The Life of William Ewart Gladstone Volume III Part 46

_July 25, 1894._-For the first time in my life there has been given to me by the providence of G.o.d a period of comparative leisure, reckoning at the present date to four and a half months.

Such a period drives the mind in upon itself, and invites, almost constrains, to recollection, and the rendering at least internally an account of life; further it lays the basis of a habit of meditation, to the formation of which the course of my existence, packed and crammed with occupation outwards, never stagnant, oft-times overdriven, has been extremely hostile. As there is no life which in its detail does not seem to afford intervals of brief leisure, or what is termed "waiting" for others engaged with us in some common action, these are commonly spent in murmurs and in petulant desire for their termination. But in reality they supply excellent opportunities for brief or ejaculatory prayer.

As this new period of my life has brought with it my retirement from active business in the world, it affords a good opportunity for breaking off the commonly dry daily journal, or ledger as it might almost be called, in which for seventy years I have recorded the chief details of my outward life. If life be continued I propose to note in it henceforward only princ.i.p.al events or occupations. This first breach since the latter part of May in this year has been involuntary. When the operation on my eye for cataract came, it was necessary for a time to suspend all use of vision. Before that, from the beginning of March, it was only my out-of-door activity or intercourse that had been paralysed....

For my own part, _suave mari magno_ steals upon me; or at any rate, an inexpressible sense of relief from an exhausting life of incessant contention. A great revolution has been operated in my correspondence, which had for many years been a serious burden, and at times one almost intolerable. During the last months of partial incapacity I have not written with my own hand probably so much as one letter per day. Few people have had a smaller number of _otiose_ conversations probably than I in the last fifty years; but I have of late seen more friends and more freely, though without practical objects in view. Many kind friends have read books to me; I must place Lady Sarah Spencer at the head of the proficients in that difficult art; in distinctness of articulation, with low clear voice, she is supreme. Dearest Catherine has been my chaplain from morning to morning. My church-going has been almost confined to mid-day communions, which have not required my abandonment of the reclining posture for long periods of time. Authorship has not been quite in abeyance; I have been able to write what I was not allowed to read, and have composed two theological articles for the _Nineteenth Century_ of August and September respectively.(311)

Independently of the days of blindness after the operation, the visits of doctors have become a noticeable item of demand upon time. Of physic I incline to believe I have had as much, in 1894 as in my whole previous life. I have learned for the first time the extraordinary comfort of the aid which the attendance of a nurse can give. My health will now be matter of little interest except to myself. But I have not yet abandoned the hope that I may be permitted to grapple with that considerable armful of work, which had been long marked out for my old age; the question of my recovering sight being for the present in abeyance.

_Sept. 13._-I am not yet thoroughly accustomed to my new stage of existence, in part because the remains of my influenza have not yet allowed me wholly to resume the habits of health. But I am thoroughly content with my retirement; and I cast no longing, lingering look behind. I pa.s.s onward from it _oculo irretorto_.

There is plenty of work before me, peaceful work and work directed to the supreme, _i.e._ the spiritual cultivation of mankind, if it pleases G.o.d to give me time and vision to perform it.

_Oct. 1._-As far as I can at present judge, all the signs of the eye being favourable, the new form of vision will enable me to get through in a given time about half the amount of work which would have been practicable under the old. I speak of reading and writing work, which have been princ.i.p.al with me when I had the option. In conversation there is no difference, although there are various drawbacks in what we call society. On the 20th of last month when I had gone through my crises of trials, Mr. Nettleship, [the oculist], at once declared that any further operation would be superfluous.

I am unable to continue attendance at the daily morning service, not on account of the eyesight but because I may not rise before ten at the earliest. And so a Hawarden practice of over fifty years is interrupted; not without some degree of hope that it may be resumed. Two evening services, one at 5 P.M. and the other at 7, afford me a limited consolation. I drive almost every day, and thus grow to my dissatisfaction more burdensome. My walking powers are limited; once I have exceeded two miles by a little. A large part of the day remains available at my table; daylight is especially precious; my correspondence is still a weary weight, though I have admirable help from children. Upon the whole the change is considerable. In early and mature life a man walks to his daily work with a sense of the duty and capacity of self-provision, a certain a?t???e?a [independence] (which the Greeks carried into the moral world). Now that sense is reversed; it seems as if I must, G.o.d knows how reluctantly, lay burdens upon others; and as if capacity were, so to speak, dealt out to me mercifully-but by armfuls.

Old age until the very end brought no grave changes in physical conditions. He missed sorely his devoted friend, Sir Andrew Clark, to whose worth as man and skill as healer he had borne public testimony in May 1894. But for physician's service there was no special need. His ordinary life, though of diminished power, suffered little interruption.

"The att.i.tude," he wrote, "in which I endeavoured to fix myself was that of a soldier on parade, in a line of men drawn up ready to march and waiting for the word of command. I sought to be in preparation for prompt obedience, feeling no desire to go, but on the other hand without reluctance because firmly convinced that whatever He ordains for us is best, best both for us and for all."

He worked with all his old zest at his edition of Bishop Butler, and his volume of studies subsidiary to Butler. He wrote to the Duke of Argyll (Dec. 5, 1895):-

I find my Butler a weighty undertaking, but I hope it will be useful at least for the important improvements of form which I am making.

It is very difficult to keep one's temper in dealing with M.

Arnold when he touches on religious matters. His patronage of a Christianity fashioned by himself is to me more offensive and trying than rank unbelief. But I try, or seem to myself to try, to shrink from controversy of which I have had so much. Organic evolution sounds to me a Butlerish idea, but I doubt if he ever employed either term, certainly he has not the phrase, and I cannot as yet identify the pa.s.sage to which you may refer.

_Dec. 9._-Many thanks for your letter. The idea of evolution is without doubt deeply ingrained in Butler. The case of the animal creation had a charm for him, and in his first chapter he opens, without committing himself, the idea of their possible elevation to a much higher state. I have always been struck by the glee with which negative writers strive to get rid of "special creation," as if by that method they got the idea of G.o.d out of their way, whereas I know not what right they have to say that the small increments effected by the divine workman are not as truly special as the large. It is remarkable that Butler has taken such hold both on nonconformists in England and outside of England, especially on those bodies in America which are descended from English non-conformists.

He made progress with his writings on the Olympian Religion, without regard to Acton's warnings and exhortations to read a score of volumes by learned explorers with uncouth names. He collected a new series of his _Gleanings_. By 1896 he had got his cherished project of hostel and library at St. Deiniol's in Hawarden village, near to its launch. He was drawn into a discussion on the validity of anglican orders, and even wrote a letter to Cardinal Rampolla, in his effort to realise the dream of Christian unity. The Vatican replied in such language as might have been expected by anybody with less than Mr. Gladstone's inextinguishable faith in the virtues of argumentative persuasion. Soon he saw the effects of Christian disunion upon a bloodier stage. In the autumn of this year he was roused to one more vehement protest like that twenty years before against the abominations of Turkish rule, this time in Armenia. He had been induced to address a meeting in Chester in August 1895, and now a year later he travelled to Liverpool (Sept. 24) to a non-party gathering at Hengler's Circus. He always described this as the place most agreeable to the speaker of all those with which he was acquainted. "Had I the years of 1876 upon me," he said to one of his sons, "gladly would I start another campaign, even if as long as that."

To discuss, almost even to describe, the course of his policy and proceedings in the matter of Armenia, would bring us into a mixed controversy affecting statesmen now living, who played an unexpected part, and that controversy may well stand over for another, and let us hope a very distant, day. Whether we had a right to interfere single-handed; whether we were bound as a duty to interfere under the Cyprus Convention; whether our intervention would provoke hostilities on the part of other Powers and even kindle a general conflagration in Europe; whether our severance of diplomatic relations with the Sultan or our withdrawal from the concert of Europe would do any good; what possible form armed intervention could take-all these are questions on which both liberals and tories vehemently differed from one another then, and will vehemently differ again. Mr. Gladstone was bold and firm in his replies. As to the idea, he said, that all independent action on the part of this great country was to be made chargeable for producing war in Europe, "that is in my opinion a mistake almost more deplorable than almost any committed in the history of diplomacy." We had a right under the convention. We had a duty under the responsibilities incurred at Paris in 1856, at Berlin in 1878. The upshot of his arguments at Liverpool was that we should break off relations with the Sultan; that we should undertake not to turn hostilities to our private advantage; that we should limit our proceedings to the suppression of mischief in its aggravated form; and if Europe threatened us with war it might be necessary to recede, as France had receded under parallel circ.u.mstances from her individual policy on the eastern question in 1840,-receded without loss either of honour or power, believing that she had been right and wise and others wrong and unwise.

If Mr. Gladstone had still had, as he puts it, "the years of 1876," he might have made as deep a mark. As it was, his speech at Liverpool was his last great deliverance to a public audience. As the year ended this was his birthday entry:-

_Dec. 29, 1896._-My long and tangled life this day concludes its 87th year. My father died four days short of that term. I know of no other life so long in the Gladstone family, and my profession has been that of politician, or, more strictly, minister of state, an extremely short-lived race when their scene of action has been in the House of Commons, Lord Palmerston being the only complete exception. In the last twelve months eyes and ears may have declined, but not materially. The occasional contraction of the chest is the only inconvenience that can be called new. I am not without hope that Cannes may have a [illegible] to act upon it.

The blessings of family life continue to be poured in the largest measure upon my unworthy head. Even my temporal affairs have thriven. Still old age is appointed for the gradual loosening and succeeding snapping of the threads. I visited Lord Stratford when he was, say, 90 or 91 or thereabouts. He said to me, "It is not a blessing." As to politics, I think the basis of my mind is laid princ.i.p.ally in finance and philanthropy. The prospects of the first are darker than I have ever known them. Those of the second are black also, but with more hope of some early dawn. I do not enter on interior matters. It is so easy to write, but to write honestly nearly impossible. Lady Grosvenor gave me to-day a delightful present of a small crucifix. I am rather too independent of symbol.

This is the last entry in the diaries of seventy years.

At the end of January 1897, the Gladstones betook themselves once more to Lord Rendel's _palazzetto_, as they called it, at Cannes.

I had hoped during this excursion, he journalises, to make much way with my autobiographica. But this was in a large degree frustrated, first by invalidism, next by the eastern question, on which I was finally obliged to write something.(312) Lastly, and not least, by a growing sense of decline in my daily amount of brain force available for serious work. My power to read (but to read very slowly indeed since the cataract came) for a considerable number of hours daily, thank G.o.d, continues. This is a great mercy. While on my outing, I may have read, of one kind and another, twenty volumes. Novels enter into this list rather considerably. I have begun seriously to ask myself whether I shall ever be able to face "The Olympian Religion."

The Queen happened to be resident at Cimiez at this time, and Mr.

Gladstone wrote about their last meeting:-

A message came down to us inviting us to go into the hotel and take tea with the Princess Louise. We repaired to the hotel, and had our tea with Miss Paget, who was in attendance. The Princess soon came in, and after a short delay we were summoned into the Queen's presence. No other English people were on the ground. We were shown into a room tolerably, but not brilliantly lighted, much of which was populated by a copious supply of Hanoverian royalties. The Queen was in the inner part of the room, and behind her stood the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge.

Notwithstanding my enfeebled sight, my vision is not much impaired for practical purposes in cases such as this, where I am thoroughly familiar with the countenance and whole contour of any person to be seen. My wife preceded, and Mary followed me. The Queen's manner did not show the old and usual vitality. It was still, but at the same time very decidedly kind, such as I had not seen it for a good while before my final resignation. She gave me her hand, a thing which is, I apprehended, rather rare with men, and which had never happened with me during all my life, though that life, be it remembered, had included some periods of rather decided favour. Catherine sat down near her, and I at a little distance. For a good many years she had habitually asked me to sit. My wife spoke freely and a good deal to the Queen, but the answers appeared to me to be very slight. As to myself, I expressed satisfaction at the favourable accounts I had heard of the accommodation at Cimiez, and perhaps a few more words of routine. To speak frankly, it seemed to me that the Queen's peculiar faculty and habit of conversation had disappeared. It was a faculty, not so much the free offspring of a rich and powerful mind, as the fruit of a.s.siduous care with long practice and much opportunity. After about ten minutes, it was signified to us that we had to be presented to all the other royalties, and so pa.s.sed the remainder of this meeting.

In the early autumn of 1897 he found himself affected by (M186) what was supposed to be a peculiar form of catarrh. He went to stay with Mr.

Armitstead at b.u.t.terstone in Perthshire. I saw him on several occasions afterwards, but this was the last time when I found him with all the freedom, full self-possession, and kind geniality of old days. He was keenly interested at my telling him that I had seen James Martineau a few days before, in his cottage further north in Inverness-shire; that Martineau, though he had now pa.s.sed his ninety-second milestone on life's road, was able to walk five or six hundred feet up his hillside every day, was at his desk at eight each morning, and read theology a good many hours before he went to bed at night. Mr. Gladstone's conversation was varied, glowing, full of reminiscence. He had written me in the previous May, hoping among other kind things that "we may live more and more in sympathy and communion." I never saw him more attractive than in the short pleasant talks of these three or four days. He discussed some of the sixty or seventy men with whom he had been a.s.sociated in cabinet life,(313) freely but charitably, though he named two whom he thought to have behaved worse to him than others. He repeated his expression of enormous admiration for Graham. Talked about his own voice. After he had made his long budget speech in 1860, a certain member, supposed to be an operatic expert, came to him and said, "You must take great care, or else you will destroy the _colour_ in your voice." He had kept a watch on general affairs. The speech of a foreign ruler upon divine right much incensed him. He thought that Lord Salisbury had managed to set the Turk up higher than he had reached since the Crimean war; and his policy had weakened Greece, the most liberal of the eastern communities. We fought over again some old battles of 1886 and 1892-4. Mr. Armitstead had said to him-"Oh, sir, you'll live ten years to come." "I do trust," he answered as he told me this, "that G.o.d in his mercy will spare me that."

II

Then came months of distress. The facial annoyance grew into acute and continued pain, and to pain he proved to be exceedingly sensitive. It did not master him, but there were moments that seemed almost of collapse and defeat. At last the night was gathering

About the burning crest Of the old, feeble, and day-wearied sun.(314)

They took him at the end of November (1897) to Cannes, to the house of Lord Rendel.

Sometimes at dinner he talked with his host, with Lord Welby, or Lord Acton, with his usual force, but most of the time he lay in extreme suffering and weariness, only glad when they soothed him with music. It was decided that he had better return, and in hope that change of air might even yet be some palliative, he went to Bournemouth, which he reached on February 22. For weeks past he had not written nor read, save one letter that he wrote in his journey home to Lady Salisbury upon a rather narrow escape of her husband's in a carriage accident. On March 18 his malady was p.r.o.nounced incurable, and he learned that it was likely to end in a few weeks. He received the verdict with perfect serenity and with a sense of unutterable relief, for his sufferings had been cruel. Four days later he started home to die. On leaving Bournemouth before stepping into the train, he turned round, and to those who were waiting on the platform to see him off, he said with quiet gravity, "G.o.d bless you and this place, and the land you love." At Hawarden he bore the dreadful burden of his pain with fort.i.tude, supported by the ritual ordinances of his church and faith. Music soothed him, the old composers being those he liked best to hear. Messages of sympathy were read to him, and he listened silently or with a word of thanks.

"The retinue of the whole world's good wishes" flowed to the "large upper chamber looking to the sunrising, where the aged pilgrim lay." Men and women of every communion offered up earnest prayers for him. Those who were of no communion thought with pity, sympathy, and sorrow of

A Power pa.s.sing from the earth To breathless Nature's dark abyss.

(M187) From every rank in social life came outpourings in every key of reverence and admiration. People appeared-as is the way when death comes-to see his life and character as a whole, and to gather up in his personality, thus transfigured by the descending shades, all the best hopes and aspirations of their own best hours. A certain grandeur overspread the moving scene. Nothing was there for tears. It was "no importunate and heavy load." The force was spent, but it had been n.o.bly spent in devoted and effective service for his country and his fellow-men.

From the Prince of the Black Mountain came a telegram: "Many years ago, when Montenegro, my beloved country, was in difficulties and in danger, your eloquent voice and powerful pen successfully pleaded and worked on her behalf. At this time vigorous and prosperous, with a bright future before her, she turns with sympathetic eye to the great English statesman to whom she owes so much, and for whose present sufferings she feels so deeply." And he answered by a message that "his interest in Montenegro had always been profound, and he prayed that it might prosper and be blessed in all its undertakings."

Of the thousand salutations of pity and hope none went so much to his heart as one from Oxford-an expression of true feeling, in language worthy of her fame:-

At yesterday's meeting of the hebdomadal council, wrote the vice-chancellor, an unanimous wish was expressed that I should convey to you the message of our profound sorrow and affection at the sore trouble and distress which you are called upon to endure.

While we join in the universal regret with which the nation watches the dark cloud which has fallen upon the evening of a great and impressive life, we believe that Oxford may lay claim to a deeper and more intimate share in this sorrow. Your brilliant career in our university, your long political connection with it, and your fine scholarship, kindled in this place of ancient learning, have linked you to Oxford by no ordinary bond, and we cannot but hope that you will receive with satisfaction this expression of deep-seated kindliness and sympathy from us.

We pray that the Almighty may support you and those near and dear to you in this trial, and may lighten the load of suffering which you bear with such heroic resignation.

To this he listened more attentively and over it he brooded long, then he dictated to his youngest daughter sentence by sentence at intervals his reply:-

There is no expression of Christian sympathy that I value more than that of the ancient university of Oxford, the G.o.d-fearing and G.o.d-sustaining university of Oxford. I served her, perhaps mistakenly, but to the best of my ability. My most earnest prayers are hers to the uttermost and to the last.