round to my view of that gentleman, and I was hailed–quite undeservedly–as a prophet because I had always distrusted one whom they now not only distrusted, but disliked and despised.
Let me say, before leaving Mr. Chamberlain, that I still consider that the worst blot upon his political career was the manner in which he treated Mr. Forster. No doubt his dislike of Mr. Forster was in the first instance inspired by his repugnance to the Education Act; but I cannot help saying that in later years it degenerated into what, at any rate, looked like a feeling of antipathy towards the man who, at that time, was regarded as standing high in the succession to Mr. Gladstone as leader of the Liberal party. When I come to deal with the events of 1882, I shall have something to say of the part which Mr. Chamberlain played towards Mr. Forster in the painful events which issued in the latter’s withdrawal from Mr. Gladstone’s second Administration.
The Liberals of England were naturally very despondent after the unexpected _débâcle_ of 1874. They had believed that the good works of a Government which had wrought so much for the public benefit would have been appreciated by the great mass of the electors, and they were unfeignedly astonished at the verdict returned by the country. They had not taken into account that swing of the pendulum which has so large an influence in popular constituencies. Nor had they noted the extent to which the unity of the Liberal party, and its consequent strength, had been impaired by the action of advanced sections, who were so passionately bent upon carrying the measures in which they were themselves most deeply interested that they did not stop to count the cost of their proceedings on the fortunes of the party as a whole. It took some little time to recover our spirits after that heavy blow, but soon some of us began to feel that in time “the loppèd tree would grow again.” I was helped in coming to this conclusion by some words addressed to me by a shrewd old Yorkshire Tory, which I have remembered gratefully ever since. “I suppose you Liberals really think, as the fools of the Tory newspapers seem to do, that your party is finished for ever and a day. Don’t make any such mistake. A Ministry no sooner begins to live than it begins to die. Our people are in the full flush of triumph just now, but already they are beginning to die.” The shrewd good sense of my friend has often struck me since, and many a time I have had occasion to notice how quickly the process of decay sets in after the formation of even the strongest Governments.
The chief event in the history of the Liberal party in the year succeeding its great defeat was the unexpected resignation by Mr. Gladstone of his post of leader. I am not concerned either to defend or to blame this episode in the career of a very great man whom I followed with enthusiasm and an unfaltering devotion for many years, but who had, as I was always conscious, some of the defects of his qualities, and whose action in a given case could never be predicted with confidence. There is no doubt that Mr. Gladstone, old Parliamentary hand as he was, even in 1875, had a very real dislike for those personal intrigues and jealousies which play so large a part behind the scenes in our public life. It is a curious fact that for nearly forty years no intrigues were more active, and no jealousies more bitter, than those which had relation to Mr. Gladstone himself. There was always someone ready to intrigue against him. There were always those who thought that, if only he could be got out of the way, there might possibly be room for themselves upon the top of the mountain. In 1868 the representatives of this class had protested against his being allowed to become Prime Minister. In 1874 they, or their successors, were still louder in their protests against his being allowed ever again to form an administration. He was a defeated Minister, and some of them took care to bring this fact home to him in as unpleasant a way as possible. One, at least, had good reason to repent of his audacity. No one who was in the House of Commons on the memorable afternoon when Sir William Harcourt tried a fall with Mr. Gladstone, and met with such terrific punishment, is ever likely to forget the scene. It was said at the time by a humorous observer describing the debate that when Sir William–“my own Solicitor-General, I believe,” as Mr. Gladstone said in describing him–had listened to the speech in which his late chief inflicted due chastisement upon him, like one of Bret Harte’s heroes “he smiled a kind of sickly smile, and curled up on the floor, And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more.” Mr. Gladstone’s resignation of the leadership at the beginning of 1875 was not, I think, unconnected with the fact that he knew that there were certain active spirits in the Liberal party who, believing themselves fully equal to any position to which they might be called, were unfeignedly anxious that they should have at least a chance of arriving at the front place.
Yet, when Mr. Gladstone did resign the leadership, no one named any of these intriguers as his possible successor; and it may be noted here that none of the intriguers has even yet secured the reward he coveted. The two names mentioned as those of possible leaders in 1875 were those of Mr. Forster and Lord Hartington. I name them in this order because Mr. Forster was first suggested, and the suggestion came not from any wire-pullers or clique, but from the body of Liberals as a whole. But Mr. Forster’s enemies on the Opposition benches, though not very numerous, were very bitter, and they at once put forward as the strongest card they could play against Mr. Forster the name of Lord Hartington. Lord Hartington was, like Forster himself, a man of high character, to whom no taint of intrigue attached. He had not offended any section of the party in the way in which Forster had offended the Nonconformists, and, above all, he was the son and heir of the Duke of Devonshire. Social influence counts for a great deal in political life in this country, but there was another factor that also counted in favour of Lord Hartington. This was the fact that he could not sit in the House of Commons after his father’s death, and that, consequently, if he were chosen, he would be more or less of a stopgap. A stopgap is, of course, always popular with the intriguer who knows that he himself has not yet arrived.
A tremendous effort was made on behalf of Lord Hartington. I am doubtful whether it would have succeeded if the struggle had been carried to the end. Mr. Forster’s friends were in earnest, and they comprised the majority of what might be called the Moderate party on the Opposition benches. But Forster himself settled the question by withdrawing from the candidature, and thus prevented an unseemly contest. It is now known that Lord Hartington himself would have taken this course if Forster had not done so. They were two straightforward, honourable rivals, and they acted throughout this business like English gentlemen. That which made the election of Lord Hartington to the leadership bitter to those who, like myself, had strongly advocated the claims of Mr. Forster, was our knowledge of the fact that he had really been defeated by the opposition of the Birmingham League, and of those Radicals who were prepared to sacrifice the larger interests of Liberalism to their own personal antipathies and sectional views.
Indeed, it may be said that with this election of Lord Hartington to the Liberal leadership the reign of the caucus commenced. The dejected Liberals were resolved, if possible, to organise victory, and at Birmingham men were found who were not only prepared to assist them in the task, but who were quite ready to assume the lead of the Liberal forces throughout the country. All the talk that one heard in political circles in those days was of caucuses on the Birmingham plan, and of the rise of the National Liberal Federation, the existence of which people were just dimly beginning to recognise. I am not writing the history of the National Liberal Federation, and I pretend to no special knowledge on the subject of its origin. Popular opinion credits Mr. Schnadhorst, the famous organiser, of Birmingham, and subsequently of London, with the authorship of the scheme. But I doubt the truth of this. I knew Mr. Schnadhorst well, and had a great respect for him as a man at once honest, sagacious, and of much simplicity of character. But he was not intellectually great, nor was he the astute and unscrupulous Machiavelli his opponents believed him to be. The Birmingham caucus, which became a model for all other Liberal constituencies, was probably founded by the joint efforts of several men, among whom Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Powell Williams, as well as Mr. Schnadhorst, were to be counted.
The plan of the caucus was delightfully simple. A constituency–and those were the days of big constituencies–was divided into districts, and the Liberals of each district were allotted a certain number of seats on the Central Liberal Association. This Association generally consisted of so many hundreds of persons, and it thus came to pass that the Association became known as the Huddersfield Two Hundred, the Leeds Four Hundred, the Birmingham Six Hundred, and so on. On a given day in each constituency, the Liberal electors in the various districts met, and elected their representatives on the Central Association. Every known Liberal had a vote, so that the constitution of the central body was, in theory at all events, delightfully democratic. These associations were designed to sweep away the old system of Liberal committees, influenced by local magnates, which had prevailed ever since the passing of the Reform Bill. There was a strong belief among the inventors of the caucus that by means of this plan they would secure the predominance of the advanced Radical party. The old privileges of wealth and rank were henceforth to count for nothing in the councils of Liberalism. Every man was to have a vote, not merely for a member of Parliament, but for the local body which was to select candidates, manage local political affairs, and generally determine the character of the Liberalism professed by the constituency. Every year the different Hundreds were to elect representatives who were to act as their delegates at the conferences of the National Liberal Federation; and the Federation itself was to be regarded as the legitimate and indisputable representative of the Liberalism of the country as a whole.
It was a bold and far-reaching scheme, and whatever its effect may have been in temporarily restoring the fortunes of Liberalism, its influence upon the political life of England has been great, and–I fear I must say–has not been beneficial. The founders of the caucus professed to resent the intrusion of the influence of money into political affairs. Within certain limits this was an admirable attitude. But its practical effect has been to drive the greater proportion of the moneyed classes out of the Liberal party. They further professed to wish to put an end to the influence exercised by cliques and privileged classes or persons in the party. The majority was to rule under all conceivable circumstances. Those who, like myself, have had an active and intimate association with the caucus and the Federation know that in practice the new system, so far from destroying the rule of cliques, merely substituted one set of cliques for another. The active busybody, who had little business of his own to attend to, or to whom the position of member of a local committee was one to be striven after for the sake of the dignity attaching to it, became the ruling spirit of the caucus. In thousands of cases the older and more sober Liberals were driven out of the councils of their party in disgust, and more and more the extreme men, who were fighting in earnest for some special object or fad, became the predominant powers in Liberalism. This was the change that was gradually wrought in the Liberal party between 1875 and 1885.
At the outset I was vehemently opposed to the new methods, and protested stoutly against them in the _Leeds Mercury_. It was not very long, indeed, before I had personal experience of the way in which the caucus system worked. Mr. Carter, the Radical, who had been returned for Leeds in 1874, retired from Parliament two years later. It would have been the natural and proper course for the Liberal party to invite its former representative, Sir Edward Baines, to become a candidate for the vacancy. He was the man who undoubtedly had the chief claim upon the Liberal party in the town. A meeting of the newly-formed Liberal Association was called to consider the question of choosing a candidate. As editor of the chief Liberal paper, I had been taken into the counsels of the local Liberal leaders ever since assuming that post, had been invited to attend the meetings of their committee, and found that they were at all times desirous of securing my support. When I spoke to one of the officials of the new Association of the meeting that was to be held to choose a candidate, and mentioned my intention of attending, I was bluntly told that I should not be admitted. I had not, it appeared, been elected a member of the Four Hundred. As a matter of fact, very few persons in Leeds had known anything about the election of this body when it took place. It was a startling revelation of the change that had taken place to be thus refused admittance to a body which, in former times, would have been only too anxious to secure my support.
The President of the Association, to whom I went to demand admittance, stood upon the strict letter of the law. I had not been elected by my district committee, which held its meetings in a local public-house, and it was therefore impossible that I should be allowed to attend the deliberations of the sacred body. Looking back, I can see that the president was absolutely justified in the line he took. It might seem absurd to shut out from a meeting of Liberals the person who, by reason of his position, had more political influence in Leeds than any other man. But “logic is logic,” and under the new system any claim founded upon mere influence, or even upon past services, was inadmissible. I was too young, however, to acknowledge this fact at the time, and I bluntly delivered an ultimatum to the President of the Association. “You may hold your caucus meeting,” I said, “but if it is to be private so far as I am concerned, it shall be private so far as the reporters of the _Leeds Mercury_ are concerned also. I shall simply ignore your proceedings, and to-morrow the _Leeds Mercury_ will make its own nomination for the vacancy.” This was all very wrong, I fear, and most irregular. Indeed, remembering what power the caucus system subsequently attained, I look back with something like astonishment at my own audacious action. But the caucus was still in its infancy, and my worthy friend the President, after a hurried consultation with his fellow-officials, capitulated. I was invited to be present at the meeting of the sacred body.
It was the first meeting of that description I had ever attended, but it was typical of many that I have attended since then. As I expected, it was proposed by those who had long been recognised as the leaders of the Liberal party in Leeds that Sir Edward Baines should be the candidate. Forthwith a most violent opposition was offered to the proposal by men who had never before been heard of in Leeds politics, and some of whom had only been resident in the town for a few months. I remember that the most violent of these gentlemen was a schoolmaster from Birmingham, who denounced Sir Edward Baines for the assistance he had given in the passing of that iniquitous measure, the Education Act. Another gentleman denounced him with equal violence because he was the proprietor of the _Leeds Mercury_, a journal which had dared to speak disrespectfully of the truest and most honest Liberal of the day, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain. That was the first occasion on which my fellow-Liberals in Leeds belaboured me with the name of Mr. Chamberlain. On all sides I heard extreme opinions expressed by men whose faces and names were quite unfamiliar to me, and I found to my dismay that the more extreme the opinions, the warmer was their reception by these representative Liberals. They would hardly listen to their old leaders, who had grown grey in fighting the battles of Liberalism. They treated with contumely any words of soberness or moderation. They applauded even speakers who were palpably selfish and insincere. As I listened to that debate, my eyes were opened, and I realised the fact that a great revolution had been suddenly and silently wrought, and that the control of the Liberal party had, in a great measure, passed out of the hands of its old leaders into those of the men who managed the new “machine.” If I have been tedious in telling this story of the caucus, it is still, I feel, one that is worth telling, for it illustrates one, at least, of the great changes in the political conditions of this country that have happened during my lifetime.
It was not, of course, Sir Edward Baines who was chosen as the Liberal candidate. The choice of the caucus fell upon the worthy President of that body, the late Sir John Barran, an amiable man and a good citizen, though his claims to Parliamentary distinction at that time were certainly unequal to those of Sir Edward Baines. The revolution had taken place, however, and the Liberal party found itself under the command of new masters. For some time after the establishment of the caucus, it pursued a distinctly aggressive course, and inspired all of us with alarm. In course of time, however, I realised the fact that there were certain severe limitations upon its power. It could not stand against the country when the country was in earnest. It could not give that inspiration to a party without which victory cannot be achieved. No amount of organisation, however skilfully devised, could supply the place of a great popular movement. I became reconciled to the caucus when I grasped these facts, and for a time I not only looked upon it as harmless, but gave my assistance to it, locally in Leeds and, in its national work, in the office of the National Liberal Federation. Yet I am compelled to confess now that, though I have not altered my view as to the limitations of the power of the party machine, I no longer regard it as harmless.
It is, I think, impossible to deny that very great harm has been done, not merely to the spirit of Liberalism, but to the actual fortunes of the Liberal party, by the new system. It has brought a new spirit into the direction of our party, a spirit which is too apt to regard the catching of votes as the one great object to be pursued and attained, no matter by what means. It has given the mere machine man, the intriguer and wire-puller, far greater power than it is right that he should possess, seeing that as a rule his power is not accompanied by a corresponding degree of responsibility. Above all, it has lowered the status of a member of Parliament, and made him more or less of a delegate who is bound to yield to the wishes, not of his constituents as a whole, but of the party organisation which seeks to usurp the place of the constituency. The story of the struggles of Mr. Forster with the Bradford caucus is familiar to political students. I was mixed up with all those struggles, and always on the side of Mr. Forster, who stoutly refused to accept the dictation of the caucus and the theory that a member of Parliament was no more than a delegate. He was victorious in his prolonged struggle with the Bradford Radicals, but he only succeeded in virtue of his own strength of character and dogged courage. Weaker men went to the wall by scores, and, as they did so, the caucus, of which Mr. Chamberlain was at this time the ruling spirit, gained strength, and became the predominant factor in the Liberal party.
In the early autumn of 1876 the most remarkable political agitation I ever witnessed broke over the country with startling suddenness. Parliament was just on the point of rising when the _Daily News_ published its first account of the hideous crimes which became known as the Bulgarian atrocities. Mr. Disraeli, when questioned in the House of Commons, sneered at the reports in the _Daily News_ as being based upon “coffee-house babble.” If he really believed this, he must have been strangely ill-informed. The terrible tale which shocked the civilised world was communicated to the _Daily News_ by its Constantinople correspondent, Mr. Edwin Pears. The man who supplied Mr. Pears with the terrible facts which he gave to the world was Dr. Washbourne, the head of the Robert College at Constantinople. I know both Mr. Pears and Dr. Washbourne. They are men of the highest honour and integrity, whilst Dr. Washbourne, who is by birth an American, has been for many years the best authority on the question of the treatment of the Christians of the Ottoman Empire by the Sultan. No one who knew the source from which the _Daily News_ stories emanated could dream of dismissing those stories as coffee-house babble. Mr. Disraeli, as a matter of duty, should have made himself acquainted with the authority on which these stories rested before he took it upon himself to denounce them as sensational fables. But in spite of Mr. Disraeli, who at this very moment blossomed into the Earl of Beaconsfield, an official investigation took place. Mr. Walter Baring, who was attached to our Constantinople Embassy, was directed to proceed to the scene of the alleged outrages, and to inquire into the truth of the allegations made in the _Daily News_. Mr. Baring was an English official of the best stamp. He not only ascertained the truth, but he reported it in plain language to the Home Government. It was then found that the _Daily News_ had, if anything, understated the case. The ruffianly Bashi-Bazouks, employed by the Sultan to keep down the Christians of European Turkey, had been let loose upon the people of certain villages in Bulgaria and Roumelia, as a pack of wolves might have been let loose upon a flock of sheep.
The crimes that were committed do not admit of description. Thousands of innocent people had been murdered in circumstances of atrocious cruelty. Neither age nor sex had been respected. Indeed, children, old men, and women seemed to be the favourite victims of the savages. Upon the women every conceivable outrage was perpetrated before the knife of the assassin cut short their misery. It was a story which, when told in the dry, official language of a Foreign Office report, was still sufficient to arouse a passion of righteous rage in the breast of any person endowed with the ordinary instincts of humanity. The old fear of Russia as our rival in Eastern Europe still constituted the chief influence in determining our foreign policy, and the old idea of the Turk as our friend and ally was still popular amongst us. But these revelations for the moment reversed the national feeling on both these points. Mr. Gladstone, roused to action by his sympathy with the victims of so cruel an oppression, left his retirement at Hawarden and issued a pamphlet on the Bulgarian horrors which raised the feeling of the country to a higher point than I have ever known it reach before or since, except in some crisis affecting our very existence as a State.
That month of September, 1876, saw England and Scotland convulsed with a terrible emotion. The old divisions of parties were effaced, and the Government, because of its suspected sympathy with the Sultan, found itself the object of almost universal execration. Naturally, the less discreet politicians of the day were unable to control themselves under the influence of the prevailing excitement. Many foolish and many dangerous things were uttered at the meetings at which every town and village gave expression to the horror inspired by the Sultan’s crimes. Mr. Gladstone’s strongest utterances were seized upon by his fervent admirers and were carried to an extreme from which he himself would have shrunk. It was a whirlwind, a tornado of political passion that swept over the country during those sunny September weeks. The impulse from which it sprang was just and noble in itself; but who can hold a whirlwind in check? It is not wonderful that this great outbreak of national indignation did almost as much harm as good.
The whole condition of our domestic politics was changed by this Bulgarian atrocities agitation, as it was called. It riveted the attention of the country upon a great question of foreign policy. It weakened enormously, for the moment, the power of the Tory Government, which still enjoyed so commanding a majority in Parliament. Domestic affairs lost their savour for the ordinary elector, and, writing nearly a quarter of a century after this episode, I am inclined to believe that they have never since regained all that they then lost. In the late autumn, a Conference on the subject of our relations with Turkey was held in St. James’s Hall. This was no demonstration on the part of a caucus, but a gathering of the notables of all the great towns of England. No doubt the majority of those present were Liberals, but a very considerable minority were Conservatives who had hitherto supported the Government. It was my good fortune to be present at that wonderful meeting in St. James’s Hall. Never was there such a political platform seen at a public meeting before. Mr. Gladstone, Lord Shaftesbury, the Dukes of Westminster and Argyll, Mr. Freeman, the historian, the Bishop of Oxford, Henry Fawcett–these are but a few of the names that occur to my memory as I recall the memorable scene. Great Tory noblemen like the Marquess of Bath sat side by side with Radicals from Birmingham, and the passionate earnestness, amounting to something more than enthusiasm, that inspired the whole gathering was remarkable. It may be said to have marked the high tide of political agitation in my own experience.
A simple accident had saved me from the full force of the contagion of passion that swept over the country in September. I had left Leeds to spend some weeks with my family in a house on the Clyde, where I was far from the sounds of political tumult. Possibly, if I had stayed in Leeds at my post at the _Mercury_ office, I might have gone with the tide, and might have been just as extreme and as reckless as anybody else. But I looked on from a distance, and, as it happened, I was absorbed at the time in other work. The consequence was that I could see the evil, as well as the good, of this extraordinary upheaval of popular emotion, and when I returned later on to my work at Leeds I took a cooler view of the whole question than most Liberal journalists did, and dealt with it, not from the merely emotional standpoint, but from that of our duty and interests as a people. Of course, I was blamed for this by the more fervent, and was suspected of being at heart little better than a philo-Turk. I had, in short, to meet the usual fate of the man who will not cry either black or white when it is his misfortune to see only a confusion of colours. By-and-by, however, when the popular passion subsided, and the old alarm about Russia again became rampant, I found myself blamed for precisely the opposite reason. I was no longer assailed as a philo-Turk, but as a Russophil.
CONTRIBUTIONS TO BRONTË LITERATURE.
A Visit to Haworth–Feeling Against the Brontës in Yorkshire–Miss Nussey and her Discontent with Mrs. Gaskell’s “Me”–Publication of “Charlotte Brontë: a Monograph”–Mr. Swinburne’s Appreciation–An Abortive Visit to the Poet–Lecture on Emily Brontë and “Wuthering Heights”–Miss Nussey’s Visit to Haworth after Charlotte’s Marriage.
I have said that during the stormy days of the atrocities agitation I was engaged in other work than that of political writing. This was the completion of a little book in which I gave my impressions of Charlotte and Emily Brontë to the public. The story of Charlotte Brontë, as told by Mrs. Gaskell, had always possessed a great fascination for me. I had been moved to write to Mrs. Gaskell when her biography of Charlotte appeared, and I had received from her more than one letter filled with interesting details about Charlotte’s father, and his life after his daughter’s death. When I went to Leeds in 1866, the first pilgrimage I made was to Haworth. That was less than eleven years after Charlotte’s death, and at a time when there were, of course, many persons still living in the village who had a perfect recollection of the wonderful sisters. But, strange to say, Haworth was not in those days a popular “shrine.” “Whiles some Americans come to see the church, but nobody else,” was the statement made to me when I asked the sexton if there were many visitors to the home of the Brontës.
My visit furnished me with a theme for a descriptive article which was printed in _Chambers’s Journal_ in 1867, and, having written it, I believed that my connection with the Brontës was at an end. But when I went back to Leeds in 1870, I was struck by the fact that throughout the West Riding of Yorkshire there prevailed a widespread feeling that was nothing less than one of positive antipathy to the works and the story of the Brontës. Their books, though they dealt with local scenes and characters, were no longer read. In that respect, however, the West Riding hardly differed from the rest of England. What was peculiar to Yorkshire was the fact that, if you mentioned the name of Brontë in any average company, the chances were in favour of your being met with an indignant snort from someone who protested that Charlotte’s stories were a disgraceful libel upon the district, and that “Wuthering Heights” was a book so dreadful in its character that its author would only have met with her deserts if she had been soundly whipped for writing it. I met more than one lady who had known the Brontës, and who, in reply to my eager questioning, spoke of them with undisguised contempt. I was assured that they were not ladies, that they were not even successful as governesses, that their father and brother were a pair of reprobates, and that they themselves, being embittered by the fact that they were not admitted to the good society of their neighbourhood, had deliberately revenged themselves by writing scurrilous libels and caricatures in order to bring Yorkshire men and women into contempt. It all seems incredible now; yet this was the actual state of feeling prevalent in Yorkshire with regard to the Brontës thirty years ago.
I was asked to deliver a lecture before some literary society in Leeds, and it seemed to me that I could not do better than tell the story of the Brontës; and defend them against the aspersions cast upon them by their old neighbours. Accordingly, I wrote a lecture which was the foundation of the little book I subsequently published on the same subject. Miss Nussey, Charlotte’s schoolfellow and bosom friend, and the “dear E.” of Mrs. Gaskell’s “Life,” was then living at Birstall, near Leeds. She heard of my lecture through some mutual friend, and expressed a desire to be allowed to read it. After having done so, she asked me to visit her–a request with which I gladly complied. I found her a cheerful, neat, and well-preserved woman, who, though she was well advanced in middle life, retained a good deal of the charm of manner with which Caroline Helstone, in the delightful story of “Shirley,” is endowed.
I am well aware that the identity of Ellen Nussey and Caroline Helstone has been questioned by some recent writers, and that Mr. Nicholls, who was for a few months Charlotte Brontë’s husband, is quoted in support of this denial. All I can say is, first, that Miss Nussey acknowledged to me the truth of the statement that she had served as a model for Caroline Helstone, just as Emily Brontë served as a model for Shirley herself; and secondly, that it was impossible for anyone to know Miss Nussey in those days without seeing how vivid and truthful Charlotte’s portrait of her was. Almost her first words to me when I met her expressed her regret that Mrs. Gaskell had not done justice to Charlotte’s life and character in her famous Memoir. To me this was rank heresy, for, like most other persons, I was indebted to Mrs. Gaskell for nearly all the knowledge I then possessed of the Brontë story. But, in reply to my defence of Mrs. Gaskell, Miss Nussey entered into particulars. She explained to me that Mrs. Gaskell had mixed up the sordid and shameful story of Branwell Brontë with that of his sisters; and she protested against the way in which local traditions, that had nothing to do with the character of the gifted sisters, in whom there was not a single drop of Yorkshire blood, had been imported into Mrs. Gaskell’s narrative, as though these traditions were in some way connected with the lives of the Brontës. Finally, she declared that she would not rest satisfied until a book had been written about Charlotte which toned down the over-colouring of Mrs. Gaskell’s narrative, and she asked me if I was prepared to write such a book.
It was a flattering proposal, but I felt compelled to decline it. I was well aware that I could not put myself into competition with Mrs. Gaskell, even if I desired to do so, and I had no wish to appear to attack a book which I regarded as one of the masterpieces of English biography. But Miss Nussey was persistent, and she offered me the use of all Charlotte’s correspondence with her, including the letters relating to her courtship and marriage, which Mrs. Gaskell had never even seen. After I had read these letters and other documents with which Miss Nussey furnished me, I suggested that, if I could not write a book, I might still make one or two interesting magazine articles out of the materials in my possession. Miss Nussey embraced this idea with enthusiasm, protesting that so long as she could see Charlotte “set right” in the eyes of the world, she would be perfectly satisfied with anything I chose to do. Accordingly, in the spring of 1866, I wrote three articles which appeared in _Macmillan’s Magazine_. I wrote them with fear and trembling, and I must add that I wrote them without any kind of encouragement from outside, other than that which I received from Miss Nussey herself. The general impression among the editors and critics of the day was that there was nothing new to be said about the Brontës, and that, even if there were, the public would not care to hear it. The kind and genial editor of _Macmillan’s Magazine_ himself–Sir George Grove–shared this conviction, and it was only at the urgent request of William Black, through whom I approached him, that he agreed to look at my articles. However, having seen them, he liked them, and wrote to me warmly in their praise. Nor did the public like them less, if Sir George Grove was correct in his statement that these contributions of mine about the author of “Jane Eyre” had done more to increase the sale of the magazine than any article since Mrs. Stowe’s famous defamation of Lord Byron.
Nor did the matter end, as I thought it would have done, with the publication of my articles in _Macmillan’s_. I received a summons from the famous head of that firm of publishers, Mr. Alexander Macmillan; and, attending him in the deferential manner in which authors in those days waited upon important publishers, was asked with characteristic gruffness if I could add enough to the articles to make a book. “The public,” said Mr. Macmillan, in tones which made me feel my own insignificance, “seems to want something more of the stuff; I really don’t know why. But if you can do something more, we’ll make a book of it.” Then he named the honorarium I was to receive in payment both for the magazine articles and the volume. It was a modest sum–only a hundred pounds, and of this I felt that Miss Nussey was entitled to a considerable share. But a hundred pounds was not to be despised. Besides, I loved my subject, and knew that I had still something left to say about it. So I closed with Mr. Macmillan’s offer, and a few months later my little book, “Charlotte Brontë: a Monograph,” was duly published.
It will be seen that it was by accident rather than design that I wrote the book. Miss Nussey moved me to the writing of the magazine articles; Mr. Macmillan urged me to expand them into a volume. Otherwise I should have written nothing on the subject, and it would have been left to somebody else to start that Brontë cult which has since spread so widely. The appearance of the volume marked an important epoch in my life. Yet, in the first instance, “Charlotte Brontë” was very coldly received by the critics. Most of them seemed to think that the book was entirely superfluous. They evidently shared Mr. Macmillan’s surprise that anybody should think such a volume was needed. Most of them also agreed that I had no special qualifications for the task I had undertaken, and that the new matter I had brought to light was of little value. One of my critics, the _Athenaeum_, poured contempt upon me for having spoken of “the scent of the heather.” The ingenuous writer evidently had seen heather nowhere save on the slab of a fishmonger’s shop. But, in spite of the critics, the book sold, and sold rapidly. It went through three editions in this country within a few weeks of its publication. It was republished in America by arrangement with the Macmillans, and had so large a sale there that it was speedily pirated, the pirates not even having the decency to give my name upon the title-page.
Snubbed as I felt myself to be, I still had my reward. People who had read the book wrote to me in enthusiastic terms, and they were not all Americans who did so. I speedily became aware that I had, almost by accident, tapped a vein of pure and rich sentiment. Best of all was the fact that my kind friend, Lord Houghton, forwarded to me a letter he had received from Mr. Swinburne which contained the following passage: “Has anyone told you I am just about to publish a ‘Study’ on Charlotte Brontë, which has grown out of all proportion to the thing it was meant to be–a review of (or article on) Mr. Wemyss Reid’s little jewel and treasure-casket of a book?” Need I say that I was more than consoled for the coldness of the reception which the Press had given to my first literary essay by such words as these; nor had I long to wait before I saw the Brontë cult a great and growing factor in our literary life. The critics could not ignore Mr. Swinburne, and when his “Note” on Charlotte Brontë appeared, they were compelled to discuss seriously the question which they had previously regarded as superfluous or trivial.
At Mr. Swinburne’s request I subsequently went to see the distinguished poet at the rooms he occupied in Great James Street. My reception was not what I had expected, though Mr. Swinburne cannot be blamed for the fact. I was kept waiting on the doorstep, after ringing the bell, for an unusually long time, and during the interval of waiting a tradesman’s boy arrived, basket on arm. He was more impatient than I was, and rang the bell violently to quicken the movements of those within, evidently careless as to whether he might be disturbing a poet’s daydream. A terrible old woman, with landlady written large all over her face and person, opened the door, and, without paying the slightest attention to me, began to rate the shopboy in no measured terms. He retaliated in the same fashion, and I found myself quite unheeded in the midst of this war of words. At last, tired of waiting, I interposed between the boy and the landlady, and asked the latter if Mr. Swinburne was at home. She looked at me with withering contempt for a few seconds, and then ejaculated, “No, he ain’t, and it would be a good thing for him if he never was when the likes of you come to call on him.” Having delivered herself of this hospitable sentence, she slammed the door in my face, and left me a sadder man. I never dared to face that lady again, and in consequence I missed the pleasure of making Mr. Swinburne’s acquaintance at that time.
I was elected about this time a member of the Savile Club, which then had its home in Savile Row. My proposer was Mr. J. F. McLennan, the author of “Primitive Marriage,” and I owed my immediate election chiefly to his good offices, but partly to the fact that my book on Charlotte Brontë had found favour with the reading public. A great deal has been written since then about the Brontës. Some of our ablest literary critics have discussed their genius with a penetrating insight that has opened up for us the secrets of their wonderful laboratory, whilst industrious investigators have brought to light many facts which were unknown to Mrs. Gaskell at the time when she wrote her famous Memoir. A Brontë Society has been formed in Yorkshire, and no man would now be justified in maintaining either that the Brontës are not fully appreciated in the world of letters, or that in their own county their fame is neglected or despised. I myself have added very little to the literature which has been poured forth upon the subject since the appearance of Mr. Swinburne’s “Note.” I shrank from doing so, because I was not in sympathy with the public curiosity which aspired to know everything that there was to tell about the Brontës without regard to its intrinsic interest, or to that decent reticence which even the dead have a right to expect from us. I did not, for example, in my “monograph” publish the remarkable letters in which Charlotte told Miss Nussey the story of her strange love affair with Mr. Nicholls. Mr. Nicholls was still living, and I felt that these letters could not decently be published during his lifetime. Twenty years later, however, they were published by Mr. Shorter, not only during the lifetime of Mr. Nicholls, but with that gentleman’s full consent.
My chief contribution to the Brontë controversy after the publication of the “monograph” was a lecture delivered at the Royal Institution in 1895 on Emily Brontë and the authorship of “Wuthering Heights,” in which I set forth the theory that Emily had, in part, been inspired in her description of the mad Heathcliffe and his terrible ravings by the bitter experiences through which she passed as an eyewitness of her brother Branwell’s last days. My theory has met with a certain amount of acceptance among Brontë students, and I still adhere to it as the most probable explanation of a literary problem of no common difficulty.
Once, somewhere between 1890 and 1896, I was compelled to take up the pen in my own defence. I read in the _North American Review_ an article entitled “The Defamation of Charlotte Brontë,” and to my great amazement found that it was a vicious attack upon my little book published more than twenty years previously! I was accused by the writer–an American lady whose name I had never heard before and have now forgotten–of having been the first to defame Charlotte Brontë, because I had been the first to point out the singular influence over her life and character which was exercised by her teacher in Brussels, M. Héger. It is now obvious to everybody that this gentleman was not only the original of the Paul Emanuel of “Villette,” but was in many respects the inspiring influence in the whole of Charlotte Brontë’s career as a writer. That he exercised a curious fascination over the untrained young woman who went to Brussels in order to improve her knowledge of French we know from her own declarations, nor is it surprising that a man of such genuine intellectual force should have exercised this influence over the mind of one who, until she met him, had known nothing whatever of intellectual society. It was not only my right, but my duty, as a critic to point out the important part which M. Héger had played in the development of Charlotte Brontë’s genius, and there was most assuredly nothing in what I said that touched in the slightest degree the purity of her exalted character. Yet my critic in the _North American Review_ professed to discover that I had invented the story that Charlotte had “fallen in love” with her teacher in Brussels, and abused me soundly for having degraded her by presenting her to the world in an odious light. Surely it is a mad world that can thus misconstrue obvious and innocent facts! I cannot but think, however, that the good lady of the _North American Review_ was more anxious to figure in the great Brontë controversy than to contribute anything of value to our knowledge of the subject.
As I have said already, when I first wrote about the Brontës there were many still living who had known the sisters well. Of these Miss Nussey was the chief, and it may be of interest to repeat a few of the statements which from time to time she made to me with regard to Charlotte. One of the most striking of these was her account of the single visit which she paid to Haworth after Charlotte became the wife of Mr. Nicholls. Miss Nussey told me that she accompanied Charlotte and her husband one day on a walk over the moors. In the course of their conversation she asked Charlotte if she was writing another book. “No,” replied Charlotte; “Arthur says I have no time for writing now, as I must attend to my duties as a clergyman’s wife.” She said it in such a tone as to convince her friend that she was not satisfied with her husband’s decision, and Miss Nussey, plucking up her courage, remonstrated with him upon his refusal to allow Charlotte to exercise her great gift. Mr. Nicholls’s response was short and to the point. “I did not marry Currer Bell, the novelist, but Charlotte Brontë, the clergyman’s daughter. Currer Bell may fly to heaven to-morrow for anything I care.” I do not vouch for the absolute truth of this story, but I give it as I heard it from Miss Nussey, and I am quite sure that when she told it to me she believed it to be true.
Charlotte must have been more attractive than the world at one time believed her to have been, for she had several offers of marriage before Mr. Nicholls appeared upon the scene as a suitor. Mrs. Smith, the mother of Mr. George Smith, her publisher, was somewhat alarmed at the possibility of her son’s admiration for Charlotte’s genius developing into an affection for her, and whilst very kind to the young authoress, she let her see that in her opinion Mr. Smith was much too young to become her husband. In one of her letters to Miss Nussey, Charlotte discussed this situation, and with her characteristic candour and good sense came to the conclusion that Mrs. Smith was altogether right. Her son was both too young and too brilliant, she declared, to make a fitting husband for the obscure parson’s daughter. In “Villette,” where the story of her own heart is told, Mrs. Smith and her son are to be found portrayed in the characters of Mr. John and his mother.
Charlotte Brontë’s fame, her genius, her power, live after her in her books, and so long as those books are read will never be forgotten. But it is not her fame, her genius, her power, which are the most precious possessions she has left to us, but that sweetness and virtue, which like bright flowers bloom upon her grave and remind us of the life which lies beyond it.
Politics in Paris in 1877–An Oration by Gambetta–the Balloting–The Republic Saved–Gambetta’s Funeral–A Member of the Reform Club–The Century Club–A Draught of Turpentine and Soda–The “Press Gang” at the Reform–James Payn and William Black–George Augustus Sala and Sir John Robinson–Disraeli’s Triumph in 1878–A European Tour.
In the autumn of 1877 I went over to Paris, in order to watch the General Election of that year. It was a fateful moment in the history of France. The Royalists, and the whole of the anti-Republican forces, were bent upon overthrowing the Republic, and they looked upon President Macmahon as their tool. Thiers, the natural leader of the Republican party, had died, after a brief illness, within a few weeks of the election; and Gambetta, who had stepped into his place, was not only under prosecution for his famous _”Ou se soumettre ou se démettre”_ speech, but was still regarded by a large section of moderate men as a wild man, a _fou furieux_, indeed, who could not be trusted with the fortunes of the party. Every morning the Parisians awoke to wonder whether the expected _coup d’état_ had taken place during the night. The drama had clearly reached an exciting moment, and I thought it well to witness the _dénouement_ for myself.
My kind friend Lord Houghton, on learning my intention, sent me a batch of introductions to many of the leading men in Paris. They included the Comte de Paris himself, M. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, the bosom friend of M. Thiers, and M. Blowitz, of the _Times_. I did not see a revolution, because none took place; but I had an excellent opportunity of watching Paris pass through a political crisis, and of witnessing the triumph of the Republic over its numerous and formidable enemies. That year (1877) was indeed the best year in the history of the Republic. It still had the support of the great mass of the public. The middle-class gave it all their aid, and the combination of Thiers and Gambetta had made the Left and Left Centre parties immensely powerful. It was interesting to watch the beginnings of the clerical reaction, beginnings which found their outward expression in the propagation of the cult of the Sacred Heart. All Paris was singing in those days, either in the original or in a parody, the hymn with the refrain, “Heaven save poor France in the name of the Sacred Heart.” On the whole, the parodists were in a majority, and their parodies were just as blasphemous as one expects them to be in France.
Through M. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, a typical French statesman of the philosophical cast, I secured an invitation to the solitary meeting which Gambetta, as candidate for Belleville, was permitted to hold prior to the actual election. He was, as I have said, under remand in the prosecution by which the Government had sought to silence his voice in the Chamber of Deputies. They could not prevent his making this one speech to his constituents, for the law gave him the right to do so, and the meeting was therefore one of great importance. Gambetta spoke in a large circus which was crowded to excess. He was received with great enthusiasm, but before his speech was over he had wound up his audience to a still higher pitch of passionate fervour. He struck me as being, in some respects, the greatest of all the orators I had ever heard. He had that indispensable qualification of the orator, a voice at once clear, powerful, and melodious. His magnificent physique gave weight to the gestures in which he indulged so freely, and which enabled him to conceal the infirmity from which he suffered–blindness of one eye–whilst at the same time allowing him always to keep his living eye fixed on the crowd before him.
I trembled for him when he began his great speech, for, unlike any English orator I ever heard, he did not warm to his subject gradually, taking care to make his audience accompany him step by step, but sprang in a moment to a height of passionate and tempestuous eloquence from which it seemed inevitable that he must quickly fall to an anti-climax. But no anticlimax came. For more than an hour he continued to pour forth a torrent of burning words that seemed to keep the vast multitude before him in a state of excitement and enthusiasm hardly to be exaggerated. Never before and never since have I witnessed such an effect as this produced by an orator, and though he lacked the stately and sonorous delivery of John Bright, and had no pretension to the intellectual persuasiveness of Mr. Gladstone, I have always felt, since hearing that speech, that Gambetta was the greatest orator to whom I ever listened.
It was rumoured that Gambetta was to be arrested on leaving the meeting, and he himself believed this rumour to be true. Yet this did not cause him to moderate his defiance of the Government and the reactionary powers. I remember he closed his great oration with words to the following effect: “I said in the Chamber not long ago, ‘Clericalism, that is the enemy.’ I predict now that when this election is over, I shall say, ‘Clericalism, that is the vanquished.'” I was introduced to him after his speech. He was lying on a couch in a little green room at the back of the stage of the circus, panting, and fanning himself furiously with his pocket-handkerchief, whilst one of his friends administered to him copious draughts of champagne. He talked to me of the probability of his arrest on leaving the building, but seemed absolutely confident as to the future. The Government made no attempt, however, to interfere with him, and but a few weeks later he was the ruling power in France.
The day on which the first ballot was taken was, according to French custom, a Sunday. This was the day on which the quidnuncs had fixed as the probable date of the _coup d’état_. The Conservatives, on the other hand, pretended to believe that it would witness a fresh Communist rising, of which Belleville was to be the centre. It was a beautiful September day, and the excitement which possessed the whole French people was visibly reflected in the streets of Paris. I spent the whole day in driving from one polling station to another, accompanied by a friend who had resided for many years in the French capital. What struck one was the good order that was everywhere maintained, and the simplicity of the arrangements for voting. There was nothing like the tumult that would have been witnessed in any ordinary general election in England. It was obvious, too, that much less care was taken to preserve the secrecy of the ballot than is customary in this country.
As a newspaper correspondent I was freely admitted into every polling station. It was not until two o’clock in the afternoon that I reached Belleville, the reputed storm-centre. I had been warned that it would be dangerous to venture into that district in the handsome carriage provided for me by my friend. Yet when I climbed the steep hill leading to the polling station where the Maire presided, I found everything perfectly quiet. On entering the ballot-room, however, I was received in a somewhat curious fashion by the Maire. “So you have come at last to poor calumniated Belleville,” he said. “You are the first journalist who has been here to-day, and yet for a week past every journal in Paris has declared that we were going to break out into a revolution. If they really believed it, why did they not come and see how we behaved ourselves? I call it infamous.” The worthy Maire would hardly be pacified by the thought that I, at least, had not been guilty of staying away. But one could sympathise with his feelings, for in this spot, regarding which the wildest stories were current in the Parisian Press, dulness reigned supreme, and the polling station itself was as solemn and as silent as a Quakers’ meeting house.
It was different at night, when the first news of the result of the election poured into Paris from the provinces, and it was seen that Gambetta had been a true prophet, after all, and that Clericalism, and all the other reactionary forces, had indeed been vanquished. Between ten o’clock and midnight the long line of the boulevards was crowded with the gayest multitude of men, women, and children that I ever met. They cheered, they shouted, they sang for joy. The Republic had triumphed, and France was saved. This was the burden of their song. Never did I see a more good-natured crowd; but things would have been different if that historic election had resulted otherwise. Paris was delighted and good-humoured because she had won.
Five years after that great victory for Gambetta and the Republic I found myself again in Paris on a cold January day. All the town was once more in the streets, but there was no gladness on the faces of the people who crowded the Place de la Concorde and the long avenue of the Rue de Rivoli. They had gathered together to witness the funeral of the hero of the fight of 1877. Gambetta, wounded, whether by accident or design none can tell, by his dearest friend, had died at the very zenith of his fame, and all France was prepared to render homage to one of her greatest sons. His body lay in state in the palace of the Chamber of Deputies, and I was fortunate enough to find myself standing at the foot of the coffin at the same moment as Victor Hugo. The great poet had his two grandchildren clinging to his hands, and as he stood there, explaining to the children something of Gambetta’s story and achievements, I could not help feeling that there was a fine opening for a historical painter.
Gambetta’s funeral was notable above everything else for the profusion of the display of flowers. Every department, every town and hamlet in France, had sent a deputation to swell the solemn procession, and every deputation brought a colossal funeral wreath. It was the first week in January, yet the air was heavy with the perfume of violets, lilies, and white lilac. It was computed at the time that twenty thousand pounds was expended on the flowers borne by the mourners, and I do not think that this calculation was exaggerated. Yet the funeral itself was extremely dull and unimpressive. Those long lines of men in evening dress impressed nobody. It was only when the picked troops went by in their glittering uniforms that any emotion was displayed by the watching crowd. For the rest, all our attention and admiration were given to the colossal wreaths and crowns and chaplets of which there was so barbaric a profusion, and the poor coffin itself passed almost unnoticed.
It was different a week later, when the statesman’s real funeral took place. His father, a simple _bourgeois_ of Provence, had agreed to allow this mock funeral to take place in Paris on condition that his son’s body was subsequently given to him for burial among his own people at Nice. I was present also at this second funeral. There were no flowers and there was but little display; but behind the coffin in which the body of the ill-starred political leader lay walked his father, bare-headed, his white hair streaming in the breeze; and the women around me cried as he passed, “Ah, le pauvre papa!” and wiped the furtive tear from their eyes. If anything could have inspired me with a greater horror for the pomp of a public funeral, it would have been the contrast presented by this simple but pathetic ceremony at Nice with the gorgeous spectacle of a few days before in Paris.
In the spring of 1878 I became a member of the Reform Club, Mr. Forster and Mr. Childers being my sponsors. Then, as now, there was a black-balling clique in the club, and nobody could be absolutely certain of election; but my personal friends–among whom William Black was foremost–worked hard on my behalf, and secured my election in spite of the fact that I had a considerable number of black-balls. Personal influence, indeed, goes further than anything else in securing admission to a club like the Reform. It is a mistake to trust to the mere eminence of a man’s proposer and seconder; unless he has some personal friend who is a popular member of the club, and who will take the trouble to exert himself on the day of the election, the mere eminence of his proposer and seconder will not save him. One of the traditions of the Reform Club relates to George Augustus Sala. When that well-known writer was proposed for election, the taint of Bohemianism still clung to him, and it was very doubtful whether he would pass the ordeal of the ballot. Thackeray, with whom Sala had been associated in the early days of the _Cornhill Magazine_, believed that election to a club like the Reform would be the salvation of the younger man; and on the day when the ballot took place he remained in the saloon at the head of the steps for four mortal hours, asking every member as he entered to vote for Sala as a personal favour to himself. In this way he defeated the black-balling clique, and secured Sala’s admittance to society of a somewhat graver type than that to which he had heretofore been accustomed.
Even in 1878 I was not unversed in London clubs. I had been a member of the Arundel, where the dramatists and journalists of the last generation were wont to assemble; of the Thatched House, which in those days had an admirable _chef_; of the Savile, the home of cultured authorship; and of the Devonshire, founded after the Liberal defeat in 1874 as a kind of Junior Reform Club. I had, in addition, belonged to several more or less Bohemian clubs, of which the Century, in Pall Mall Place, is perhaps the only one that demands notice. The Century was founded on the model of the Cosmopolitan. The members met twice a week–on Wednesday and Sunday evenings. Tobacco, spirits, and aerated waters were provided out of the club funds. The members sat in a semicircle round the fireplace, and were expected to talk together without waiting for the formality of an introduction. The rules, in short, were the same as at the familiar “Cos.,” and for a time the club was very successful. But it seems almost inevitable that clubs of this description should drift, sooner or later, into the hands of a clique. The same men went every night, and you had to listen to the same platitudes, or the same cheap cynicism. Once or twice the dulness of the evening at the Century was enlivened by something like a scene. One night, for example, Henry Fawcett, the blind politician and statesman, came into the club room after an absence of some months. He was warmly welcomed, and at the same time reproached for his prolonged absence. He explained himself. “I like to come here,” he said, “but I can’t stand Tom Potter. He talks too much.” The identical Tom Potter, the well-known honorary secretary of the Cobden Club, was sitting in his favourite corner at the moment, and it need not be said that after Fawcett’s remark the conversation of the little party was somewhat constrained.
But Tom Potter did not suffer so much as I did in that little room in Pall Mall Place. One night in 1877 or 1878 I got there late, after dining with Sir George Grove at his house at Sydenham. I was hot and thirsty, and William Black, whom I found there, immediately suggested to me the propriety of a whisky and soda. I accepted the suggestion. As the foaming glass was handed to me, it occurred to me that the Century Club must have been recently painted; but I was too thirsty to stop to make any remark on the subject, and hastily drank off the cool beverage with which I had been supplied. Directly I had done so, I knew that I had been poisoned. Whatever I had swallowed, it certainly was not whisky. I suppose I turned ghastly pale, for I felt a terrible nausea suddenly overcoming me. Black and my other friends in a state of consternation examined the bottle from which I had been served, and discovered that although it bore the label of a well-known brand of whisky, it contained turpentine. I confess I was relieved when I heard this, as I feared it might have been oxalic acid. But turpentine is bad enough as a beverage, and I do not think I ever spent a more uncomfortable four-and-twenty hours than that which followed this misadventure. There was no doctor present, but Black undertook to supply his place. “There is only one thing for you to do, my dear Reid. You must get drunk directly.” I declared, with reason, that I had drunk too much already, and crept away to my bed, which happily was close at hand. For at least two days after that incident I smelt like a newly-painted lamp-post, but I have always felt grateful to the careless dog of a servant for not having served me up oxalic acid or vitriol in place of the turpentine. After that affair I do not think I ever went back to the Century Club. It was bad enough to be bored by the irrepressible Club Jorkinses, but to be poisoned also was more than flesh and blood could stand.
The Reform, as I soon discovered, differed in many respects from any of the clubs to which I had previously belonged. In those days, it was really the headquarters of a great political party, and amongst its members were to be counted many of the leading statesmen of the day. It contained, too, not a few men of letters, and many prominent men of affairs. A new member coming into the club saw these distinguished persons at lunch, or dinner, or taking their ease in smoking or reading rooms; but he had little chance of becoming acquainted with them unless he had some friend by whom he could be introduced. Fortunately for me, I already knew many of the politicians in the Reform, whilst Black was eager to introduce me to his own friends in the club. On the very first day on which I dined there as a member I was formally admitted to the little coterie the members of which lunched at the same hour every day at a particular table in the large coffee room. They were known as the “press-gang,” and were the objects, I have always imagined, of the mingled hatred and envy of their fellow-members. They were hated because of their exclusiveness, and envied owing to the fact that there was more laughter at that one table than at all the others put together.
It was James Payn who was the chief cause of the laughter. He had himself the loudest laugh of any man I ever met, and he laughed incessantly. Again and again, when his ringing peal sounded through the room and we saw the scandalised faces of our fellow-members, some one amongst us would remind him of the line touching “the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind,” but he only laughed the more loudly, and compelled us also to join in his infectious merriment. Looking back upon the years which I was destined to spend in constant association with that most delightful and lovable of men, I sadly realise the fact that since his death I have never laughed as I did in those happy days. The other members of the luncheon-table party at that time were William Black, George Augustus Sala, Sir John Robinson of the _Daily News_, E. D. J. Wilson of the _Times_, and J. C. Parkinson. There were others who came and went, but those I have named were the regular frequenters of the table. The real bond of union between us was Payn; but, as was only natural, the ties of friendship which united all became very close. To-day (1904) Parkinson and myself alone remain of the merry party of twenty years ago. Payn, Black, Robinson, and Sala are dead, and Wilson has sought the more august society of the Athenaeum. The luncheon table is still maintained, and we have found one or two recruits to fill the empty chairs; but I think it is with pity, rather than with envy, that we survivors of the original party are now regarded by our fellow-members.
However this may be, I shall always regard it as one of the great privileges of my life that for more than twenty years I was a member of this little society of friends, most of whom had kindred tastes, and who, though they might differ widely in ability, were at least alike in the keenness of their enjoyment of the humorous side of life. Many a time since Payn’s death I have been asked to repeat some of his “good things,” in order that others might understand the fascination that he had for his friends. I might as well be asked to repeat the song of the skylark. It was not in the mere form of words he used that Payn’s power of touching and delighting his companions was to be found. He hated puns and verbal trickery of every kind, but he saw more quickly than any other man I have ever known the humorous side of any question or any incident, and he had a knack of making that humorous side perceptible to others which to my mind was absolutely unique. Day after day through the long years I have sat with him at that noonday meal, breathing an atmosphere of wit that was almost intoxicating. It was a wit that was never cruel, never coarse, never anything but kindly and humane. Even his cynicism was genial and good-natured, like that of Lord Houghton himself.
I have spoken already of William Black. He and I had become bound to each other by ties of warm affection. I had the greatest admiration for his genius, and a profound love for his pure and chivalrous character; but, like myself, he was a listener at the table at which Payn sat. He could say good things occasionally, but, as a rule, his conversation did not approach the excellence of his writing. Payn, on the other hand, was infinitely better in talk than in writing. He has written some essays which will hold their own side by side with some of Elia’s, but no essay that he ever wrote had the delightful fascination that, to the very last, attached to his conversation. Sala talked almost as much as Payn, but in a very different fashion. He was an encyclopaedia of out-of-the-way knowledge, and had a story or an illustration for every topic that cropped up at the luncheon table. Sometimes his omniscience was almost overpowering; but I have heard innumerable good stories admirably told by him. Of Parkinson I must not speak, for he is happily still left to the luncheon table and to me. Robinson, from experiences which were as varied as they were abundant, was able to contribute much to our enjoyment at those bright gatherings of old, whilst he shared to the full in the affectionate admiration with which we all regarded Payn.
The summer of 1878 witnessed the meeting of the Congress at Berlin which followed the Russo-Turkish War. Despite all the scares through which we had passed during the winter and spring, we had escaped the war between ourselves and Russia with which we had been so often threatened, and the purpose of the Congress was to render such a war impossible in the immediate future. It was this summer of 1878 that also witnessed Disraeli’s complete triumph over his enemies and his rivals.
He had secured his own way in the Cabinet, though in doing so he had to lose the services of Lord Derby and Lord Carnarvon, and to convert Lord Salisbury to views which, up to that time, he had professed to abhor. He had brought the Indian troops to Malta, and had thereby given a significant hint to Europe as to the extent of our resources. He had got a vote of five millions from the House of Commons, and had spent a great part of it in the purchase of ships of war, some of which turned out to be wholly unfitted for the requirements of the English Naval Service. His picturesque and audacious policy had won the favour of the multitude, and, despite the criticisms of Mr. Gladstone, the Prime Minister was the undisputed master of the nation.
Looking back, I do not think I am unfair when I say that Disraeli’s triumph seemed to be largely due to his power of playing to the gallery. He gave the crowd in the streets the scenic effects which they loved. He flattered their vanity, and he played upon their weaknesses, and thus he was able in a great measure to realise the florid dreams of his youth, and to strengthen English influence in that Eastern world which had always exercised so great a fascination over him. When he went to Berlin with Lord Salisbury as his companion, there was a great crowd at Charing Cross Station to see him depart. I was one of the spectators, and was struck by the deference which was paid to him by the many distinguished persons who had come to speed him on his journey. Lord Salisbury passed unnoticed by his side. At Berlin the same thing happened. In the great Congress in which all the European Powers were represented, Disraeli’s figure outshone all others. Even Bismarck seemed to take a secondary place to that of the Jew adventurer, who had made so splendid a fight for his own hand, and had achieved so magnificent a success. The story of his life, the romance of his career, and his personal peculiarities seemed to have produced a deep impression upon people of all classes and of all nationalities, and it is no exaggeration to say that during his residence in Berlin the eyes of the whole world were fixed upon him.
When Disraeli came back from Berlin, having by an astute and not very creditable transaction secured the Island of Cyprus for the British Crown, besides compelling Russia to forego some of the fruits of her victory over Turkey, he met with a reception of extraordinary enthusiasm. A conqueror returning from the wars could hardly, indeed, have been acclaimed more loudly than was Lord Beaconsfield as he drove from Charing Cross Railway Station to Downing Street. If he had seen fit to dissolve Parliament then he would have swept the country, and would have been confirmed in the possession of power. But he had his own standard of honour, and it did not permit him to attempt to snatch a victory of this kind. His political opponents are bound to acknowledge their indebtedness to him in this matter.
Shortly after the close of the Berlin Congress I took a long holiday from my duties at Leeds, and made a most interesting tour through Europe in the company of a friend, Mr. Greig, the manager of the Leeds Steam Plough Works. Greig was engaged on a business tour, his purpose being to see the different estates on which the system of steam culture–of which his partner, Mr. Fowler, was the author–was employed. Our trip took us in the first place to Germany, where we visited Magdeburg, Halberstadt, Berlin, and Saxon Switzerland. Thence we went into Bohemia, staying at Prague some days, and visiting some remote parts of that picturesque but most unromantic country–for there is, alas! no kinship between the Bohemia of reality and that of romance. After Bohemia came Vienna, Budapest, and the Danube. Then at Orsova we turned north, and went by way of Bucharest, Román, and Lemberg into Galicia, finally making our way back again to Vienna, and thence to Paris and home. In those days much of the ground I have mentioned was practically unknown to English tourists. The lower Danube, for example, and the great plains of Roumania, though they were within four days’ rail of London, were not so well known to English people as the Nile, the Ganges, or the Mississippi. It seems strange, indeed, now to recall the fact that both in Hungary and in Roumania we visited places where Englishmen were regarded as rare and curious animals, people to be run after and stared at as they passed along the village street. All this, I presume, is changed now through the influence of the wonder-working Cook. Yet one cannot believe that even now there are not some nooks and corners of the Bukovina where my fellow countrymen have hardly penetrated, and where they are still regarded with eyes of curiosity, if not of fear.
At all events, in my own case, in this year 1878, I no sooner diverged from the beaten track than I had experience of the fact that there was still an unexplored world within the confines of Europe. The long journey down the Danube in a steamboat, now superseded by the railway, formed in itself an expedition of no common interest. It happened that my friend and I had to leave the steamer at Mohacs, famous in history, and in the pages of Thackeray, in order to visit the vast estates of the Archduke Albrecht, at that time the richest member of the Imperial family. It was then that I had the first experience of a genuine Hungarian town, with its streets knee-deep in mud, and swarming with huge dogs of ferocious temper. On quitting the steamboat for the inn, I seemed at one step to have passed from civilisation into savagery. Anything more atrociously filthy and repulsive than this establishment I never saw, and yet it was the best inn of a town of thirty thousand inhabitants.
When we reached our destination–a castle of the Archduke’s–the next day, we found ourselves once more surrounded with the comforts and decencies of civilised life, but there were many evidences of the fact that we were here far from the world. The game of croquet, for example, had been for some ten years before this time practically extinct in England. At the Archduke’s castle they seemed just to have heard of it, and were eagerly learning it when we arrived. At one of the outlying farms on the splendid estate, the manager, like all his colleagues, was of noble birth. When he found that we were Englishmen he suddenly disappeared from the room. In a few minutes he returned with a smiling and handsome young lady on his arm. “My wife speaks English,” he declared, in accents of pride. It turned out that the lady, who had been educated at Budapest, had never spoken to any Englishman before. We seemed to be almost the first who had ever penetrated into that unknown land. When the husband found that his wife was able to converse with us he literally danced for joy, and invited all the rest of the company to witness the wonderful spectacle. The hospitality and friendliness of the Hungarians were delightful. However unpopular Englishmen might be elsewhere in Europe, at that time they were certainly loved in Hungary, and the mere fact of his nationality was sufficient to secure for the English traveller an unstinted hospitality.
Bucharest, when we reached it, was still in the occupation of the Russian army. The war with Turkey had ended many months before, but the Russian troops had not yet been withdrawn from the Danube, while thousands of Turkish prisoners of war were still under detention in Roumania. It was interesting to observe the unveiled hostility of the Russian and Roumanian officers when they met in the streets and cafés. The only salutation that passed between them was a scowl. I heard many stories as to the jealousies and dissensions which had broken out during the war between the Russians and their allies. The siege of Plevna, in particular, had left bitter memories behind it. The Roumanians openly accused the Russian officers of having selfishly sacrificed the soldiers of the little principality in order to save the lives of Russians. Great fear was felt in Bucharest that the Russians meant to stay there, and their swaggering and domineering attitude certainly seemed to justify the dread felt by those who were entertaining them so unwillingly. The only happy and smiling people I encountered during my stay in Bucharest were the Turkish prisoners of war and the gipsies. The prisoners were cheerful and good-natured fellows. Most of them were eager to eke out their scanty allowance for food by doing work of any kind, and I was told that when Prince Charles returned in triumph at the head of his army after the close of the war, these Turkish prisoners had begged for and obtained the work of erecting a triumphal arch in his honour. As for the gipsies, they abounded in Bucharest now that winter had begun to close in upon the country, and the stirring strains of their quaint melodies were to be heard in every café and at almost every street corner.
Brofft’s Hotel was at that time the chief place of entertainment in Bucharest. The principal bedrooms were occupied by ladies who purported to be the wives of the leading Russian officers, but about whom there was a strong smack of the boulevards. In the restaurant the officers themselves dined and drank freely at numberless small tables, Roumanians and Russians taking care to keep apart from each other. You could dine very well at Brofft’s, but you had to pay for your dinner at a rate which cast into the shade the highest charges of Paris or Vienna. It was here that I had experience of an amusing piece of effrontery on the part of the proprietor. On our first evening in Bucharest my two friends and I–for Mr. Greig had been joined by another member of his firm–dined very well, but we were somewhat startled when we had to pay the bill, which amounted to more than a pound a head. The next evening, determined to be economical, we ordered a very moderate repast. Whilst we were eating it, Brofft himself appeared at our table. “I am sorry you are having so poor a dinner to-night, gentlemen,” he said. “I do hope you will let me add something to it, for, you know, the price will be the same, whatever you have.” And, sure enough, we again had to pay more than a pound apiece for this very unsatisfactory dinner. After that experience, we always took care to order the rarest and most costly viands on the _carte du jour._
I made one interesting acquaintance at Bucharest. This was Mr. White, the English Consul. Few at that time anticipated that he was destined to rise to a height never before attained by a member of the Consular Service, and to end his career as Sir William White, her Majesty’s Ambassador at Constantinople. Yet all who are acquainted with the facts are aware that Sir William was better qualified than almost any other man for this high position, and that his death was nothing less than a national misfortune. At Bucharest in 1878 he was living in the simplest fashion in the rambling Consulate. When I first went to call upon him he himself opened the door in response to my knock. We had a long conversation upon Eastern politics, in the course of which he explained his own perfect knowledge of affairs in the Balkan Peninsula by telling me that he knew all the languages spoken in that part of the world, and was consequently able to study the local newspapers for himself. White was a big, powerful man, with an air of unpolished frankness and good-nature that seemed to belie his character as a diplomatist. His was one of the most interesting careers in the public service of this country. In diplomacy he climbed from the very bottom of the tree to the very top, and he did so without having any special personal influence. The Russians both hated him and feared him, and there was nothing he enjoyed so much as a game of diplomatic bowls with Prince Gortschakoff or his successor. Some years before he went to Constantinople Lord Salisbury offered to make him our Minister at Pekin, and rumour has it that he recommended the new position to White on the ground that it was at Pekin that the battle between England and Russia would have to be fought out. But White’s great ambition was to be her Majesty’s Ambassador to the Sublime Porte, and he declined the post at Pekin, where he might have been of even greater service to us than he was at Constantinople.
On my return to England I wrote some account of my trip in the _Fortnightly Review,_ then under the editorship of Mr. John Morley. My journey had undoubtedly opened my eyes to the economic possibilities of Eastern Europe, and it had also proved to me that, at that time, at all events, England was well able to hold her own in the race for commercial supremacy even against Germany. Again and again, in visiting German workshops, I found that the practical direction of the establishment was in the hands of some Englishman or Scotsman, and the intensely practical character of the English workman, his readiness of resource, and his reliance upon himself in difficulties, were themes upon which my German friends were never tired of dilating. I am afraid that the case is somewhat different now, and that we are not so well able to compete, even on their own ground, with the artisans and business men of Germany as we were in 1878.
Death of my Sister’s Husband and of my Brother James–An Accident on Marston Moor–Sir George Wombwell’s Story of the Charge of the Light Brigade–His Adventure on the Ouse–Editing a Daily Newspaper from a Sick Bed–Reflections on Death–Death of my Mother–Serious Illness of my Only Daughter.
There is a great deal of truth in the lines which declare that sorrows and troubles do not come alone–“they come not single spies, but in battalions.” I have had experience of the fact more than once in my own life; but never was it presented to me in such overwhelming force as in the year 1880. On January 1st in that year I attended the funeral of my only sister’s husband at Kilmarnock. He, the Rev. William Bathgate, D.D., was a Scottish minister, a man of culture and refinement, and the author of some theological works which had attained considerable popularity. His death is associated in my mind with a great public calamity, the fall of the Tay Bridge, when a train with all its passengers was destroyed. The wind that toppled over the Tay Bridge proved fatal to my brother-in-law. It was on a Sunday night–the last Sunday of 1879–and he had gone to visit one of the Sunday schools attached to his church. The furious gale, which about the same time destroyed the Tay Bridge, burst in its full fury upon him soon after he had left his house, and after battling against it for some time he found himself so much exhausted that he was unable to move. It was only with the assistance of a kindly passer-by that he was enabled to return home. Half an hour later he died in my sister’s presence, without a sound or a movement. I began the year, consequently, in melancholy circumstances, in attendance at his funeral.
A few weeks later, at the beginning of February, a loss which I felt still more keenly fell upon me. My elder brother, James, who had been my constant companion from boyhood, and who had spent the closing years of his life in intimate association with me at Leeds, died after a lingering illness. The loss of one who had been for so many years my closest companion and my most confidential friend, with whom I consulted over almost every step of my life, was irreparable, and to this hour I continue to feel the lack of his sympathy and advice in moments of personal perplexity. Always more or less of an invalid, he lived much in the life of his brothers, and his cheery fortitude, kindly humour, and unfailing sympathy made his loss keenly felt in our family circle. He died, by a strange coincidence, on the tenth anniversary of the death of my first wife.
Three months later, I myself met with an accident which not only entailed great suffering upon me, but almost cost me my life. It was in the month of May, when, after the severe exertions imposed upon me by the General Election–of which I shall speak fully later on–I had left Leeds for a few days’ rest and change. Sir George Wombwell, of Balaclava fame, had invited a small party–of whom I was one–to join him on a driving tour among the abbeys and ruins of the East Riding. The other members of the party were William Black, Bret Harte, who had not long before taken up his residence in England, and C. O. Shepard, the American Consul at Bradford. Our rendezvous was at York, on a certain Saturday, and we had agreed to spend that afternoon in visiting the battlefield of Marston Moor. We drove out to the field in the highest spirits. I, in particular, was elated at the thought of my escape from the drudgery of my office, as well as by the prospect of the agreeable companionship of Black and Harte, not to speak of Shepard, who was an admirable teller of American stories, of which he possessed an inexhaustible fund.
We were crossing the battlefield on foot when we found our way stopped by a hedge. It was a long way round to the gate of the field, and the hedge did not seem very formidable. At all events, Black and Shepard cleared it at a bound, and laughingly challenged Harte and me to follow their example. But we were prudent men, and openly congratulated ourselves upon that fact when we discovered a gap, through which it seemed possible to pass quite easily. Harte passed through without difficulty, and I followed his example. I had to jump about eighteen inches from the bank of the hedge into the field. Nothing seemed simpler. Yet when I landed on my feet one of them was caught in some mysterious way in a hole in the ground, and whilst it was held as in a vice, my body was wrenched round on the axis of my knee. To this day I do not understand how it happened. All I knew at the moment was that something had given way in the knee-joint, and that when I attempted to put my foot to the ground after extricating it from the hole in which it had been caught “the pains of hell gat hold upon me.” I suppose I must, up to that time, have been fairly free from physical torments of any kind. I had certainly no conception, before that moment, that it was possible for a human being to suffer such torture as I had then to endure.
I turned away my face from my companions so that they might not see that I was suffering, and they went on unconscious of anything having happened. I set off to follow them, supporting myself as best I could with an umbrella which I chanced to be carrying. When they saw that I limped they inquired the cause, but I reassured them by saying that it was nothing more than a slight sprain. I was determined that I would not spoil sport, or cast a shadow over the good spirits of our party. But, Heavens, how that knee tortured me! I suppose I was a fool. Indeed the doctor told me so the next morning, with some heat and quite unnecessary emphasis. But I went on at the moment as if nothing had happened, crawling with the aid of my umbrella across field after field, and even climbing up some steps in order to see the room where Cromwell slept the night before–or was it the night after?–the battle. Then I walked on to the place where our carriage was waiting for us. It was standing at a little country public-house. “I am going in here to get a drink,” said I to Black. “What!” cried he. “Drink anything here? Why, they’ll poison you!” “So much the better,” I retorted, and then my friends began to realise that I was hurt. They consulted together as to the stimulant that was most likely to be innocuous, and finally decided upon gin. I had never drunk gin in my life before. I now tossed off three glasses in quick succession. It was very nasty, and it did not take away the pain, but it made me feel rather less like dying than I had done before.
Somehow or other I got back to York, and, with the aid of the hotel porter, undressed and got to bed. By this time my knee was enormously swollen, but I was so ignorant of the actual position of affairs that I honestly thought that all that was necessary to put me right again was a rest of a few hours. Unfortunately, I was not allowed even that homoeopathic remedy. We were to dine with Sir George Wombwell at the Yorkshire Club that evening. I proposed to stay in bed at the hotel, but to this Black demurred. He hated to meet strangers, and he declared that if I did not go with him to the club he would not go at all. So once more the porter was requisitioned, and with his help I managed to get into evening clothes. Arrived at the club, the quick, soldierly eye of Sir George Wombwell instantly detected my condition, and diagnosed it more accurately than either I or my companions had done. I remained to dinner, but a leg-rest was provided for me, and everything done to make me feel comfortable, whilst Sir George sent a messenger to Mr. Husband, an eminent surgeon of York, asking him to see me at the hotel as early as possible next morning.
The evening passed like a nightmare, but I still have a vivid recollection of the account which Sir George Wombwell gave me of his famous ride with the Light Brigade at Balaclava. His horse was shot under him whilst they were charging for the guns, and, being left behind whilst the brigade thundered onward, he was made prisoner by the Russian cavalry, which closed in behind our English horse. His captivity lasted, however, for but a few minutes. The cry was raised that the English were returning from their mad but heroic enterprise, and instantly the Russians scattered and fled. As Lord Cardigan, who was riding in front of the remnant of the shattered brigade, passed Wombwell, he shouted, “Catch a horse, you d–d young fool, and come with us!”–advice which Wombwell promptly took. He found the charger of a Russian officer, and, mounting it, came back in safety with the few survivors of the awful day.
That was not, however Wombwell declared, the occasion on which his life had been in greatest peril. Years afterwards, he and Sir Charles Slingsby and a number of the members of the York and Anisty Hunt were crossing the Ouse in a ferryboat, when some of the horses were seized with panic, and the boat was upset. Sir Charles Slingsby and a number of others–twelve, I believe, in all–were drowned, Wombwell being one of the few who escaped. This he regarded as a much more dangerous adventure than the charge of the Light Brigade. Someone at the dinner-table told a story about this tragedy which Wombwell, I thought, hardly liked. The ferry-boat was upset in the river adjoining Sir Charles Slingsby’s estate. One of his tenants who had heard of the disaster, and had been told that only one of the baronets had escaped, was hurrying to the scene of the catastrophe, when he met Sir George Wombwell riding home. As soon as the man saw Sir George he flung up his hands, and in accents of dismay cried, “Eh! but they’ve drowned t’wrang baronet!”
On the morning after this dinner, Mr. Husband visited me and inspected my knee. I told him that I meant to stay in bed during the day, but hoped he would allow me to keep an engagement I had made to dine at the Cavalry Barracks in the evening. Eyeing me with great severity, the good surgeon said: “You are a man of intelligence, or at least you ought to be, considering the position you hold. You must surely know that you have met with an injury that will keep you in bed for weeks, at least.” And he hinted, not obscurely, that still worse things than prolonged confinement to bed would certainly befall me if I did not take the greatest care of my injured leg. So there ended all my hopes of a pleasant holiday. The next day I was taken back to Leeds in a state of absolute helplessness, and, being got to bed in my own house, had to remain there for nine mortal weeks.
Some of the experiences of that time were curious. Phlebitis had set in, and for a time I was in serious danger from the formation of a clot of blood in one of the arteries. As is pretty generally known, whilst this state of things exists death may occur at any moment from the stoppage of the heart through the clot getting free and passing into the central organ. It was curious to lie in this condition for several days, never knowing at night whether I should see the sun rise again. But I was very much struck by the fact that I became easily reconciled to my state, and did not feel the slightest apprehension with regard to the course of the disease. I was almost free from pain, and was able to carry on my work as regularly as if I had been in attendance at the _Mercury_ office. Every evening I dictated my leading article to a shorthand writer. A telephone–at that time a great novelty–was put up by the side of my bed and connected with my room at the _Mercury_ office, and by this means I was kept in constant communication with the members of my staff.
Thus my time passed pleasantly enough. When I was not dictating I was reading, and during my confinement I re-read the whole of the Waverley novels. It was when I was once more enjoying the romantic adventures of “Ivanhoe” that I was seized, one afternoon, with the premonitory symptoms which my doctors had told me would indicate the approach of death. At my urgent request they had enlightened me upon this point, and I had learned that death from the accidental stoppage of the heart would be without pain, and would simply be preceded by a feeling of faintness. It was a feeling of this kind which suddenly stole over me as I was reading “Ivanhoe.” I felt it deepening, and laid aside my book under the firm conviction that I would never again read printed page. Asking for some stimulant, I was given some brandy and water, but it seemed to have no effect in checking the ever-increasing faintness. So I closed my eyes in the drowsy belief that I should never open them again in this world. I felt no pain, no agitation, no fear. Half an hour later I awoke from a placid sleep, and, to my great surprise, found that I was decidedly better than I had been for some time. This seemed, indeed, to have been the crisis of my illness, and from that point I slowly recovered. My doctors conjectured that a minute clot of blood had really passed through my heart, producing the faintness from which I had suffered, but not causing death.
I have dwelt at unconscionable length upon this incident of my accidental injury and subsequent illness, but I have done so for the very reason that, sooner or later, experiences of this kind come to most of us, and it may be of some use to state exactly, not only the wonderful rapidity with which a man by the simplest misadventure may imperil his life, but the sensations with which he greets the apparent approach of death. All who have suffered from severe illness must know how readily the invalid accustoms himself to seclusion from the world, and how quickly the panorama of passing life seems to fade into insignificance. The outside world becomes, at such a time, a mere passing show which has but a secondary interest for the man who can take no part in it. As for the approach of death, I believe, from my own experience, that there is nothing to which a sick man more easily reconciles himself. Certainly, since those days in 1880 I have lost any fear I may have had before of that inevitable end which awaits us all. It is the recovery from a severe illness of accidental injury that is the really trying thing. For many weeks after I left my bed I was a cripple, compelled to use crutches in moving about, and suffering from extreme weakness. I went to Bridlington, a watering-place on the Yorkshire coast, to recruit, and, hiring a small trawling boat, I spent every day upon the sea, beating up and down the fine bay trawling for fish. In this way I got plenty of fresh air without bodily fatigue, whilst I had the enjoyment of one of my favourite pursuits.
Shortly after my return from Bridlington, and whilst I was still crippled, another great misfortune befell me. This was the death, on the 5th of August, of my mother, a woman of distinct culture and intellectual power, to whom her children had been indebted for many things in addition to the motherly love which she lavished upon them all so freely. It was, I think, the shock of her death, and the exertion of the railway journey to my brother Stuart’s house at Wilmslow, Cheshire, which I took in order that I might see her before she died, that brought about a relapse in my condition. In the hope that I should benefit by it, my doctors ordered me a long sea voyage. It was the first I had ever undertaken. I sailed from Liverpool on the _Sidon_, one of the Cunard Company’s steamers, for a round trip through the Mediterranean to Constantinople and back. The _Sidon_ was a slow old boat, and we took ten days to reach Malta, the first place of stoppage. I never enjoyed ten days so much before or since. The novelty of life at sea charmed me, whilst the freedom from all work and anxiety was delightful. Every day I seemed to have acquired a fresh stock of vigour, and by the time we reached Malta I could no longer pretend to be an invalid. It was fortunate for me that my health had undergone this wonderful improvement, for we had no sooner cast anchor in the busy harbour of Valetta than a telegram was put into my hands, announcing that my only daughter Nellie had been struck down by typhoid on the very day on which I sailed from England.
There was no opportunity at the moment of getting back from Malta to England direct, and I had consequently to continue my voyage to Syra, Smyrna, and Constantinople, getting telegrams, of course, at each place as to the condition of the invalid. At Constantinople I had an urgent summons from my daughter’s medical attendants, and started at an hour’s notice for home by the overland route, such as it then was. Leaving Constantinople on a Tuesday at two o’clock by the Austrian Lloyd steamer for Varna, I reached my own house in Yorkshire shortly after midnight on the following Sunday. I believe I established on that occasion a record in travelling from the Bosphorus to Leeds. I have described this overland journey in “Gladys Fane.” It was an experience worth remembering, especially in these days of _trains de luxe_, when the traveller passes from Calais to Constantinople without a change of carriage. From Constantinople to Varna I had an exceedingly rough passage in the Austrian boat, and at Varna the weather was so bad that it was with difficulty that I persuaded the captain to allow me to land in time to catch the through train. The whole of the following day we were passing through the gloomy uplands of Bulgaria. Crossing the Danube at Rustchuk in the evening, we reached Bucharest by nine o’clock at night. Here was the only opportunity I had during my journey of obtaining a night’s rest, and I eagerly availed myself of it. Remembering Brofft’s extortions on the occasion of my previous visit to Bucharest, I went to a new hotel which had just been opened, one of the advertised attractions of which was its moderate charges.
The next morning, when I was preparing for my early start by train, the proprietor of the hotel came to have a chat with me, and I explained to him the reason why I had chosen his house in preference to Brofft’s. “Quite right, sir!” he exclaimed with great heartiness. “Everybody says the same thing. Take my word for it, sir, Brofft is a thief.” At that moment my bill was handed to me. It was more extortionate than anything I had known at Brofft’s. “That is as it may be.” I said, turning to the landlord, “but I think you will agree with me that if Brofft is a thief, he is not the only one in Bucharest.” Things, I hope, have changed since then. If they have not done so I am sorry for the tourist who unwittingly includes Bucharest in the round of the holiday vacation. From Bucharest to London, and thence to Leeds, I came practically without a break, and on reaching my own home once more, in the dead of the night, I had the joy of knowing that the crisis of my daughter’s illness was passed, and that she was spared to me. Here ends the chronicle of my misfortunes during the year 1880. It is but a trivial tale, and one that, I fear, will have small interest for the reader, but I have ventured to tell it as an illustration of the adage that troubles never come singly. In the quarter of a century that has elapsed since then I have not had to encounter such a series of misfortunes as came upon me in the first nine months of that ill-omened year.
Mr. Gladstone’s Position in 1879–His Decision to Contest Midlothian–How he came to be Adopted by the Leeds Liberals–The Conversation Club–A Visit from John Morley–The Dissolution of 1880–Lecture on Mr. Gladstone–His Triumphant Return for Leeds–His Election for Midlothian–Mr. Herbert Gladstone Adopted as his Successor at Leeds–Mr. Gladstone’s Visit to Leeds in 1881–A Fiasco Narrowly Avoided–A Wonderful Mass Meeting–Mr. Gladstone’s Collapse and Recovery–My Introduction to Him–An Excursion to Tunis–“The Land of the Bey”–Mr. A. M. Broadley’s Prophecies–Howard Payne’s Grave–A Series of Coincidences.
The misfortunes described in the last chapter befell me in 1880; I must now retrace my steps and go back to the year 1879. That year was largely spent in preparations for the General Election. Party spirit ran very high. Lord Beaconsfield retained his great popularity in London and among the classes, and the Press and the clubs in consequence believed that the General Election, when it came, would provide him with another victory. Mr. Gladstone was hated more than ever by the London journalists, and by all who had been attracted by the showy foreign policy of Lord Beaconsfield. I am afraid that he was not at this time over popular in the inner circle of his own party. He had resigned the leadership in 1875, and had ostensibly gone into retirement. He had emerged from that retirement in 1876, in order to be the voice of the nation in its outburst of indignation against the Sultan.
From that time forward he had occupied a curious position. He was neither leader nor follower, but a great force, acting independently of other persons, and disconcerting them visibly by the unexpectedness of his movements.
I had access, years afterwards, to the records of the meetings of the leading members of the Liberal party during the period between 1874 and 1880. It was easy to gather from these secret and confidential memoirs that Mr. Gladstone was found to be an uneasy bedfellow by his old colleagues. When he was moved by any strong impulse he was very apt to forget that Lord Hartington was the nominal leader of the Opposition, and to take some line of action without waiting to consult his ostensible chief. He did, I believe, consult Lord Granville with frequency, if not with regularity. Lord Granville was, in his opinion, the leader of the whole party, whilst the only post held by Lord Hartington was that of leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons. The result of his frequent interventions in public affairs was undoubtedly to throw the Opposition into some confusion. The _Times_, and the other chief organs of the London Press, constantly poured ridicule upon his speeches, and did their best to accentuate the differences between himself and his former colleagues. It followed–not unnaturally, perhaps–that there were those among the leaders of the Liberal party who desired to prevent Mr. Gladstone’s return to power. But whilst the great chief was thus assailed and intrigued against in London, his position in the country was every day becoming stronger.
It was known that he meant to retire from the representation of Greenwich when the Parliament elected in 1874 came to an end. A score of different towns contended for the honour of securing him as the Liberal representative. Leeds, amongst other great constituencies, sent a deputation to Harley Street, where Mr. Gladstone was living. To all these offers he turned a deaf ear, and to the amazement of everybody it was announced that he had decided to contest Midlothian, at that time represented by Lord Dalkeith, whose father, the Duke of Buccleuch, was the recognised leader of Conservatism in Scotland. Many years afterwards I learned from Mr. Gladstone himself that before accepting the candidature for Midlothian he consulted Lord Granville and Lord Hartington, pointing out to them that if he were to enter into a colossal struggle like that involved in the fight for the great Tory stronghold of Midlothian, instead of accepting one of the safe seats offered to him elsewhere, his position in the party would of necessity be altered. In short, he could only fight Midlothian as a leader. Lord Granville and Lord Hartington, undeterred by this consideration, still pressed him to stand for Midlothian. From the moment he consented to do so Mr. Gladstone undoubtedly regarded himself as the leader in the great campaign upon which the country was about to embark.
In Leeds great efforts were made by the Liberals in preparation for the conflict. My own position in the party was now very different from what it had been in 1874. I had been taken into the innermost circle of the caucus, and now exercised a considerable amount of direct influence over its proceedings. Having formed an intimate friendship with the honorary secretary of the Liberal Association, Mr. Mathers, I was consulted upon every step that was taken. It was at my suggestion that Mr.–now Sir James–Kitson was invited to become our president, and I believe I am correct in saying that it was by my arguments that he was induced to accept the office. From the moment when he did so, the organisation of the party in Leeds–where in 1874 we had met with so cruel a disaster–began to advance by leaps and bounds. Kitson was a man of great sagacity and shrewdness, and of much strength of character. Mathers was simply the best organiser and wire-puller I ever met in the course of my life. He was a master of detail, one of those rare men who can retain within their grasp the full knowledge of every fact in the most complicated of problems. He was also, like myself, an enthusiastic Gladstonian. Unkind people in Leeds said in those days that the Liberal party consisted of three persons, Kitson, Mathers, and Reid. This may not have been absolutely correct, but it was certainly not very far from the truth.
On every side we witnessed, during this year 1879, the revival of Liberal feeling, and the rapid growth of a strong hostility to Lord Beaconsfield’s adventures in the domain of foreign affairs. The current had turned with a vengeance, and the flowing tide was indeed with us. We three organisers of Leeds Liberalism were determined that at the coming General Election we would win a victory that should fully redeem the character of our town and give it a leading place in the political world. We were, however, somewhat hampered for want of a good candidate to stand along with Mr. Barran, the sitting member. I had found a thoroughly suitable man who would have been a credit to the constituency, but there were other candidates in the field, and it seemed as though one of these would be chosen by the Liberal Four Hundred. For the adoption of a candidate was a matter which rested solely with the Four Hundred, and they clung to this prerogative of theirs with great tenacity.
On the eve of the meeting at which they were to make their final selection of a colleague for Mr. Barran, I learned that my fears were well founded, and that the choice was likely to fall upon a gentleman whom I did not regard as suitable. In order to prevent this, I proposed in the _Leeds Mercury_ of the next morning that, in spite of Mr. Gladstone’s acceptance of the candidature for Midlothian, we should make him our candidate at Leeds also. It was true that he had already refused the invitation of the Leeds Liberals, but I pointed out that the fight for Midlothian would notoriously be a severe one, and that it was quite possible that Mr. Gladstone might be defeated. In such a case, if the Liberal Association adopted my suggestion, Leeds would secure the high honour of being represented by Mr. Gladstone, whilst, in any event, our adoption of him as a candidate would enable him to conduct the contest in Midlothian without feeling any anxiety as to a possible interruption in his Parliamentary career. To my great delight, the Liberal Association not only adopted my suggestion, but did so with enthusiasm. I had consulted nobody before making it, but I had the satisfaction of finding that everybody approved of it–everybody, that is to say, except the gentleman who had won over to his own candidature a considerable proportion of the Four Hundred.
When the Association met that evening the whole of the candidates whose claims had been so eagerly discussed beforehand were swept ruthlessly aside, and nothing was talked of but the proposal of the _Leeds Mercury_. After some discussion–in the course of which one gentleman shrewdly pointed out that the anonymous letter suggesting the candidature of Mr. Gladstone was probably written by the editor of the _Mercury_ himself–the Association resolved by an overwhelming majority that Mr. Gladstone should be one of the two Liberal candidates for Leeds at the next election. And yet, at the very time when this proof of his extraordinary hold upon the affections of a great community was made public, the London newspapers were speaking of Mr. Gladstone as a politician who no longer possessed either reputation or influence. We, who had to live at a distance from Fleet Street, were at least able to form a sounder judgment upon this point.
I may interpolate here an account of one of the institutions of Leeds that helped to reconcile me to my sojourn in that city. I do so because it has always seemed to me to be a model institution of the kind. This was the Conversation Club. It consisted of twelve members who were supposed to be more or less representative of the intellectual life of the town. The meetings were held monthly, each member entertaining his fellow-members once a year in his own house. After dinner the host acted as president, and the members present talked upon some selected subject. By an ingenious arrangement it was impossible that anyone should know beforehand what the subject of conversation on any particular evening would be. In this way the preparation of set arguments was prevented, and the club had nothing about it of the debating society. Speeches, of course, were strictly prohibited. We limited ourselves to real conversation, and many a delightful talk we had after dinner in those Leeds drawing-rooms in which we met. Any facility I may have gained in conversation I feel that I owe to the club, as I owe to it also many happy and instructive hours. Considering our limited numbers, and the fact that we met in a provincial town, we counted in our membership an usually large number of men who have made some mark in the world. Amongst the members were William Edward Forster, Sir Edward Baines, the Bishops of Ely (Woodford), Truro (Gott), Chester (Jayne), and Rochester (Talbot); Clifford Allbutt, Regius Professor of Medicine at Cambridge; Professor–now Sir Arthur–Rücker, who has been secretary of the Royal Society and President of the British Association, and is now Principal of the University of London; Professor Thorpe, the chemist and Government analyst, and Dr. Edison. This is not a bad list for so small a club, and one might easily give many other names, in addition, of men who would have been welcomed anywhere for their knowledge and attainments. In the year 1900 the club celebrated its jubilee, and its members can look back with satisfaction upon the influence which it has had on the social and intellectual life of Leeds. Politics and religion were forbidden themes; but many public movements of great importance for the development and improvement of Leeds have had their origin in our conversations, whilst the intellectual stimulus which those conversations afforded cannot be forgotten by at least one grateful member of the club.
I may here mention a visit I received from John Morley about this period. He was one of the many men whose acquaintanceship I owed to the good offices of Lord Houghton. It is an acquaintanceship that has lasted over a considerable stretch of years, and that has from time to time been of a close and almost confidential character. The charm of John Morley’s manner, and the brightness of his talk, have been felt and acknowledged by all who have been brought into contact with him, and it would be superfluous on my part to say anything about his literary reputation. But I have always felt that neither his fine gifts nor his peculiar temperament were suited for the rough and tumble of political warfare. I have felt this whether I have been, as has often happened, marching behind him in thorough unison with his opinions, or, as has also occurred at times, directly opposed to him and to his policy. He came to see me at Leeds because, having undertaken to deliver an address to the Trades Union Congress, he was wishful to learn something on the spot of the relations of master and men in a great industrial community. I made him acquainted with my friends James Kitson and David Greig. He discussed with them the problems concerning the relations of labour and capital, and in their company visited the great industrial establishments over which they presided. At that time he was not in Parliament, nor had he begun his editorship of the _Pall Mall Gazette_. I remember that, after a fatiguing day, spent in the works of the Kitsons, Morley expressed his conviction that the great captains of industry, like Kitson and Greig, were not only of greater importance to the world than a mere Secretary of State, but were engaged upon much more laborious and responsible tasks. I do not know if he still adheres to that opinion.
I must now turn back to the course of public events, or at least of those with which I had some personal connection. The dissolution of 1880 came very unexpectedly, almost as unexpectedly as that of 1874. One evening, as I was preparing to go down to the office, a messenger arrived in hot haste with a telegram that had come over the _Mercury_ private wire stating that the intention to dissolve Parliament had been announced in the House of Commons that evening. Kitson, Mathers, and I had made all our preparations, so the plan of campaign was already settled. On getting the telegram I crossed over to the house of Mathers, who was a neighbour of mine, and told him the news, and together we drove off to Kitson’s to take the first steps in the battle. The next morning the people of Leeds awoke to discover every dead wall in the town placarded with an address, signed by the president of the Liberal Association, announcing the dissolution, and appealing to the electors to support the Liberal candidates, Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Barran. By ten o’clock in the forenoon our committee rooms were open, and in full working order, and bands of willing workers, whom we had summoned the night before, were already being despatched to all quarters of the town to begin the indispensable canvass. Our opponents were taken completely by surprise, and we had gained that great advantage in all contests, the first start. As it began, so it continued. All through the great struggle the Conservatives were hopelessly behind us. As the enthusiastic Mathers afterwards remarked, “We were right on the top of them the whole time.” It was a stirring and Homeric contest. To a staunch Liberal it was one that gave unalloyed satisfaction, for all through the great fight there was the amplest evidence that the flowing tide was on the side of Liberalism.
In Leeds we had, of course, to face the disadvantage of fighting without our chief candidate. Not by a word nor a sign did Mr. Gladstone, who was deep in his own struggle in Midlothian, show that he was conscious that an election in which he was personally concerned was going on in Yorkshire. Naturally, our opponents made the most of this, and we had constantly to meet the taunt that we were asking the electors to vote for a man who had refused to countenance our proceedings, and who would never, as a matter of fact, sit as the representative of Leeds in the House of Commons. In ordinary times we should undoubtedly have suffered from this taunt, especially since it had the merit of being true. But in 1880 the times were the reverse of ordinary. The overwhelming majority of the people of Great Britain seemed to be possessed by an almost passionate admiration for Mr. Gladstone. Future generations will find it difficult to understand the extent of the fascination that he seemed, at that period in his career, to exercise over the minds and hearts of a majority of his fellow countrymen. Whilst London, and the London press, still refused to admit that he could ever return to power, there was not a public gathering in the provinces at which the mention of his name was not received with enthusiastic cheering, so that, at last, men were almost afraid to name him in their speeches, lest they should be accused of bidding for the inevitable applause. If there was one town in the country where this enthusiasm ran higher than in any other, it was Leeds. We had no reason, therefore, to fear the taunts of our opponents. We knew that we were being swept on an irresistible current to an assured victory.
On the Saturday before the polling-day a great meeting was held in the Albert Hall, presided over by Kitson. The chief business of the meeting was to listen to a lecture on Mr. Gladstone which I had prepared for the occasion. Never before had I addressed so large an audience, nor one possessed by so boundless an enthusiasm. It was amid an almost incessant accompaniment of rolling cheers that I delivered my hour-long eulogium upon the Liberal leader. I had thought that I had gone as far as any man could in his praise, but I found I had not gone far enough for my audience, and the only sounds of dissent I heard were when I ventured mildly to hint that at some period or other in his career the great man had not shown himself to be infallible. I dwell upon this state of public feeling because it ought to be understood by those who wish to appreciate aright the history of our country at that period. I do not think I go too far when I say that the feeling entertained towards Mr. Gladstone in 1880 by the great majority of the people of these islands was nothing less than idolatrous. Any smaller man must have been intoxicated by the knowledge of the feeling he had thus aroused. It says much for Mr. Gladstone that, so far from showing any signs of intoxication or personal exultation, from first to last he seemed to regard his hold upon the masses of the people simply as one of the assets in the cause of which he had made himself the champion.
After I had finished my lecture in the Albert Hall a young man, then unknown to me, and who was described as an Oxford don, was called upon to address the meeting. This was Mr. Arthur Acland, subsequently a member of Mr. Gladstone’s last Cabinet. The next day I wrote to Mrs. Gladstone–for all direct communication with her husband was forbidden–telling her how the contest was going, and predicting that not less than twenty thousand electors would vote for her husband on the polling day. My prediction was more than fulfilled, for when the votes were counted it was found that Mr. Gladstone’s stood at the remarkable number of 24,622, whilst Mr. Barran came next to him with 23,674. Mr. W. L. Jackson (afterwards Chief Secretary for Ireland), the successful Conservative candidate, was more than ten thousand below the number secured by Mr. Gladstone. It was, indeed, a famous victory; and when I parted from Kitson and Mathers after the declaration of the poll, whilst we all felt more than repaid for the toil and anxiety of months, we admitted, with a certain amount of sadness, that we could never hope to repeat such a success. “Whatever happens, we shall never see 1880 again,” said Kitson, and he spoke truly. Mrs. Gladstone, on receipt of my letter, had written to me expressing her warm thanks for what “the dear people of Leeds” were doing, but she said not a word about her husband, nor did we receive a sign or acknowledgment of the stupendous victory–a victory which had staggered the whole country, and opened the eyes even of the London clubs to Mr. Gladstone’s real position–whilst the Midlothian contest remained in suspense. We heard, indeed, from a private source, that the company assembled with Mr. Gladstone under Lord Rosebery’s roof at Dalmeny had “jumped for joy” when the telegram announcing the Leeds result had arrived. But that was all.
A few days later Midlothian also spoke, and in turn elected Mr. Gladstone as its representative. Within an hour of the declaration of the poll in Edinburgh, Kitson received a telegram from Mr. Gladstone, thanking Leeds for all that it had done. It was characteristic of the great man’s businesslike habits and careful attention to small details that the telegram was so worded as to come within the limits of the shilling rate which was then the minimum charge for telegraphic messages. A day or two later Mr. Gladstone wrote fully and most cordially in acknowledgment of the great services which had been rendered to him and to the Liberal cause by the party in Leeds. But his real thanks were given to us more than a year after, when he paid a memorable visit to the town, of which I shall have occasion to speak later.
A few weeks afterwards, when the Gladstone Ministry had been formed, and the new Parliament, with its overwhelming Liberal majority, had met, we had fresh reason to acknowledge the unique and astounding position of supremacy which Mr. Gladstone had secured among his fellow countrymen. He had, as from the first was anticipated, elected to sit for Midlothian, and there was consequently a vacancy for Leeds. All the heart had been taken out of the Tories of the borough by the beating they had received, and their leaders courteously informed us that they would not oppose any candidate whom we might elect. We had, it need hardly be said, many applicants for this safe seat, but we–I speak of the recognised leaders of the Liberal party in the town–had fixed upon one man to fill the vacancy. This was Edward Baines, who had been, as I have told on a previous page, so scurvily treated by the teetotallers in 1874. The executive committee of the Association agreed by a unanimous vote to propose Mr. Baines to the Four Hundred as the new candidate in place of Mr. Gladstone. But we reckoned without our host, and, above all, we had failed to give due weight to the overwhelming strength of the Gladstone cult.
When we met the Four Hundred, and Mr. Baines was duly proposed and seconded in the name of the executive committee, we found that the proposition was but coldly received; nor were we long left in doubt as to the reason. Someone in the body of the hall got up and proposed that Mr. Herbert Gladstone should be the Liberal candidate. Herbert Gladstone was at that time a stranger to me, and I believe to every other man in the room. All that we knew of him was that he was Mr. Gladstone’s youngest son, that he was twenty-five years of age, and that he had just been defeated by Lord George Hamilton in the contest for Middlesex. No member of Mr. Gladstone’s family had suggested Herbert’s name to us, and we had naturally felt that the first claim to the vacant seat lay with our old representative and honoured fellow-townsman. But it was useless to struggle against the glamour of the name of Gladstone. The whole meeting broke away from its recognised leaders, and adopted with enthusiasm the candidature of Herbert Gladstone. Looking back, I cannot pretend to regret its decision. Though we knew nothing of Herbert Gladstone at the time, when we did get to know him, a few weeks later, we found him to be a young man of the highest promise, of exceptional talents, and of great amiability of character. The Liberals of Leeds ratified the verdict of the Four Hundred, and he was elected almost by acclamation to be the representative of the town in Parliament–a position which he still holds. The incident of his election when personally quite unknown is, however, conclusive as to the extent of his father’s influence among the electors of the country.
In those days, it is no reflection upon Herbert Gladstone’s abilities to say that one of the most powerful influences in his favour was his appearance. The young women of Leeds of the working-class formed the highest estimate of his good looks, and whenever he appeared in public a crowd of them gathered to feast their eyes upon his pleasant and handsome features. In the later elections that took place during my residence at Leeds I always accompanied him in his drive through his constituency on the polling day. Wherever our carriage stopped, a group of young women flocked round it, and Gladstone had to listen to their somewhat embarrassing comments upon his appearance–comments, I ought to say, that were uniformly favourable. In the 1885 election, which took place in November, we had drawn up in front of one of the Liberal clubs, and he had gone inside the building to interview his committee. As he disappeared from view, the young women burst forth in their usual praise of his appearance. “Eh, but isn’t he good-looking? Shouldn’t I like to kiss him!” said one of the girls who was standing at my elbow. “Would you really?” I said, anxious for some relief to the grave business of the day; and the girl repeated her declaration. “Then when he comes out of the club,” said I, “you may give him a kiss if you like.” And, to my great amusement, when the candidate reappeared, a pair of buxom arms were suddenly thrown round his neck, and a good-looking girl kissed him heartily. The crowd cheered with enthusiasm, all the more because of the blush which spread over the features of the ingenuous candidate thus taken by surprise. But kisses, as we learnt long ago, are not to be despised as electioneering weapons.
It was in October, 1881, that the Prime Minister came to Leeds to thank us for his election in the previous year. Among the many political meetings, or series of meetings, that I remember, I can call to mind none like this. For weeks before the event we of the Liberal Committee were engaged in preparing for it. Mr. Gladstone was to arrive on the Thursday evening, and to leave on Saturday evening. Into the forty-eight hours of his visit a series of engagements was packed to which a week might well have been devoted. On the first evening he was formally welcomed to the town, which had been decorated for the occasion as though for a royal visit. Afterwards a large dinner party was held at the residence of his host, Mr. (now Sir James) Kitson. On the Friday he received an address from the Mayor and Corporation, and another from the Chamber of Commerce, to both of which he replied in speeches of some length. A little later in the day a great meeting was held in the Victoria Hall, at which addresses