The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke Volume I Part 18

"Society" (the writer went on) "still bears Sir Charles a grudge, and would have voted anything known to be his to be dull--like his speeches, as he good-naturedly said of himself. Amused, without knowing who amused them, the few fine people who supply views to the many fine people in need of them prove not ungrateful."

The return of a Conservative Government was accompanied by a period of comparative inaction on the part of Sir Charles and his friends; and the activities of the whole Liberal party were in a measure paralyzed by the withdrawal of Mr. Gladstone, not merely from leadership, but almost from the Parliamentary arena. Mr. Chamberlain, who had stood for Parliament and been defeated at Sheffield, wrote that he was engaged in purchasing the Birmingham Gasworks for the Corporation, and did not want to stand again till he had finished his mayoralty.'

"It may be well to let the crude attempts at democratic organizations, Radical unions, etc., etc., be disposed of before we talk over our propositions. I do not think the League will do. We must be a new organization, although our experience and acquired information may be useful."

'This was the death-warrant of the Education League, and the birth- certificate of the National Liberal Federation, always privately called by Chamberlain after the name given to it by his enemies, The Caucus.'

Sir Charles himself was mainly occupied in Parliament with pioneer work for the extension of the franchise; and by a series of small steps towards electoral reform he obtained ultimately, as a private member in opposition, very considerable results. It was not merely with the right to vote, but with the opportunity that he concerned himself, and his Bill to extend the polling hours till 8 p.m., introduced in the session of 1874, although it was opposed by the Government and rejected on a division, nevertheless became law in a few years, as a measure applying to London first, and then to the whole of the United Kingdom.

In the same session he served on a Committee to inquire into the adulteration of food, and obtained through a careful watching of the evidence "a considerable knowledge of the processes of manufacture, which was afterwards useful when I came to be charged with the negotiation of commercial treaties."

'I continued to interest myself in the question of local government, until I had shaped my views into the form of proposals which I was able to place in a Bill when afterwards at the Local Government Board, and to make public in a speech at Halifax in 1885.'

He adds: 'In 1874 I voted for Home Rule.' This was always for him a form of local government in its highest sense.

He was strong enough to take up a position of detachment, and from that vantage-ground he made at Hammersmith, on September 8th, 1874, an interesting speech, in which he gave free rein to the ironical mood of Prince Florestan. The Tories, he said, came into office with at all events a strong list of names: Mr. Disraeli, Lord Cairns and Mr. Gathorne Hardy could not easily be matched.

"On the other hand, our chiefs were nowhere. Mr. Gladstone was in the sulks, and Mr. Forster had been returned by Tory votes at Bradford, than which nothing is more weakening to a Liberal politician. Mr. Cardwell and Mr. Chichester Fortescue had gone to the Whig heaven; and Sir William Harcourt, whose great abilities were beginning to be recognized, was draping himself in the mantle of Lord Palmerston, and looked rather to a distant than to an immediate future.

"As though to strengthen the Conservative position, we were at the same time on our side called upon to surrender our parliamentary liberties as independent members to a triumvirate, composed of Mr.

Goschen, Lord Hartington, and Mr. Forster--the t.i.tle of the first being founded upon the fact that he was the intimate friend of Mr.

Gladstone, whom the country had just condemned; that of the second, that he was a serious Marquis, the son of a highly respectable Duke; and that of the third, that he had the confidence of gentlemen who sat upon the other side of the House. Believing, as we did, that Mr.

Disraeli never made mistakes, it was not easy to foresee the end of his administration.

"When people talked about the extinction of the Whigs, it certainly then seemed, on the contrary, that that party, instead of being extinct, had become all-embracing, for one knew n.o.body who was not a Whig. With a Whig Government in office under Mr. Disraeli, and a disorganized Whig opposition on the other side, there seemed to be in question only persons, and not principles. At the Same time, many Liberals thought that it would be better, as far as principles went, to keep the Conservatives in office, inasmuch as they possessed a majority in the House of Lords, and, being forced by the House of Commons and the country into pa.s.sing Whig measures, would have to carry them through both Houses and into law, instead of dropping them halfway, as our people had often been compelled to do."

In this speech he a.s.sailed Mr. Disraeli's Government for legislation which laid restrictions only on "the poor and the lower middle cla.s.ses, and which put down a servants' betting club, though it had precisely the same rules as prevail at Tattersall's." The Friendly Societies Bill, again, seemed to him "hara.s.sing," and drawn on the a.s.sumption that working men have not sense enough to investigate for themselves the position of the society which they wish to join.

"There cannot be too little interference with the great self-governed popular Societies. I think that this Bill is the thin end of the wedge, that espionage is the first step to control, and that control is a long step on the road which leads to the destruction of the Societies, and to the creation of a single Government provident organization, which I should regard as a great evil."

The speech attracted much attention, and Sir Charles was now quoted as one whom men would wish to see in any Liberal Ministry. In the public field, during the spring and summer of 1874, all went well with him. But his personal life during these months was overshadowed by approaching calamity.

Lady Dilke was again in ill-health, and was under the presentiment of approaching death. 'Our last happy time was at Paris at Christmas, 1873, on our way home from Monaco, when Gambetta's brightness was answered by our own.' Sir Charles occupied himself with buying land at Broadstairs, where the climate was specially favourable to his wife's health, but as the plans for building on it progressed, he could note that the keenness of her interest 'drooped and died.' After the beginning of August there were no more dinner-parties, and although those who came to the house--of whom Sir William Harcourt was the last to be admitted--found its mistress wearing a gay face, the gloom deepened over her, and she suffered acutely from insomnia. A child was born in September; she lived to see her son, the present Sir Wentworth Dilke, but she never rallied. Death came to her with difficulty, early in the night of September 20th. Sir Charles, overstrained already by long watching, was completely unstrung by the unlooked-for end of the final and terrible vigil. Having summoned his grandmother, Mrs. Chatfield, and asked her to take charge of his house and son--a charge which she fulfilled till her death--he fled from the scene of his suffering, and hid himself in Paris, seeing no one, and holding communication with no one.

'For about a month I think I did not see a letter. I worked steadily at historical work; but I have very little recollection of the time (except by looking at the notebooks which contain the work I did), and even within a few months afterwards was unable to recall it.'

All the letters which poured in speak again and again of Lady Dilke's radiant charm. Moret, the Spanish Minister, who had been one of the guests at the last of all her dinner-parties, recalled her as he saw her then, "si belle, si bonne, si souriante, que j'eprouvai moi-meme le bonheur qu'elle respirait."

'The beginning of my friendship with Cardinal Manning was his letter to me at this time, in which he said, "We have met only once, and that in public, but it was that meeting which enables me to understand what your affliction is now."'

Gambetta wrote to him 'a really beautiful letter ':

_"La Republique Francaise,_ "16, RUE DU CROISSANT, "PARIS, "_le 2 novembre_, 1874.

"MON BIEN CHER AMI,

"Plus que jamais permettez-moi de vous donner ce nom, qui, au milieu des terribles epreuves qui vous accablent, n'exprime que bien imparfaitement les sentiments de profond attachement, de volontaire solidarite que je vous ai voues.

"Je sais, je mesure l'insuffisance amere de toute parole de consolation pour d'aussi grandes douleurs, d'aussi irreparables pertes. Car meme l'impuissance de semblables remedes qui m'ont empeche de vous ecrire plutot, m'ont arrete dans le desir de venir pres de vous a un moment aussi lugubre pour votre grand coeur. J'ai cru plus digne, plus respectueux de vos angoisses, d'attendre; et je m'en suis remis a votre penetration naturelle pour comprendre et accepter mon silence.

"Aujourd'hui je viens vous dire que le plus haut prix que je puisse obtenir de notre commune affection serait de pouvoir penser que dans la fuite de la vie, je pourrais etre a.s.sez heureux pour etre de quelque utilite dans les actes de votre existence.

"Je viendrai vous voir demain mardi a 2 heures et vous repeter de vive-voix ce que je dis ici. Je suis tout entier a vous et de coeur,

"Votre ami,

"LeON GAMBETTA."

From that day forward Sir Charles met him constantly.

'It would have been difficult to find a better companion at such a moment than one who was so full of interest in life, about things which were absolutely outside my own life, who was surrounded by people who could recall to me no circ.u.mstances of pain.'

After seeing Gambetta, Sir Charles roused himself to write a reply in the last days of October to Sir William Harcourt, whose sympathy had been expressed with a rare warmth of kindness, and who caused his son--then a boy of eleven, [Footnote: Afterwards the Right Hon. Lewis Harcourt, created Viscount at the end of 1916.]--'to write to me about Katie, who had been kind to him, which was a pretty thought, and proposed that I should go and live with him, which I ultimately did.'

'Some sc.r.a.ps of polities' were added to they letter, in the hope of reviving his interest in life; but Sir Charles at this moment was fully determined to resign his seat, feeling himself unable to face old a.s.sociates and a.s.sociations again. His brother Ashton, now busily and successfully at work in directing his newspaper, the _Weekly Dispatch_, begged him at least to consider his const.i.tuents. An election caused by the Radical member's retirement would certainly let in a second Tory.

Also:

"For yourself, I really think, my dear boy, that work is the best remedy, and though you may not think it now, you could not give it up.... It seems selfish to speak of myself, but I should have to give up the _Dispatch_, as the thing is too serious for me to go into without your advice. Do think it over again, Charlie; there is no hurry. I will come next week. We must not make dear Dragon's [Footnote: Mrs. Chatfield, their grandmother.] last days unhappy by wandering over the world year after year. Remember your child, and that you must regard the living as well as the dead. I am sure she would never have let you sacrifice your career. Do think it over again."

Sir Charles adds: 'It was, however, Gambetta, I think, that saved me.'

In the course of the month (November, 1874) he wrote to his const.i.tuents in reply to a resolution sent by them, but could not promise to take his seat during the following session, and said that in any event he should have for a long time to transact business only by letter. 'From this time forward I got rapidly better as far as nervousness at meeting people went, although for many months I was completely changed and out of my proper self.' [Footnote: He, however, began to attend Parliament in the early part of the session of 1875.]

He sought escape in travel, starting suddenly in December for Algeria by way of Oran, and pushing through the desert as far as Laghouat and the Mzab.

CHAPTER XIII

RENEWAL OF ACTIVITY

I.

On his return from Algeria Sir Charles reached Paris and crossed to England in the last week of January, 1875.

'On reaching London, instead of going to Harcourt's, I had to go first to my own house, for I was sickening with disease, and had, indeed, a curious very slight attack of smallpox, which pa.s.sed off, however, in about two days, but I had to be isolated for another week.

When I became what the doctors called well I moved to Harcourt's; but my hand still shook, and I had contracted a bad habit of counting the beating of my heart, and I was so weak of mind that the slightest act of kindness made me cry. To my grandmother and brother I wrote to ask them to let me go on living with Harcourt for the present, not because I preferred him to them, but because I could not live in my own house, and should have a better chance of sleep if I returned elsewhere at night from the House of Commons.'

From this prostration he slowly recovered, occupying himself partly in arranging for the publication by Murray of _Papers of a Critic_, which he describes as 'a reprint of some of my grandfather's articles, with a memoir of him by myself which I had written while in Paris.'

The book was well received, and a copy sent to Mr. Disraeli brought this acknowledgment:

"2, WHITEHALL GARDENS, "_June 28th_, '75.

"DEAR SIR CHARLES,