London Days: A Book of Reminiscences

When Gladstone died, men did not agree about what he had done in his more than sixty years of public life,—done, that is, for the United Kingdom and the Empire. They do not agree now. What was the outstanding achievement of his life, the thing, above all, by which posterity will remember him? Was it his devotion to the freedom of human kind? Perhaps. But the main question is so difficult to answer that I shall not attempt the task, not merely because it is difficult, but mainly because it is not my intention to tread the mazes of British politics.

The Nineteenth Century, the despised Victorian Age, if you please, was an age of great men. Some of them seem smaller now than they did before July, 1914. Bismarck, for example. Bismarck was a liar. Gladstone was not. And yet he had a theological mind. Gladstone's stature has not diminished with the shrinking process of time. But will it diminish? Who can tell? The world salutes his integrity. Does it salute for integrity and courage any political personage of to-day?

The world was taught, generation after generation, that the emergency produces the man. The year 1914 and its six successors brought emergency to every country, such emergency as no country had ever known before. But the emergencies did not produce the political men. Only France produced the political man. Without him, German intrigue would have overrun the world, even after the Germans fled from France and Belgium and the East. We would have been smothered by words and machinations, as northern France and Belgium had been smothered by the Teutonic cloud-bursts. But there was Clémenceau,—Clémenceau who had appointed Foch.

These two men and the Allied commanders brought victory to civilisation. If the politicians do not destroy the work and plans, the "peace" they are making now will endure for a while. If the politicians, toying with their new doll, the League of Nations, keep their heads in the clouds, I believe they will come crashing to earth within ten years, frightened and amazed by a greater and longer war than has yet been known. They sowed its seeds in the Armistice and at Versailles. And later when, month after month, they changed their plans from day to day.

It is sometimes unwise to avoid digressions. No apology is made, or considered necessary, for this one.

I was speaking of Mr. Gladstone. It was my privilege to see him and hear him frequently during twenty years. Perhaps it was due to some defect of nature that I was never much influenced politically by him. His eloquence was anything you may choose to imagine it, and you would have admired it, if you could dissociate from it the involved phrases, the delicate adjustments, the hair-split meanings which might balance any interpretation that might be put upon them, the contradictions, the finely-spun arguments which, woven into the texture of his speeches, would enmesh the unwary,—you would have admired it hugely if you could have dissociated these things from it. His majorities probably did not make the effort. He had the magic of making them forget.

He could be, and was, eloquent on any subject, and, for that reason, he could and did unsettle many minds on many themes. He was a word-spinner of extraordinary skill and charm, and he made multitudes think they had opinions of their own when their opinions were what he had taught them. That is one of the gifts of leadership. And it was a special privilege of Mr. Gladstone's leadership of democracy that he remained an aristocrat by habit and inclination. Morley's "Life" of him contains this passage from a privately printed account of Ruskin at Hawarden:

"Something like a little amicable duel took place at one time between Ruskin and Mr. G. when Ruskin directly attacked his host as a 'leveller.' 'You see you think one man is as good as another, and all men equally competent to judge aright on political questions; whereas I am a believer in an aristocracy.' And straight came the answer from Mr. Gladstone, 'Oh dear, no! I am nothing of the sort. I am a firm believer in the aristocratic principle—the rule of the best. I am an out-and-out inequalitarian,' a confession which Ruskin treated with intense delight, clapping his hands triumphantly."

Eloquence has not been rated modestly among the arts during some thousands of years. Whether it has done more for the advancement or the retardation of man may be a subject for dispute. That it has done both is unquestioned by those who talk less than they think. It is a useful accomplishment when the object is to get a body of men to think and act in unison; it is equally useful in promoting disunion. It is therefore of most service to politicians and preachers, the aim of these gentlemen being to promote unity for their own causes by promoting disaffection in and with all other causes. Of all the statesmen of the nineteenth century, Mr. Gladstone was preëminent in the promotion of disaffection. I do not know that he uprooted anything that deserved to remain among the habits or institutions of mankind; I do not know that he preserved anything that should have been cast upon the dust heap; I do not know that he originated anything; but I always think of him as a great opportunist who was sometimes on the right side, and quite as likely to be on the wrong. But he differed from other conspicuous opportunists in this: he always wrestled with the devil of unbelief. Before adopting a policy he would ask himself, "Is this right?" If he adopted it, you would know that he was convinced of the righteousness of his cause. That he had converted himself, convinced himself by his own eloquence, did not make his conviction less sure, but made it perhaps, more clinching because he had talked himself into belief. His eloquence, therefore, had effect upon himself no less than upon others, as Lord Beaconsfield more than implied when, in a political speech at Knightsbridge, in 1878, he alluded to Mr. Gladstone as "a sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity."

If Mr. Gladstone has been credited too much and too often with all the qualities of a saint, it was, perhaps, because his opponents were always ready to attribute to him the traits of a devil. In our later time there has been no such adulation and no such hatred as were poured upon him. And I take it that these excesses were due to his absorption in things, or subjects, rather than to interest in men. Individuals did not interest him; causes did. The cause, whatever it might be, filled the universe. He could not see men, the people were so conspicuous.

It may have been a fault, it was certainly a characteristic, that when he had once resolved, he expected his followers to exchange, as quickly as himself, old ways of thought for new. It did not occur to him until after the event that he had struck not only the wrong but the unpopular note in the American Civil War. He saw the thing in one way only, and he was immensely surprised when he learned that there was another side to the question, and that it was taken by the country most concerned. But he did what he could and subsequently made a long and almost abject confession of error, which might have shaken, if it did not, the general appreciation of his powers of judgment. It will be said there was the case of Ireland. To be sure there was the case of Ireland. It is always with Britain, even if the Irish are not,—as in the war against Germany. But Mr. Gladstone understood Ireland and the Irish as little as,—well, as little as the Americans understand them. Lord Salisbury, on a certain occasion, said that he (Salisbury) had never seen Mr. Parnell. Almost any one, then, might have repeated to him the famous injunction of Oxenstiern: "Go forth, my son, and see with how little wisdom the world is governed."

Lord Salisbury did not know Parnell by sight, and he gave Heligoland to the Kaiser. Neither Parnell nor Heligoland were important enough in his opinion to justify even visual acquaintance. The world has suffered for his superior neglect in one particular, perhaps in both. But if he, or if Gladstone, or if Gladstone and Salisbury had foreseen what would happen, the world might not have acted any more wisely than it did. It is always too late to be wise. Nobody would have believed the oracles; the truth was in opposition to the world's inclinations. It is usually so. And that is why great men are shunted to the wrong tracks, and so are "great" men only for their age and hour; it is why prophets are stoned, and mediocrities arise and talk, prevailing by sound. Nowadays the eminence of men is fixed by their capacity for catching votes and the commotion they make in doing so.

I thought Mr. Gladstone a vindictive old gentleman. It was not the fashion to think of him in that way. You were supposed to insist upon his more saintly qualities, but there is some difficulty in associating attributes of saintship with eminent politicians during their lifetime, and at the same moment keeping your face straight. The Roman Church, in its sagacity, defers consideration of saintship until long after the decease of the candidates for canonisation. Some centuries, indeed, are required before the purely human element in man may be superseded by the purely divine, even in cases where the voting majority is heavy.

If Mr. Gladstone were not vindictive, I do not see how he contrived so successfully to give that character to his countenance when he was not speaking. One does not say when his countenance was in repose. Repose was unacquainted with his countenance, or with any part of him. The energy which fully charged his body flowed through his mind in a restless and surging torrent. And if he were vindictive, I do not see anything strange, or much that is derogatory in that. A leader of politics must be genuine, or fall far short of greatness. His opponents cannot be opposed to him merely in a parliamentary sense. They may be as genuine as he, but if he hates their acts as evil in nature and result, he cannot in honesty refrain from distrusting the men who lead and inspire the acts, though he may pretend as much as he pleases to do otherwise. His indignation against men and measures does not cease with the adjournment of the House, or with the close of an electioneering campaign, unless he is a hypocrite. And if he fail to pursue his public enemy for the purpose of making him ineffective for public harm, does he not give a too generous interpretation to public duty? That a man is to be hated only at certain hours, or when he says certain things, is conceivable only by the tolerant mass which must usually be told what to think, and which, nine times out of ten, can be relied upon to think to order, especially on party matters. A political party, in any country, is not intended for thinking purposes, but, like an army, is for fighting purposes. If it's in, it fights to stay in; if it's out, it fights to get in. It uses speeches and programmes as military leaders use smoke-screens and gas-discharges, to obscure the real operations and confound the enemy. In the last century we had not learned, although we may have suspected, that the world must be made safe for hypocrisy. It remained for the twentieth century to announce this.

A journalist who gets below the surface of things cannot remain a party man, for the more useful he is to one party the less useful he is to journalism. Sooner or later, and usually sooner than later, he must come up against the barbed wire which divides proprietary or editorial interests from the area of his own convictions. Perhaps the latter are less important than they seem. But they may be more important. At any rate, like Touchstone's Audrey, they are his, and if he has a conscience, which is to be presumed, a conflict between his pen and his principles is bound to occur, unless his chief, or his employer, is a paragon of courage.

"I can't afford the truth, as you call it," said an editor-proprietor one day,—it was over an article about Gladstone. "I must go with my public." He went with it, but his contributor did not. The latter was given the choice of resigning or writing. He did both. He wrote his resignation. How Mr. Gladstone heard of this I do not know, but hear of it he did. It was to his interest to side with the editor, as he did politically, but he met later the contumacious subordinate and said that he was glad to see a junior who stood by his principles and knew how to do so.

"If I have any advantage over others," said the G.O.M., "it is the advantage of a long experience which has taught me to value the quality that Cromwell attributed to his soldiers. Oliver said, 'They make some conscience of what they do.' If we are not ruled by conscience, we are in anarchy. Good conscience makes for fair fighting in politics or war."

"Yes, but, Mr. Gladstone, if the opponent does n't fight fairly?"

"'Bear it that the opposed must beware of thee!'"

That is well as far as it goes. But we do not "fight by the book of arithmetic." Did "the opposed" in Mr. Gladstone's wars beware of him, or of his England? One does not seem to recall their wariness. Not even the Mahdi's. Gordon fought with the front door open, so to speak. Gladstone did not then "make the opposed beware" of his administration, i.e. England, for the time being. And there were other cases. Is it only one's own side that must beware of a policy of dilly-dally? The "ecstatic madman", as Lord Acton, in one of his letters, called Gordon, gave the world furiously to think. But Gladstone knew what Gordon was when he sent him out. And it is more difficult now than it was then to relieve the venerable statesman of responsibility. Gladstone hated war. But his hatred of it did not make war any the less inevitable or less necessary. The enemy rejoiced because the G.O.M. hated war. Let the Pacifists note!

Of the many times when I saw Gladstone at close range, I recall at the moment a night at the Lyceum while Irving was playing "The Merchant of Venice." From my seat it was easily possible to observe the Grand Old Man in his stall. The eagle eyes had always fascinated me. It was as interesting to watch his terrific face as to watch Irving. "Terrific" is not too strong a word. Gladstone's face during the Tubal scene reflected every emotion of vengeance that forced itself from Shylock's soul, and during the Trial scene he glared at Antonio with inquisitorial ferocity while Shylock whetted his knife. It would be the usual and conventional thing to describe this as a tribute to Irving's acting, and in support of this to quote Gladstone's appreciation of that distinguished man, "Shylock is his best, I think"—but the spectator at a play, if we may take Hamlet's word for it, is readier to show sympathy with the victim than with the tormentor; and it was not until after Shylock had whetted his blade that he became changed from the victorious torturer to the abjectly tortured man. Up to that point Gladstone's face expressed demoniacal glee; after it he did not appear to be interested. The psychologists and the partisans may quarrel over this as they please. I think that non-partisans who had much opportunity to study the old parliamentarian's face at close range, amid varying conditions, will not quarrel over this interpretation, or with the adjective employed.

Take another and a very different instance, when Gladstone was the central figure of a moving scene. It was a Liberal Conference at Manchester, in December, 1889. Gladstone had been ill. The press had reported him seriously ill. It was unlikely, the papers said, that he could again address a public meeting, unlikely that he would reappear in the political field. But he appeared at Manchester, and his appearance drew the attention of all Liberal Britain, and a good share of its representative men in person. The immense hall was packed. The seats had been removed from the floor to make room for a greater throng than could otherwise gather. So close was the pressure that it was impossible to move one's arms, even to raise them. The audience worked itself, or rather was worked, to a high pitch of enthusiasm by a skilful organist who played upon them with patriotic songs and Scottish, Welsh, and English ballads. When the kettle was boiling merrily over this fire, and the lid rattling up and down, an old, grey head, world-famous, was seen rising through the platform-crowd, and the alert and venerable figure which carried it moved quickly to the front against a whirlwind of cheers. The roar was like that of a gale-driven sea beating against cliffs. It did not cease until its idol had raised his hand for silence. When it had ceased he sat down, and the chairman called the meeting to order.

A few minutes later, the chairman called upon Mr. Gladstone to speak. The G.O.M. rose to another outburst of welcome, and, upon obtaining silence, said: "Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen." And then the storm of cheering broke anew. It continued for a quarter of an hour, gaining constantly in force and volume. It was taken up in the crowded streets. It was a tempest of sound, within, without. The five words had started an avalanche! When had those five words, or any five, unloosed such clamour? The voice that uttered them had boomed through the great hall like the discharges of big guns. The deep, strong tones, the alertness of motion, the flash of the eagle eyes, said to the assemblage more than the words. Eighty years? Yes, but eighty years young, with health, vigour, fighting power undiminished. The audience could not restrain its joy. Roar upon roar succeeded, wave upon wave of emotion rolled over the crowd; it was a demonstration of thanksgiving, of congratulation, of delight. I have never seen or heard its equal in all the pageants, conventions, progresses, demonstrations of popular enthusiasm that I have witnessed in many parts of the world. Above them all this stands alone, unique in fervour and significance.

"Standing as I do on the verge of four score years"—was the note to which the audience again responded. The shouting was a personal tribute, not merely a political one. I cannot remember what the G.O.M. said in his speech, but I remember that there was scarcely anything of a specific character concerning political measures or men. Gladstone was keeping his powder dry. He dealt in generalities. He was always at his best when so dealing. He lifted his themes to an exalted pitch and did not wreck himself on details.

It was only his greyness that acknowledged age. His voice was as deep and rich as ever it had been, his bearing as alert, his movements as graceful. He seemed to say, "It is impossible to grow old, but, as I cannot live forever, let us get on with the work in hand." His capacity for believing that the moon is made of green cheese, and, what was more important, of making others believe it, was boundless. What was the spell he cast upon his hearers? Even when he was in Opposition, perhaps because of that, for he was best then, the House of Commons would be crowded when he spoke. I have seen him at such a time switch on his green-cheese oratory and hold the House for an hour or two, tense, expectant, submissive under the spell. When he finished, great cheering would rise from both sides,—from his followers because they were charmed, or overwhelmed, and, being of his party, believed in the green-cheese theory and were ready to eat the cheese; from his opponents because they too were charmed, or all but overwhelmed, and for the moment forgot that fealty to their own party should have left the other side of the House to do the cheering. If a vote could have been taken when Gladstone ended his speech, the House would have been unanimous for cheese. But parliamentary procedure permits, or compels, a leading opponent to reply, and the reply broke the spell and recalled several hundred Britons to their partisan duties.

It was always amusing to watch Gladstone's face when he came before an enthusiastic audience either in the outer world or within the House of Commons. As the cheers of welcome increased, he would look about him in a puzzled way, as if he were wondering what caused the demonstration, as if he were asking himself, "What have I done to be dragged from obscurity?" It has often been said that "he could have been a great actor." But he was one. It has also been said that he would have been a great archbishop. But archbishops in his time led such tame lives that Mr. Gladstone would have been discontented with the episcopal lot. It is easy, though, to imagine him cursing magnificently with bell, book, and candle. He was a great performer.

His detachments were even more remarkable than the attachments of other men. No subject absorbed him save when he was working on it. That is another way of saying that his power of concentration was absolutely under control at all times. He would turn from the subject which he had dropped for the day to another subject which he would work at for half an hour, or six weeks, or six years, or a lifetime, and give all his energies to the task in hand, and yet be ready to concentrate at a minute's notice on whatever might turn up. They say he had no sense of humour. Perhaps they mean that he was not witty. Perhaps he did n't appreciate jokes. It is not always easy to know what "they" mean by a sense of humour. I have known Gladstone to keep the House of Commons laughing for a quarter of an hour by sheer exercise of the comic spirit, although it must be said that he did not often exercise this. But when he did it, there was purpose in it. The tragedy, that is to say, the serious business of the hour, was to follow. Seeing Gladstone in his great moments was like seeing Edwin Booth as Richelieu; you had similar thrills, smiles, and satisfaction.

Very few persons outside his family knew him really well, no matter how long they might have been associated with him in public work. All the men who knew him that I knew agreed in one thing, however much they disagreed in others,—he had the spirit and the manner of command. A public gathering, a cabinet council, a dinner party were equally his. It will be remembered that he addressed Queen Victoria as if she were a public meeting, and she did n't like it. But that illustrates what I mean when saying that he was not interested in persons but in causes, or subjects; he was not interested in a dinner party but in what he had to tell it. The other guests—his hosts, too—might have been disembodied spirits, but it was he who would "communicate" with them, not they with him. He would detach himself from them as easily as from politics.

He made his own "atmosphere", and it was often far removed from politics. Thus, at the approach of the political crisis of 1886, just before the House was to vote on his first Home Rule Bill, he was staying with his wife at Lord Aberdeen's house at Dollis Hill. A friend of mine, not a political personage, was of the house party, and he told me how the G.O.M. would drive out from town alone, after dark, in an open carriage, and forget the fate of governments, especially his own, although that fate was to be decided within a few hours.

Entering the drawing-room, he said, "While driving out here from the House last evening I counted twenty-eight omnibuses going in one direction. To-day being Saturday, I thought the number would be larger than that, and I estimated thirty-five. I counted thirty-six." And then he discoursed on the increasing business of passenger transportation in the metropolis. Not a word about politics.

On the following afternoon (Sunday) the members of the Cabinet and other prominent partisans went out to Dollis Hill for an informal consultation with the Prime Minister. They were uneasy in their minds. The vote would be taken next day, and they might find themselves out of office,—as indeed they did for the six years following. The afternoon being fine, they walked in the garden and discussed the perils of the situation, and waited for Mr. Gladstone to summon them, or to come and join them. They continued to walk and wait. But Mr. Gladstone did not appear, nor did he summon any one. But the Secretary for Ireland thought that he might be engaged with the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and the Home Secretary thought that he might be with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Still Gladstone did not send word, and the political mountains waited for Mahomet. Concluding that the old gentleman was fatigued and had gone to his room for a nap, they began to retreat homeward. They left singly, and by twos and threes, after some hours of vain waiting. By and by the Gladstones appeared and told their host that they had had "a charming afternoon." They had strolled to the garden gate and had stopped to look at the view. The country road enticed them. They came to a pretty church, and as service was about to begin, they entered and remained for the benediction. They had returned slowly, but highly edified. The next day Gladstone met his foes and was cast into the cold shades of opposition. Doubtless he had expected this, but, doubtless, he had not expected to be cast so deep,—six years' deep.