it, and found relief at Lubbock's. Wolverton is growing excited and goes back. I shall miss his good spirits, his keen pugnacity, his singularly practical and unphilosophical view of politics, and G.o.dley's[77] letters. And I don't know whether the Government will gain an adviser prompt, if they make a mistake, to help them to find it out.

I have suggested to May[78] a precedent for the action of the Speaker in stopping the discussion. It was three days before the Little Gentleman in Black Velvet[79] at Hampton Court changed the dynasty.

The House was in Committee; the Tories were getting the worst of it and wished to prevent a division. The Whigs would not hear of an adjournment, and were jubilant, when one of their number had a stroke of apoplexy. Harley, the Speaker, in concert with the Chairman, seized the opportunity, took the chair, and closed the debate. Although the majority was floored, n.o.body seems to have remonstrated. I presume it is not on the Journals, and does not count.

In the hundreds of reflections suggested by the day of the scene, and of the superb speech, there is one slightly laced with regret (laced is a metaphor taken from toddy and negus). Once in 1816, the extreme Royalists, taking offence, walked out of the Chamber of Deputies. The majority were about to vote when {68} De Serre[80] said: "Personne ne croira que j'approuve, meme indirectement, l'espece de scission dont nos yeux sont frappes en ce moment. Mais je demande s'il ne serait pas de la sagesse, je dirai meme de la generosite de la majorite ici constatee et qui pourrait deliberer tres legalement, de remettre la seance a demain. Il importe qu'on ne puisse pas dire que vous avez refuse d'entendre ceux de vos membres qui pourraient avoir des observations a faire." And the debate was adjourned.

I like to quote De Serre, for though a Tory in those days, he would have developed if he had lived; and there is no statesman in French parliamentary history who has so much a.n.a.logy with Mr. Gladstone.

Arrival of your letter from High Elms,[81] with enclosure--I was surprised at those Irishmen going astray so hopelessly, when they had a man amongst them who knows so much about parliamentary tactics as Justin McCarthy. Their anger at the arrest of Davitt shows that it was not properly deliberate. One argument with which you must have grown familiar in the autumn comes to one's mind again since the Resolution.

Free government is government by consent; and consent is conveyed by the choice const.i.tuencies make of their representatives. In a local and circ.u.mscribed, not imperial question, legislation must, as a rule, depend on the consent of those concerned, as represented in Parliament.

This argument is not conclusive against Coercion, because the Land League has not even an Irish majority on its side. But it might apply to the three quarter vote.[82] In a purely Irish question the {69} whole Irish representation might be swamped and silenced by half the House. I think the Irish might make some play here by insisting on the distinction between wanton obstruction--stoppage of imperial measures and paralysis of the House--and obstruction on their own exclusive ground. Wanton obstruction cannot be tolerated in a Parliament that legislates for one-fifth of mankind, although it was the method by which Rome acquired liberty. But the Resolution makes even local obstruction impossible to the unanimous people of Ireland. It establishes a degree of subjection that did not exist before. As the test of liberty is the position and security of minorities, it has to encounter a very grave objection which is not felt in Mr. Gladstone's time, but might be, under men like Harcourt, or the late Lord Derby, or George Grenville.

As the police[83] are responsible, I hope Mr. Gladstone will always be ready to listen to their advice. But he knows very well that it is the function of the police to take fright, and to wish to be very much indeed on the safe side.

I am glad you saw more of Lubbock, and liked him better. He has astonis.h.i.+ng attainments, and a power of various work that I always envy. And he is gentle to the verge of weakness. He has something to learn on the gravest side of human knowledge; apart from that he would execute his own scheme[84] better than almost anybody. How I should like to see my own List of Authorities drawn up by you! There was a Pope who said that fifty books would include every good idea in the world. Literature has doubled {70} since then, and one would have to take a hundred. How interesting it would be to get that question answered by one's most intelligent acquaintances: Winton,[85]

Dunelm,[86] Church, Stanley, Liddon, Max Muller, Jowett, Lowell, Freeman, Lecky, Morley, Maine, Argyll, Tennyson, Newman, W. E. G., Paget,[87] Sherbrooke, Arnold, Stephen, Goldwin Smith, Hutton, Pattison, Jebb, Symonds, and very few others. There would be a surprising agreement. One is generally tempted to give a preference to writers whose influence one has felt. But that is often accidental.

It is by accident, by the accident that I read Coleridge first, that Carlyle never did me any good. If I had spoken of him it would not have been from the fulness of the heart. Excepting Froude, I think him the most detestable of historians. The doctrine of heroes, the doctrine that will is above law, comes next in atrocity to the doctrine that the flag covers the goods, that the cause justifies its agents, which is what Froude lives for. Carlyle's robust mental independence is not the same thing as originality. The Germans love him because he is an echo of the voices of their own cla.s.sic age. He lived on the thought of Germany when it was not at its best, between Herder and Richter, before the age of discipline and science. Germany since 1840 is very different from that which inspired him; and his conception of its teaching was a grotesque anachronism. It gave him his most valuable faculty, that of standing aside from the current of contemporary English ideas, and looking at it from an Archimedean point, but it gave him no rule for judging, no test of truth, no definite conviction, no certain method and no sure {71} conclusion.

But he had historic grasp--which is a rare quality--some sympathy with things that are not evident, and a vague, fluctuating notion of the work of impersonal forces. There is a flash of genius in "Past and Present," and in the "French Revolution," though it is a wretched history. And he invented Oliver Cromwell. That is the positive result of him, that, and his personal influence over many considerable minds--a stimulating, not a guiding influence; as when Stanley asked what he ought to do, and Carlyle answered: "Do your best!" You see that I agree with the judgment of the _Times_ (outer sheet); and the _Daily News_, preferring him to Macaulay and G. Eliot, and constructively to Mill or Newman or Morley, seems to me ridiculous. I should speak differently if, reading him earlier, I had learned from him instead of Coleridge the lesson of intellectual detachment.

How could you read Laveleye's foolish letters? Pray don't believe him.

His speech about Herbert Spencer is an after-thought. He said he thought him inferior to Mill; the rest is padding. As he has emptied his sack of compliments on me I am sorry to think of the other things you would have him say, for they must be in the other key. Have you read the _Nineteenth Century_ on Liberal Philosophy?[88] Mr. Gladstone certainly would not allow the definition of Liberalism attributed to him to stand alone. My book begins with 100 definitions,[89] but that is not to be one of them, and I wish I knew of one fit to stand in your father's name.

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The royal dinner-party was evidently a high success, and, apart from royalty, I was glad to think of Derby frequenting Downing Street. I hope his time will come soon, although when he and Goschen are in the Cabinet I am afraid I shall lose my tenant at Prince's Gate....

[Sidenote: _Cannes Feb. 16, 1881_]

Your kindness to B---- is like nothing but yourself--not only for procuring him his innings so opportunely, but for interpreting so generously his perplexity and irresolution. I dare say you are right to lay the blame on me. It will be very amusing to get remonstrances from bewildered friends, and I think I shall have to write to Arthur Russell, as the most inquisitive and idle of them all, and therefore the best to trust with a secret that is to be told. For pray believe that there is no real truth in the report.

I paired for the Government with Lord Limerick against.[90] No doubt, if he was present and voted, he would support the bill. Therefore, in balancing or neutralising his vote, I am virtually pairing with a supporter, not an opponent, and am myself practically opposing. But that is only my metaphysical commentary, founded on the fact that an Irish Conservative is sure to like the bill much better than I do.

There is no understanding of the kind between us, and neither of us mentioned this particular measure to the other. I am simply in Cork's list, paired with a good Tory. And it all comes to nothing, for none of us expect a division on the second reading.

The only people with whom I need disclaim the impeachment would be Morley & Co., as I should only be making Radical capital out of a little joke. The {73} joke consisting in your representing me as a worse enemy to Ministers than all the Tories and half the Irish.

I made out in the autumn that Blennerha.s.sett laid a good deal of blame on Forster's want of flexibility of mind and of _coup d'oeil_. I dare say he is quite right. There is evident truth in one remark you quote.

The excuse for agitation is by no means always its cause; and I would not be too hopeful of the effects even of the most perfect or most popular Land Bill. Ultramontane priests will never, permanently, be on the side of the State. To nurse their own influence and the religious faith of the people, they always magnify antagonism and persecution, which implies denunciation of antagonists and persecutors. And there are deeper reasons still, why it is useless to apply to Irish measures the usual test of success. However, I am more often angry with our clergy for absolutism than for revolution, so that I will say no more....

I never knew Amalie v. Lasaulx; but her brother was one of the best friends I ever had. For two years I followed his lectures on ancient literature, philosophy, &c., and he left his library to me when he died. His whole mind was occupied with religious ideas and studies; but it was an intellectual religiousness, without a notion of a church or any fervour of prayer. His sister had his independence of mind and the same generous idealism, and a humble piety which he had not, and which is remarkably rare among intellectual Germans.

... The Speaker[91] seems to be a physician as well as a statesman.

The victory over the disturbing Irish must bring your father immense relief. It is twenty-one years since I met him at Brighton, horribly jaded, {74} and getting rapid baths of sea-air. I hope he will benefit this time.

You will have seen Scherer on Carlyle. The pa.s.sage in Monday's _Pall Mall_, exalting Arnold at his expense, only shows that his[92]

burlesque language provoked the rigid and highly white-chokered critic.

Froude will be a worthy biographer for so unscrupulous a hero.

[Sidenote: _Cannes Feb. 19, 1881_]

What I said of St. Hilaire has become a little obsolete since his resolute denial that the Greeks have a European decision--or award, as it stood in the English draft--in their favour. I cannot remember whether I indicated the mental peculiarity which has developed into such impolicy; but whatever I did say is for you to apply and employ entirely as you please. The Arthur Russells, moreover, know him enough to introduce the necessary vinegar.

The little joke about Forster is no deeper than aesop. One said: "He has a woman's heart with a lion's spirit." Somebody answered: "Rather, a lion's skin."

It was reported that Ecuador[93] was preparing a Bark in defence of the Pope. Your father suggested that it must be a vocal bark. Others said it was probably Jesuit's bark (they prevail in Ecuador). And so it went on--that it was worse than their bite, &c., &c., &c.

I thought the _World's_ apology to the Irish utterly impudent, but one of the best strokes of wit I can remember in my time.

I meant it as you say; only the slightest tinge. One need only look at them to see that generosity would {75} be as completely wasted on them as on Salisbury, though there are three or four very much better than others. De Serre was, except Chateaubriand, the only man with a streak of genius among the politicians of Louis XVIII.'s reign; and he had virtue and governing power, which that brilliant impostor had not. It seldom happens that parliamentary debates cut down to the bone, or tap the bed of principle. There are about half-a-dozen series of debates that do, because they constructed a system of government from the foundations--the French National a.s.sembly, in 1789-1791 and 1848; Frankfort, in 1848; Belgium, in 1831; the French Parliament, after 1815, are among the rare instances. And in that latter instance the most eminent orator, the finest character, was De Serre. He stood nearly where Canning stood at that time--between the parties, disliked by both, persuaded, without the least prejudice or pa.s.sion, that a strong monarchy was necessary in the levelled society of France, willing to make some sacrifice of strict principle in that cause, yet looking forward to better times, which he did not live to see, for his health broke down in 1822, and he died in 1824. One story will explain the man to you. In one of his speeches he laid down that the bulk of a representative a.s.sembly is almost always well meaning (an axiom of const.i.tutional philosophy). Furious outcries from all the royalist benches interrupted him; shouts of: "Vous...o...b..iez la Convention!" He answered: "Yes, even the Convention! (order! order!) ... and if the Convention had not voted under the terror of a.s.sa.s.sins, France would have been spared the most terrible of crimes!"

Laveleye has great knowledge of Political Economy and of politics, and his peculiarity is that he does not {76} think of party, or power, or wealth, but is thoroughly anxious about the condition of society. That separates him from orthodox Economists (Lowe, Mallet, Newmarch), who do not attend to the problem of Distribution, and are not made sleepless by the suffering and sorrow of the poor. He is slightly heterodox; what Germans call Kathedersozialist, and what even Maine would call downright Socialist. His chief work is an account of early forms of property, an indirect and rather confused plea for common property in land. Ingram,[94] Cliffe Leslie nearly represent him in England. He is a special enemy of the Catholic priesthood, like M. Frere-Orban, the Belgian minister, and Laurent of Ghent; but differs from them in the wish to give the people something better than negations. He has married a Protestant lady, and attends Protestant service; but whether from any dogmatic conviction, or as a bulwark against Ultramontanes, I am not sure. He is a very estimable man, well informed, earnest, slightly tiresome, and not at all original.

Don't mind coming to grief over parallels. A disposition to detect resemblances is one of the greatest sources of error. To me parallels afford a blaze of light, but they are rare, and hard to find.

... What you tell me of Mr. Gladstone's health is good news indeed; and I hope you will not listen to his regrets about a measure contrary to the law of freedom. As much authority as is wanted to protect the few against the many, or the weak against the strong, is not contrary to freedom, but the condition of freedom. The disease lies in society, not in the state. The other view, that the only dangerous enemy {77} a nation has is its government, is pure revolution, and was invented by St. Just.

[Sidenote: _Cannes March 7, 1881_]

When the accident[95] happened, the Cardwells had a favourable telegram from a friend of yours, and we learned the news and Paget's verdict together. You must have pa.s.sed through terrible moments at first. But the best thing about it was your setting off to amuse yourself at Oxford. All England has been made to feel the truth of what you say, and Mr. Gladstone is almost the only man who does not ask the question: What is to be done if he is disabled?