The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke Volume II Part 51

Amongst the men of his time he stood out as essentially a House of Commons man, but he was also a European personality. In these characteristics he recalls Lord Palmerston. Whether to foreign or to domestic affairs, he brought a knowledge, a judgment, and a mastery of detail, which none of his contemporaries surpa.s.sed and few equalled; and he added to these the priceless gift of tact in dealing with men and with bodies of men. In the only Parliament which knew him as an administrator his advance was rapid and decisive: five years placed him by universal admission in the front rank; and yet the general opinion was not less clear than that of the few great ones. Beaconsfield and Bismarck singled him out by their special interest; Gladstone looked to him as probably his own ultimate successor.

Then came the day when there was taken from him for ever the opportunity of directing great affairs, and Sir Charles Dilke's career must be numbered among things that might have been. Yet was his "the failure"?

"It was England's misfortune, and perhaps her fault," wrote one [Footnote: Mr. Spenser Wilkinson.] who knew him intimately and shared but few of his political opinions, "that she could thus have been deprived of the services of one of her best statesmen."

All that he could do to repair the misfortune to his country was done without stint. Dismissed from his high command by a scandal, the truth of which he persistently denied, when a life of ease was open to him he chose, in spite of obloquy, to return to the ranks. Of what he accomplished in the ranks some outline has been given; its record stands as an answer to those who think, as many are tempted to think, that work in Parliament without office is, in these days, foredoomed to futility.

Yet not in the external results of his wisdom and his labour, but in another sphere, lies his supreme achievement. The same fate which obscured the statesman's greatness revealed, what prosperity must have hidden, the full measure of the man. To have requited public contumely with public service; in the midst of humiliation to have kept his nature unspoilt, unimbittered, every faculty bright and keen; to have abated no jot of his happiness; and at the last to have pa.s.sed away in serene dignity, all the voices of reproach hushed and overawed--this was not defeat, but victory; this, complete in its fulfilment, was the triumph of Sir Charles Dilke's life.

CHAPTER LX

LITERARY WORK AND INTERESTS

[Footnote: By Miss Constance Hinton Smith.]

No view of Sir Charles Dilke's life can be complete which fails to take account of his literary interests and activities. He disclaimed the t.i.tle of man of letters. [Footnote: 'Except in editing some of my grandfather's papers, I never myself at all ventured into the paths of pure literature; but I have lived near enough to it and them ... to be able to enjoy.'] Except for the little memoir of his second wife, all the books he gave to the world, as well as the larger part of his periodical writing, were inspired by political, though not by party, considerations. And throughout the years of his public career the pressure of daily work inside and outside Parliament left him small leisure for reading other than that through which he kept himself acquainted with every movement, and as far as was humanly possible with every fact, that seemed to bear upon the wide range of subjects handled by him. So prodigious was his industry, however--only Dominie Sampson's adjective will serve--and so quick his faculty for detecting at a glance the quality of a book and extracting from it the pith and marrow, that even in the busiest periods of his life he contrived to keep abreast of the things best worth knowing, not only in English, but also in French literature. From the time when, by his father's death, he inherited the proprietorship of the _Athenaeum_, he exercised, through that journal, a definite if indirect influence in the maintenance of the high standards of literary honesty, accuracy, and taste in which he had been brought up. This was done partly by means of his own contributions to the paper, which covered a field which included history, travel, art, poetry, and archaeology in two languages, and partly through "his comments and suggestions on the proofs," of which Mr. C. A. Cook, a former acting editor, writes with abiding grat.i.tude. Other newspaper proprietors have doubtless done as much to preserve uniformity of tone and principle; few, if any, have probably brought such close and unwearied care to bear upon those details in which tone is audible and principle expresses itself.

Sir Charles Dilke's att.i.tude towards literature, like his att.i.tude to politics and art, was peculiar to himself. He judged books, as he judged men, not by the conventional verdict of the world--in this case the world of critics--but by the quality his own mind discerned in them. His judgments, therefore, were personal judgments, uncoloured, as far as human judgments can be, by traditional respect or prejudice. This does not mean that he had no literary canons: his grandfather's pupil could hardly have left old Mr. Dilke's hands so unfurnished; but he never became the slave of a rule or the docile worshipper of any reputation, however well established. This mental freedom was partly due to intellectual courage. The humour of Lamb, for example, delights the majority of educated Englishmen: it had no charm for Sir Charles, and he was not afraid to say so. But his liberty of appreciation owed something also to the circ.u.mstances of his education. The fact that he had never been at a public school--thus missing, in the plastic years of a sensitive boyhood, the influences which make most strongly for conventionality of outlook among men of a certain cla.s.s--made it easier for him than it might otherwise have been to examine literary questions with his own eyes, and not through the medium of special gla.s.ses imposed by authority. By the time he went up to Cambridge this habit of judging for himself was already formed; and although Cambridge did much to mould, she did not remake him.

The catalogue of his published writings, apart from those contributed to magazines and newspapers, is brief. It consists practically of the early book that made him famous as a political thinker, _Greater Britain_; the brilliant satire, _Prince Florestan_, published anonymously in 1874, of which he subsequently acknowledged the authorship; and the few volumes written after the close of his official career, each of which deals with large questions of public and international interest. _Problems of Greater Britain_ and _Imperial Defence_ (the latter written in collaboration with Mr. Spenser Wilkinson) were the most important of these works, which do not represent fully the literary ambition of his earlier years. There is plenty of evidence in the Memoir to show that, at the time of that journey round the world of which _Greater Britain_ was the result, he had not only formed, but had begun to carry out, several literary projects. Some of these, essays in verse, story- writing, and metaphysical speculation, belong to the category of experiment or amus.e.m.e.nt, and represent nothing more than the natural activity of a fertile mind trying its powers now in this direction, now in that. Others are more characteristic: a History of Radicalism, a Political Geography, a book to be called _The Anglo-Saxon Race_ or _The English World_, and a work on _International Law_. [Footnote: See Chapter VI. (Vol. I.)]

As late as 1878 he was 'working hard at' a _History of the Nineteenth Century_ 'for three or four months' in Provence, 'besides managing to do some little work towards it when I was in London.' At this time he was engaged upon the History of Germany in the early part of his chosen period, and was corresponding with Professor Seeley as the highest authority on that subject.

'My history of events began with 1814. I showed that the doctrine of nationality had been made use of for their own purposes by the Kings in 1812-13, and crushed by them at congresses between 1814 and 1822, and then appealed to by the revolutionary party in 1823, and in a less degree in 1848. That doctrine of nationality was described even in our own times by Heine as a dead thing, when it was yet destined to prove, in 1859 and 1866 and 1870 and 1878, the phenomenon of the century, and nowhere to work such change as in Heine's own Germany.

Heine thought that the idea of the emanc.i.p.ation of nationality had already in his day been replaced by the emanc.i.p.ation of humanity; but, whatever may be the case in the long-run, the emanc.i.p.ation of nationalities was destined to prove the more lasting side of the movement of 1848.'

After stating that the nineteenth century must be held to have begun in 1814, he writes:

'History to me was one and could know no commencements, yet in the development of a concerted action of the Powers I found 1814 so convenient a starting-point as to be as good as a real beginning. In the rise of the new society, the social revolution,'

he found himself less fortunate. There was no clear starting-point, and when he selected August 4th, 1789, as his,

'I felt that I chose only the moment of the springing of the plant from the soil ... and stood in some danger of neglecting the previous germination of the seed beneath the soil.'

After delivering a lecture on "Old Chelsea," in which 'I made a considerable attempt to clear up some points in the life of Sir Thomas More, for whom I have a great admiration ... I conceived ... the idea of writing a Life of More, whose life has never been well told since it was written by his son-in-law at the time; but the immense difficulty of writing any Life which would stand a comparison with the son-in-law's notes ultimately deterred me.'

It is easy to understand why the foregoing projects were dropped; but why Sir Charles never published the book on Russia which he was known to have had in preparation is not so apparent. He had paid four protracted visits to the country, travelled over a great part of it, and was intimately acquainted with Russians of the most widely differing opinions. Obviously he would have enjoyed writing the book that he had planned. He had actually fixed the date of publication, when he found that Mr. Hepworth Dixon had come, almost at the same time, to a decision to write on his subject. On August 3rd, 1869, he wrote to Mr. Dixon:

"My Dear Dixon,

"In reference to your request that in good feeling and friendship towards you I should defer the publication of my _Russia_ from February 1st, 1870 (the date fixed with Macmillan), to a later period, I have carefully thought the matter over, and have decided to do as you wish. The only condition that I make is that you will write to me by return of post saying whether, if I fix January 1st, 1871, as my day, you will date your preface not later than February 1st, 1870, and issue your first edition not more than a week after that date."

Dixon wrote back on the same day:

"My Dear Charles,

"I am more pleased at your resolution than words can say. It is more than right. It is friendly and n.o.ble."

'Mr. Dixon immediately went to Russia, where we met in the course of the autumn, and speedily published his _New Russia_, a remarkable book considering the haste with which it was prepared. After five visits to Russia, I handed over the whole of my notes to my brother, who spent two years at one time in that country, and who finished the book.' [Footnote: Only two chapters ever appeared--in magazines.]

Sir Charles's contributions to the _Athenaeum_ began while he was still at Cambridge. His article of October 22nd, 1864, [Footnote: See Chapter V. (Vol. I.)] was the first of a long series of reviews and notices, which continued unbrokenly till within a week of his death. It was natural that, as years went by, his knowledge and experience should be drawn upon for reviews of important political biographies, and of books on imperial and colonial questions or military history. But he did not confine himself entirely to such grave topics. The files of the _Athenaeum_ contain many columns from his hand dealing with the lighter matters of topography (especially in France), travel, and fiction. The fiction was mainly French, modern English novels commending themselves little to his liking, though he was among the earliest and steadiest, if also among the more discriminating, admirers of Mr. Rudyard Kipling, and Robert Louis Stevenson's _Prince Otto_ had a place with his favourite books. Another subject which attracted his pen was the local and legendary history of his beloved Provence. His intimate acquaintance with the beliefs and fancies of that region could be gathered from his slightest notice of an ephemeral book on the country, as readily as his store of political knowledge and familiarity with the events that made history in his time from an extended review of a volume of _L'Empire Liberal_ or the life of a leading contemporary in the House of Commons.

In neither case could his hand be hid.

In influencing the choice of contributors to his paper, he threw his weight always on the side of the man who had complete knowledge of his subject. No brilliancy of style could make up in his eyes for lack of precision in thought or inaccuracy in statement. Next in order he appeared to value in a reviewer a judicial quality of mind, as essential to a sane and balanced criticism. "He disapproved"--to quote Mr. C. A.

Cook again--"of anything fanciful in expression or any display of sentiment;" but, so long as writers kept clear of these literary pitfalls, he let them go their own road of style, with ready appreciation for any freshness or liveliness they exhibited on the journey. Reviews of French books were a special object of care, and for the _Athenaeum's_ annual survey of French literature he bestirred himself to secure the best hand available. In a letter to M. Joseph Reinach, dated July, 1888, he gives a list of the distinguished men--including MM. About, De Pressense, and Sarrazin--who had written this survey in past years, ending with a suggestion that M. Reinach himself might perhaps be willing to undertake the task.

In his writing, as in his speaking, his object was always either to place facts before his audience, or to develop a closely reasoned argument based upon the facts. He took no trouble to cultivate literary graces in this connection; rather he seemed to distrust them, as in his speeches he distrusted and avoided appeals to the feelings of his hearers. But it would be a great mistake to infer from his own practice that he was insensible to beauty of form and style. The literature he cared for most, that which roused his enthusiasm and provoked the expression of emotion so rare with him in the later years of his life--the literature of France before the Renaissance, the poetry of Keats and Sh.e.l.ley, some of the lyrics of the Felibres--is of the kind in which content owes so much to beauty of form that it is impossible to conceive of the one without the other; and he certainly took quite as much delight in the sound as in the sense of his favourites. Even in those favourites he was quick to detect a flaw. His grandfather's introduction of him to the best in literature had not been wasted; and his own early reading had given him a touchstone of taste which he used freely as a standard, although it was powerless to obtain admission to his accepted company of men of letters for those who made no appeal to him individually. The Memoir shows that his self-training in literature (for the grandfather did no more than indicate the way) was carried out in youth; it was at Cambridge, while still an undergraduate, that he read Shakespeare 'for pleasure.' And this was true also of the great authors of his own time. The results of that reading remained with him through life.

The Memoir dwells little upon his literary interests, and contains few literary judgments. He himself gives the reason:

'They do not pretend to be critical memoirs.... I have known everyone worth knowing from 1850 to my death; but, as I knew the most distinguished of my own country in childhood or early manhood, my judgments have changed. I have either to give crude judgments from which I dissent, or later judgments which were not those of the time. I have omitted both.... I knew the great Victorian authors.

Thackeray I loved: _Vanity Fair_ delighted me, and _Esmond_ was obviously a great work of art; the giant charmed me by his kindness to me as a boy. But d.i.c.kens was to me a sea-captain with a taste for melodrama, and the author of _Pickwick_. It is only in old age that I have learnt that there was real beauty and charm in _David Copperfield_. So, too, Mill I worshipped; and Carlyle, though I knew him, I despised--perhaps too much. Mat. Arnold was to me, in his day and my day, only a society trifler, whereas now ... after for years I have visited his tomb, I recognize him as a great writer of the age in which he lived.'

Here and there in the Memoir are glimpses of the world of literature with which he was often in touch. He discusses with Swinburne a much- disputed reference in Sh.e.l.ley's _Epipsychidion_. In 1872 Browning reads his _Red Cotton Nightcap Country_ at 76, Sloane Street. There are admiring references to the work of George Eliot, and to Mrs. Lynn Linton--'perhaps the cleverest woman I know.' When he goes to the United States, we get his warmly drawn picture of the Boston group--Emerson, Aga.s.siz, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Asa Gray, Longfellow, Lowell, Dr.

Collyer, and Dr. Hedge.

[Footnote: See Chapter VI. (Vol. I., p. 60).]

Recording Stepniak's suggestion that Bismarck, Mazzini, and Oliver Wendell Holmes were the three greatest conversationalists of our times, 'I said that, having known all three, I agreed that they were remarkable, although I myself found Mazzini a little of the bore.

Disraeli was sometimes very good, although sometimes singularly silent; but there were once two Russians that I put in the first rank--Herzen and Tourgenief.'

Questions relating to one literary personality alone receive full-length treatment in the Memoir. On any point that concerned Keats Sir Charles was always keenly interested. He may be said to have inherited the Keats tradition and the Keats devotion from his grandfather, and anyone connected with Keats found easy way to his sympathy and attention. It was his intervention which finally obtained for Keats's sister, Mme.

Llanos, a regular Civil List pension in 1880. When the Lindon family sold to Mr. Buxton Forman Keats's letters to Miss Brawne, Mme. Llanos wrote 'from Madrid saying how greatly she was vexed that her brother's love-letters should have been placed before the world,' and 'I had a good deal of correspondence with Lord Houghton over this matter....

[Lord Houghton] wrote:

'"My Dear Dilke,

'"Since the _Athenaeum_ fixed my place in poetical literature between Rogers and Eliza Cook, I have naturally not read that journal, but I have been shown a capital flagellation of those unfilial wine-merchants. [Footnote: Miss Brawne married Louis Lindon, a wine-merchant.] I thought I had even gone too far in my elegant extracts--with which you furnished me. I have, alas! no poetical amours to be recorded, out of which my family can make anything handsome."'

The letter ends with an invitation to lunch and 'talk Keats.'

Sir Charles notes further:

'About this time (1878) Mr. Buxton Forman announced for publication the Keats Love-Letters, which I certainly thought I had in a vague way bought for the purpose of preventing publication. They had been long in my possession, but the son of f.a.n.n.y Brawne had claimed them, and I, having no written agreement, had found it necessary to give them up--although what I had bought and paid for, unless it was the right to prevent publication, I do not know.'

About this time Mr. John Morley proffered a request that Sir Charles would write a monograph on Keats for his _English Men of Letters_. Lord Houghton thought that a "new view" from Sir Charles "would have great interest"; but he decided to decline the undertaking.

The Memoir records at length the course of a correspondence with Joseph Severn, on the subject of his portraits of Keats, about which the old man's memory, in his last days at Rome, had grown very hazy. He thought that the miniature from which the engraving for Mr. Buxton Forman's edition had been made was the original presented to f.a.n.n.y Brawne, whereas it was the copy made for old Mr. Dilke from that original, which itself was afterwards 'bought by my grandfather to prevent its being sold by auction.' There was also at Pyrford a copy in oils made for Mr.

Moxon, which Sir Charles had obtained by exchange from Mr. Frederick Locker-Lampson.

'After completing my investigations as to the portraits, I placed them on record in a letter to my old friend Scharf, the Keeper of the National Portrait Gallery, who replied: "Thanks for your interesting note, which we will duly place upon record. The portrait which we have here is posthumous. Severn painted it in 1821, and we hold a very curious letter from him describing the circ.u.mstances under which he painted it." Here, therefore, is another undoubted Severn in addition to the three which I possess. But I know myself of at least one other.'

The gift of his collection of Keats relics to Hampstead has been elsewhere recorded. In deciding on Hampstead for its resting-place, he brought it within the circle of local a.s.sociations with Keats himself, and with the grandfather who had been Keats's friend. [Footnote: The Memoir records, in 1878, a visit paid with his great-uncle, William Dilke, to Wentworth Place, 'the little house at Hampstead in which for a time Mr. C. W. Dilke and his brother were Keats's next-door neighbours.']

Modern French authors interested him more than their English contemporaries. In the former case he found, perhaps, less declension from the standard of the giants of whom he had been an eager student in his early manhood, when he read "all Balzac," and recorded his admiration for the "dignity" of Mme. de Stael's _Germany_. Dumas he loved then and always, returning to him with ever new delight, and utilizing the rare periods of inaction imposed upon him at intervals by illness to read the whole of _The Three Musketeers_ series 'through again--properly.' Where other writers who held sway over the mind of France during the nineteenth century were in question, his independence of taste came into play. Sainte-Beuve he could 'make nothing of.' For Chateaubriand he felt something like contempt: 'Equally feeble as a maker and a writer of history ... the inventor of a drawing-room Christianity without Christ;' but he recognized the high quality to be found in the early writings of Senancour. In later days the revival of a Stendhal cult filled him with wondering amus.e.m.e.nt. To the best work of Renan his affections were always faithful: _Souvenirs d'Enfance et de Jeunesse_ was among his favourite volumes. Anatole France gave him exquisite pleasure, and it is hard to say whether he most enjoyed the wit, the irony, or the style of that great writer. He had his favourites, too, among the minor G.o.ds, and was always ready to introduce a new-comer to the charms of _Francois de Barbizanges_ or the fun of Alfred Capus.