'S^'LIFE AND DPINIQMS- r 'author QF "GO-LDWIN-- SMITH'S 'CORHESPONaENCl'*' , -: ajorttell IniuErsita IGihrarti atljaca. Kcm goi-k JK-Cb.Q . W, Uarrv&., CT 788.S64°H37'l"914'^'"'^^^^ °f?,',!?,"''" ^'""h. his life and opinions, bv h """"•mmim •' 3 1924 019 511"' 546 The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92401 951 1 546 GOLDWIN SMITH HIS LIFE AND OPINIONS (/'/;,./,. !■)• Mr. M. O. lla,:,uuv,J 0/ " The Cli.l-e" l\y,v„h<) % n^ J:« GOLDWIN SMITH HIS LIFE AND OPINIONS By His Literary Executor ARNOLD HAULTAIN AUTHOR OF " GOLDWIN SMITH's CORRESPONDENXE " To which is appended "U.S. NOTES" being Goldvvin Smith's Journal during his First Visit to America in 1864 ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK DUFFIELD & COMPANY 1914 W E.H. Nothing extenuate. Nor set down aught in malice. PREFACE The way this book came to be written is very simple. I have been accustomed for many years past to keep, not exactly a Journal, but what I call a Warehouse, a sort of Literary Warehouse, in which to store quota- tions, jottings, comments, thoughts, and odds and ends generally — whether just to please myself or whether to work up afterwards into marketable commodities I hardly know. Shortly after I joined Goldwin Smith as his secretary I began to find his talk so interesting that, almost involuntarily, I found myself filling pages upon pages of this my Warehouse with verbatim records of our conversations — sometimes just as they occurred, sometimes with comments of my own. Such of these recorded conversations and comments as I thought might be made public without giving ofience to the living or casting aspersion upon the dead I publish here. I hope I do my old Chief's memory no wrong in so doing. My notes, of course, have been much amplified since Goldwin Smith's death. Vll CONTENTS PART I PAGE Introduction 1 PART II Conversations and Comments 23 U.S. Notes . . 251 Index .... 293 Index to U.S. Notes . . . . .301 PART I INTRODUCTION GOLDWIN SMITH: HIS LIFE AND OPINIONS INTRODUCTION GoLDWiN Smith was bom in 1823 : three years after the accession of George IV., eight years after the Battle of Waterloo, two years after the death of Napoleon Buonaparte, nine years before the passing of the great Reform Bill — an event which he remembers and re- cords — twenty-five years before the Anti-Corn Law Agitation and the Chartist Riots, on both of which, in his Reminiscences, he expatiates at length. He was a contemporary of the Duke of Welhngton — whom he knew; of Southey, Wordsworth and Cole- ridge. Shelley died in the year before he was born; Byron died the year after. Carlyle was his senior by twenty-eight years, and died before him (and a most interesting and characteristic obituary notice of Carlyle did Gold win Smith write).' Matthew Arnold was just one year older; John Stuart Mill was seventeen when he was born; Macaulay was twenty-three; Bulwer Lytton, twenty; Queen Victoria, Walt Whitman, Ruskin, just four; Tennyson, Gladstone, Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were boys of fourteen; Longfellow was sixteen; Lever, seventeen; Whittier, nineteen. Newman (the Cardinal) was a young man of twenty- two; Benjamin Disraeli was nineteen; Cavour, thirteen; Mazzini, eighteen. Charles Lamb died when he was eleven ; Southey when he was twenty ; and De Quincey 1 In The Bystander, A Monthly Review of Current Events, Canadian and General. Toronto, Hunter, Rose & Co., vol. ii. p. 165, March 1881. 3 4 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFJ: AND OPINIONS when he was thirty-six. There were only eleven years between him and Dickens. Goldwin Smith was an alert, quick, highly-educated and Radical graduate of Oxford, aged twenty-five, when that extraordinary revolutionary wave passed over Europe in the year 1848. Yet he hved till the year 1910 — sixty-two years after that annus mirabilis. He was a link between what seems to us now the long, long past and the actual present ; and his diatribes on the Boer War are as bitter as his diatribes on the war in the Crimea. He was actually in America during the war between the North and the South, and when there met and talked with Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant. But perhaps I can best give the ordinary reader a general idea of the times through which Goldwin Smith lived by the following httle chronological conspectus : — 1823. Goldwin Smith born. 1824. Death of Byron. 1825. Great money panic in England. 1826. Riots in Lancashire to destroy factory looms. 1827. Canning becomes Prime Minister. Followed by Lord Goderich 1828. Duke of Wellington Prime Minister. 1829. Catholic Relief Bill passed. 1830. William IV. succeeds. Lord Grey Pi'ime Minister. 1831. Discussions on the Reform Bill. Goldtvin Smith goes to school. 1832. Reform Bill passed. Death of Walter Scott 1833. Beginning of the Tractarian Movement. 1834. Lord Melbourne Prime Minister. Followed by Sir R. Peel. Coleridge and Charles Lamb died. INTRODUCTION 5 1835. Peel resigns. Melbourne again Prime Minister. 1836. Committee on Agricultural Distress. Rt. Hon. Joseph Chamberlain born. Goldmn Smith goes to Eton. 1837. Queen Victoria ascends the throne. 1838. Afghan War declared. 1839. Capture of Kandahar. 1840. A popular Constitution granted to Canada. 1841. Free Trade agitation under Cobden. Goldwin Smith matriculates at Christ Church, Oxford 1842. English Army massacred in the Khyber Pass. 1843. Anti-Corn Law League. Robert Southey died. 1844. Trial of Daniel O'Connell. 1845. Sikh War. Goldwin Smith graduates. 1846. Lord John Russell Prime Minister. Repeal of the Corn Laws. 1847. Disraeli leader of the Opposition. Daniel O'Connell died. 1848. Chartist Meeting in London. Rt. Hon. Arthur J. Balfour born. 1849. Kossuth's rebellion in Hungary. 1850. Wordsworth died. Death of Peel. Goldwin Smith called to the Bar ; accepts a Fellowship and Tutorship) at University College ; acts on the University Commission. 1851. The Great Exhibition. 1852. Louis Napoleon President of the new French Republic. Rt. Hon. Herbert H. Asquith born. 1853. Gladstone's first Budget. 6 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS 1854. Crimean War begins. 1855. Palmerston Prime Minister. " Peelites " leave the ministry. Goldwin Smith joins the "Saturday Review" staff'. 1856. Crimean War ends. 1857. Indian Mutiny. 1858. Capture of Lucknow. Goldwin Smith acts on the Education Commission. 1859. Darwin's Origin of Species published. War of France and Sardinia against Austria. Macaulay and De Quincey died. Goldivin Smith delivers his inaugural lecture as Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford. 1860. Victor Emmanuel declared King of Italy. 1861. American Civil War begins. Death of Cavour. 1862. The Alabama leaves the Mersey. 1863. Thackeray died. Cession of the Ionian Isles. Lloyd George born. Goldwin Smith publishes "The Empire." 1864. Battles of the Wilderness. GoUhvin Smith visits America. 1865. Abraham Lincoln murdered. 1866. Gladstone leader of the House of Commons. 1867. The Dominion of Canada formed by the British North America Act. Goldwin Smith publishes " Three English Statesmen." 1868. Disraeli Prime Minister. Goldwin Smith leaves England for Cornell University, Ithaca, Neiu York. 1869. Disestablishment of the Irish Church. 1870. Franco-Prussian War. Death of Dickens, Elementary Education Act. INTRODUCTION 1871. Treaty of Washington. Religious tests in the Universities abolished. Goldivin Smith goes to Toronto. 1872. Ballot Bill passed. 1873. John Stuart Mill died. Supreme Court of Judicature Act. 1874. Disraeli again Prime Minister. Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill born. 1875. Charles Kingsley dies. Qoldwin Smith marries. 1876. Disraeli created Earl of Beaconsfield. 1877. Great Home Rule debates in Parliament. 1878. The Berlin Congress and Treaty. 1879. Irish "Land League" formed. 1880. Gladstone Prime Minister. Goldwin Smith publishes his " Cowper." 1881. End of the Parnell trial. Death of Lord Beaconsfield. Carlyle died. 1882. Coercion in Ireland. Darwin died. Longfellow died. 1883. ParnoUite obstruction in the House of Commons. 1884. General Gordon sent to the Soudan. 1885. Salisbury Prime Minister. Biel's rebellion in Canada. 1886. Gladstone's first Home Rule Bill. 1887. The Irish Question in acute form. 1888. Special Commission on " Parnellism and Crime." 1889. John Bright dies. Death of Robert Browning. 8 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE x\ND OPINIONS 1890. Report of the Parnel] Commission. Death of Newman. 1891. Irish Land Purchase Bill p issed. Death of Parnell. Goldu'i.-i Smith publishes his " Canada and the Canadian Question." 1892. AVhittier died. Tennyson died. Walt Wliitman died. Gladstone Prime Minister. Goldivin Smith pnhlishes his ^^ Jane Austen." 1893. Gladstone's second Home Rule Fill. Goldann Smith publishes his " The United States," and his " Essai/s on Questions of the Day." 1894. Lord Rosebery Prime Minister Goldwin Smith publishes his " Oxford and her Colleges." 1895. The Jameson Raid. Goldwin Smith publishes his " Trip to England." 1896. Great indignation against the German Emperor. 1897. Queen Victoria's " Diamond Jubilee." Goldwin Smith publishes his " Guesses at the Riddle of Existence." 1898. Spanish- American AYar. Death of Gladstone. Mat. Arnold died. 1899. Boer War begins. Goldivin Smith jjublishes his " l^he United Kingdom." 1900. Ruskindied. Australian Commonwealth Bill passed. 1901. Edward VII. ascends the throne. 1902. End of the Boer War. Mr Balfour Prime Minister. 1903. Mr Chamberlain advocates Tarifi Reform. 1904. Russo-Japanese War. 1905. Campbell-Bannerman Prime Minister. INTRODUCTION 9 1906 Great discussions on Tariff Reform. 1907. "Guillotine" closure introduced into the House of Commons. 1908. Old Age Pension Act passed. Mr Asquith Prime Minister. 1909. Lloyd George's first Budget. 1910. Goldivm Smith dies. The great intellectual world has long since agreed to acclaim Gold win Smith a great man. " Gold win Smith," sajrs one of his Oxford contemporaries — " ' vastiest Gold win ' Rolleston always called him — towered above his fellows as undergraduate and bachelor. We all saw in him the coming man." ' Professor E. A. Freeman, the historian of the Norman Conquest, calls him " a scholar, a thinker, a master of the Enghsli tongue; one, too, who is some- tliing nobler still, one whom we may truly call a prophet of righteousness." " The name of Goldwin Smith," he says, " is honoured in two hemispheres, honoured as his name should be who never feared the face of man wherever there was truth to be asserted or wrong to be denounced." - " One man there is," wrote Matthew Arnold, " whom above all others I would fain have seen in Parliament during the last ten years, and beheld estabhshed in in- fluence there at this juncture — Goldwin Smith. I do not say that he was not too embittered against the Church; in my opinion he was. But with singular lucidity and penetration he saw what great reforms were needed in other directions, and the order of relative importance in which reforms stood. Such were his character, style and faculties, that alone perhaps of 1 Reminiscences of Oxford, by the Rev. W. Tuck-well, M.A. London, Cassell & Company, 1900, chapter viii. p. 104. - See his Inaugural Lecture dehvered as Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, Methods of Historical Study, by Edward A. Freeman. London, Macmillan & Co., 188G. 10 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS : men of his insight he was capable of getting his ideas weighed and entertained by men in power ; while amid all favour and under all temptations he was certain to have still remained true to his insight, ' unshaken, unseduced, unterrified.' I think of him as a real power for good in Parhament at this time, had he by now become, as he might have become, one of the leaders there. His absence from the scene, his retire- ment in Canada, is a loss to his friends, but a still greater loss to his country." ' When, in 1881, Goldwin Smith made an address at Dublin, at the meetmg of the British Association, and a vote of thanks was proposed. Lord O'Hagan, then Lord Chancellor of Ireland, in putting the motion, said he " most sincerely congratulated the audience on having had the privilege of hstening to one of the most remarkable men of his time who had dehvered one of the most remarkable addresses which, in his experience, had ever been put before a pubhc meeting. That address came from an eminent teacher and a powerful writer; from one whose influence was equally acknow- ledged m the country of his birth and in the country of his adoption. . . . He appreciated the lofty and generous motives which induced Air Smith to expatriate himself for the benefit of the working population of a distant country ; but he could not help saying that they were not in this country at the present time so rich in men of great abihty, great energy and great devotion to the pubhc interests, as to be able to view the abstrac- tion of a man hke Goldwin Smith without the deepest regret. He felt that very strongly, and he hoped the time might come when Mr Goldwin Smith's rare faculties would be exerted, perhaps, in a wider sphere, in which he might become a power in his own country — a power both social and pohtical — conferring the greatest benefits on those among whom he resided." - ' " A Word more about America," by Matthew Arnold, Nine- teenth Century, vol. xviii. p. 219. See also Civilization in the United States, by M. A., p. 149. Boston, Cupples, 1888 (2nd cd.). ' See the Times (London) of October the 8th, 1881, p. 10. INTRODUCTION 11 " When I once read him [Conington] a passage I copied from a review of Carlyle's Latter-JJay Fartvpklets by Goldwin Smith," ' said Dr Boyle, Dean of Sahsbury, Conington said: " 'You wUI hardly find anything in Burke better than this.' " ' And again: — " The pithy sayings, the truthful aphorisms, the pleasant criticisms, that would fall from the hps of Goldwm Smith and Conington, in the course of a Sunday afternoon's walk, would, if I had chronicled them at the time, in Boswellian fashion, have made these meagre recollections really valuable." ' And yet again : — " It would be improper of me to say anything of the benefit I derived from walks and rides with Goldwin Smith, who returned to Oxford towards the close of my undergraduate hfe. At that time there was no one who interested the thoughtful men of his University more. A great career seemed before him, and his power- ful thought, aided by a most vigorous style of writing, gave him an almost unique position. Lord Sherbrooke once said, after reading Goldwin Smith's book on Irish history, ' If the writer of this chooses a great subject he win be one of the greatest historians the world has ever seen.' Many, I suppose, have often regretted that there will be no monumental work by this gifted man, of whom a famous lady once said, ' that he and Carlyle were the ordy two men she had ever known, in her great experience, who had the true elevation of genius.' " * And yet again : — " 1855 was a remarkable year. It saw the birth of the Saturday Review ; and Tennyson's Maud, our com- panion in travel, with its war verses, was the subject of 1 In the Times. " The Recollections of the Very Reverend G. D. Bogle, Dean oj Salisbury, pp. 148, 149. London, Arnold, 1895. 2 Ibid., pp. 150, 151. 4 Dean Boyle, op. cil., p. 153. 12 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS a critique in the first number, by a very distinguished man of letters." ' Lord Chief Justice Coleridge spoke of him as " always most interesting and dehghtful." ^ " Perhaps you have heard," writes Dean Church to Dr Asa Gray, " that you are hkely to have Gold win Smith to settle, it is supposed, permanently among you. He had a terrible blow in his father's death. And perhaps that has contributed to make England distasteful to him. I think he has given us up too soon. So much nobleness and elevation are a loss to any society, and we can hardly spare him. But I think that he has latterly been carried away by ex- tremes both of indignation and sympathy; though I must say that such a pohtical year [1867] as last year is some excuse for any man." ^ J. B. Mozley, too, Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford, writes thus to the Dean of St Paul's : — " Have you read Gold^vin Smith? The epigrammatic power is wonderful. He is, in his way, and with all his bitterness, still something of a prophet. . . . The Enghsh, both Church and nation, has in him a judge who tells the truth, though savagely." * " To hear of you as again in England," writes to him Roundell Palmer, first Earl of Selborne, Lord High Chancellor of England, " is a light in a dark sky." " And again, writing to Lord Stanmore m 1893, Lord Selborne says: — "Did I ever tell you that he [i.e., Gold win Smith] reminds me, more than anyone else, ■ Viz., Goldwin Smith. Dean Boyle, op. cit., p. 194. 2 Life and Correspondence of John Duke Lord Coleridge, Lord Chief Justice of England, written and edited by Ernest Hartley Coleridge, vol. ii. p. 335. London, Heinemann, 1904. 3 Dated Whately, 17th January 1868. See the Life and Letters of Dean Church, edited by his daughter, Mary C. Church, with a preface by the Dean of Christ Church. London, Macmillan, 1894, p. 214. ^ Letters of the Rev. J. B. Mozley, D.D., late Canon of Christ Church and Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford, edited by his sister. London, Rivingtons, 1885, p. 320. 5 Memorials, by Roundell Palmer, Earl of Selborne, part il. vol. ii. p. 225. London, Macmillan & Co., 1898. INTRODUCTION 13 of what I can imagine Milton to have been, so far as the tone of his mind (in which there is a certain severity) is concerned? In his pohtical ideas he is, mi fond, repubhcan. ... In religious views I doubt his being a Churchman; . . . but positively rehgious (as Milton was, and I should think very much in Milton's way) he is." 1 James Macdonnell, the well-known journalist (1842- 1879), said; — "If the civihzation of the future will depend, for its noblest aspirations, on rehgion, and if the Christian religion is still laden with unimagined possibihties for good, then it is to such men as Goldwin Smith that we must look with hope." ^ And again: — " The New York Nation is to be congratulated on having among its contributors the man who, in former years, was perhaps the ablest vnriter for the Saturday Review of England. Did you know that Smith was at one time a Saturday Reviewer ? It was he who used to write the merciless criticisms of the French Empire in that periodical. And that is the reason why the Saturday spared Smith during the American War, when it poured all its wealth of scorn, and invective, and sneer, and falsehood on the other prominent EngUshmen who took the side of the North, and who recognized in the Southern ' gentlemen ' no higher quahty than the im- perial brutahty which comes with generations of hcen- tious rule. Douglas Cooke, the late editor of the Satur- day, once showed my friend, the late Dr Joseph Robert- son (the greatest of Scottish antiquarian scholars) an album containing portraits of his best contributors; and on coming to Smith's hkeness, ' That,' he said, ' I count, on the whole, my most effective pen.' " ' Mr Charles F. Benjamin, of Washington, tells me that the late Sir Edwin Arnold expressed to him the opinion that " Professor Conington and Goldwin Smith were the two best products of Oxford in modern times, 1 Memorials, by Roundcll Palmer, Earl of Selbornc, part ii. vol. ii. p. 389. • See James Macdonnell, Journalist, by W. Robertson Nicoll. London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1890. 3 Ibid., p. 188. 14 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS and that as a master of expression the latter was without rival or peer." These are the plaudits of men themselves applauded ; and though posterity may soften or quahfy their ap- praisement, it will surely not reverse it. Great, intel- lectually. Gold win Smith was. Goldwin Smith occasionally talked to me about his family. The Smiths to whom he belongs are to be traced, he thought, to an old family of Wyburnbury in the parish of Nantwich, in the county of Cheshire. There was a Sir Thomas Smith, a baronet, who died leaving no issue. Many of the family were mayors of Chester, where, in the town hall, some of their portraits hang. Mr Homer Dixon, his brother-in-law, it seems, has traced the Professor's pedigree to a Bishop Smith, founder of All Souls College, Oxford. He — Goldwin Smith — thought this, at the least, problematical. His arms — which he naively told me were certainly assumed before the period at which such things were purchased — are identical ^vith those borne by the Smiths of Wyburn- bury. There is in this little town a tombstone, marldng the grave of a Smith, upon which these arms — an ostrich with a horse-shoe in its beak — are graved. Mrs Sophia Place, of Skelton Grange, Yorkshne, a cousin, gives me the following information about his parents and grandparents : — "... Mr Goldwin Smith's grandfather, as a young man, was a curate, and sort of chaplain to Lord Brad- ford, at what was then a small village, called Castle Bromwich, near Birmingham. Lord Bradford had (and has) a seat there. Castle Bromwich Hall. His agent was a Mr Twamley. The curate, Mr Smith, fell in love with the agent's handsome daughter. And once, when Lord Wemlock paid a visit to Lord Brad- ford at Castle Bromwich, he offered Mr Smith the very fine hving of Long Marston, near York. (It contains the famous battlefield of Marston Moor.) Then Mr INTRODUCTION 15 Smith and Miss Twamley were married, and took up their abode at Marston Rectory. Mr Twamley had another daughter who married my grandfather, Mr Hickman. The Rector of Marston had several daughters, one of whom married Mr Place, my hus- band's father, and one son, Richard Pritchard Smith, who became a very eminent physician at Reading. He married a Miss Britton [? Breton], a daughter of a General Britton, and had two sons. One, named Arthur, died young, and the other was Mr Goldwin Smith. The house they Hved at was ' Mortimer House,' near Readmg. ..." > Another cousin, Miss Adela C. Breton, also writes to me about his mother's family thus : — " The Bretons were a Huguenot family, who came over after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and never really took root in England or Uked it. Goldwin Smith's great-grandfather died young, in 1749, the result of a wound in a naval battle (he was in the Enghsh navy), so there have never been any traditions or attachment to a settled home. "... His [Goldwin Smith's] grandmother, Mrs Peter Breton, was left a widow with a family of twelve children (the youngest bom after his father's death), and then she died before they were grown up, and the eldest daughter, Ehza, G. Smith's mother, mothered them before she married. My father and his twin brother. General Breton, and Captain Peter Breton, were all very gentle, refined men, very sensitive, in- clined to take gloomy views of things, and always apart from the outer world, though genial and enjoy- ing society. I only knew them when they were old, as my father was over fifty when I was born, but looking back now I see how hke them G.S. was. Baroness Macdonald once said of him that ' he did not allow for human nature,' and I am sure that none of that family really understood ordinary human nature. They Hved on a higher plane. My father used to say the twins had never had a word or a quarrel, and they lived to be eighty-eight and ninety. 16 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS " There has always been a certain want of initiative in them, an iiicUnation to stay where they were and to please other people rather than to serve their own interests and inclinations. I could give many instances. Also a strong feehng of the tmcertainty of this life and an expectation of death which I have never seen in anyone else. I think this chiefly accounts for G.S.'s remaining in America. They wanted him at Cornell and hked to have him there, and so he just stayed. It was not in the least because ' he hked the Americans.' And his marriage happened because he called one day at The Grange and found its mistress much worried about household matters. " As you probably know, his mother died when he was a small child, and unfortunately he and his step- mother did not harmonize, though I believe she was an admirable woman, but cold in manner; and I fear he never really had a home." The loss of his mother, the great man tells us in his own Reminiscences, was the great misfortune of his life. His mother seems to have been very dehcate. She frequently complains of " severe attacks of illness." In 1816, Avhen she was twenty-eight years old (three years before her marriage), she was ill for a whole year — six months of it in bed. She gave birth to more than one still-born child ; and she never recovered her health after the birth of her last-born — Eliza, born January the 25th, 1831. She herself died on the 19th of November 1833, at the age of forty-five. She was married at the age of thirty-one. His mother must have been a very sweet woman. Her husband, writing about her haK an hour before her funeral, says : — " A more affectionate wife or a more tender mother never lived. In everything she was influenced by the highest principle — the great business of her Ufe consisted in promoting the comfort and happiness, and alleviating the sufferings, of all aroimd her. She had a most grateful heart and was always cheerful. Her friends and acquaintances would all bear DR. RICHARD PRICHARD SMITH, OOLlnVIN SMITHES FATHER {Photo hy ll'hilc, Reading;) INTRODUCTION 17 testimony to her pleasing manners and the agreeable- ness of her conversation, and the poor will have reason to recoUect that they have lost a friend who was always accessible to them and who never forgot that she had indigent neighbours." His father married again. Bnt between Goldwin Smith and his stepmother there was not much in com- mon. Lady Frances Bushby tells me; — "Professor Goldwin Smith's father, Dr Richard Pritchard • Smith, married as his second wife my mother's first cousin, a sister of the late Sir Henry Dukinfield, a woman full of common sense, kind-hearted, and deeply religious; but precise and old-fashioned even for those days, and quite without imagination. I have often heard it said that she had an intense respect and admiration for her stepson's genius, but she never imderstood him, never felt wholly at her ease with him. and never would venture an opinion on any subject in his presence. This bored him, and a barrier of restraint arose between them." Nor had GoldwinsSmith any brothers and sisters — at least he had only «ne brother, Arthur, four years younger than himself, but this one died at the age of eighteen. A brother born two years after himself hved only twelve days ; a sister, bom six years after himself, died the same year ; and another sister, born eight years after himself, hved only tiU she was three. Lastly, be it remembered, the great me.n had no children, and he married a childless widow. Perhaps it was on account of his mother's delicate health that the little Goldwin was sent away to school so early in life. He went to a boarding-school when he was eight years and five days old. All these particulars I learn from a manuscript Diary begun by Goldwin Smith's mother when she was foiirteen years of age, kept uninterruptedly by her until the year of her death, and then continued by her hus- band, Goldwin Smith's father. I hope T do no wrong in thus making use of the contents. Anything that sheds 1 There seems to be a divergence of opinion as to the spelling of this name. 2 18 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS light on a great man's character, career and influence is of value to those whom he influences. I gather, too, that the great man in his youth was shy and reserved. Lady Frances Bushby writes to me as follows: — " My husband had an almost hfelong acquaintance with him [Goldwin Smith], and was, I think, at Eton at the same time with him. My hus- band used to say that Goldwin Smith was one of the few boys who were not happy at Eton ; he was too re- served and sohtary in his habits, and disliked joining in the school games." A certain shjiiess and a great reserve he re- tained till very late in Hfe, indeed till the mellowing influence of old age and the reverence shown to the aged Seer of " The Grange " partly broke down his seK-isolation. Of Goldwin Smith's early schooldays Sir WilHam Farrer, who was with him at Eton, writes to me thus : — "Sandhurst Lodge, Wellington College Station, Berks, Dec. 6/10. " Dear Mr Haultain, — . . . . As far as I remember G. Smith came to Eton in the autumn of 1836. He was one of a band of boys of very remarkable abihty. His immediate compeers were Henry F. Hallam, the younger son of the historian; Bolton, the 3rd son of the engineer, the partner of Watt, and himself a man of great ability. Hallam, Bolton, and as a third G. Smith, took immediately a very high place amongst the boys of their age. " In point of scholarship G. Smith took a very marked lead. When I say scholarship, I mean cleahng with the Greek and Latin languages. I am not sure that G. Smith was the equal, indeed I think he was not the equal of Hallam and Bolton in general knowledge, but in the writing of Greek and Latin he was their superior. In speaking of him at that period of his hfe his develop- ment in one line was remarkable. " He was exceedingly witty and kept his compeers in a run of laughter! — some happy clever turn was INTRODUCTION 19 developed at every incident. One always knew when one of these specially bright sapngs was coming by his putting his hand up to his ear and twisting a lock of hair, and the sparkle of the eye ! then came the saying which set us all in a roar. I dwell with the more emphasis on this feature because it was lost in later hfe; after the one or two misfortunes that saddened his hfe this element of wit became obscured. The bright and clear tone which marked his English com- position remained, but the witticism disappeared. " Let me pass on to an incident in his later Eton hfe. I think in the year 1838. " One of the Canons and Tutors of Chris tchurch, Jelf , had the opportunity of conferring the Studentship of Christchurch. He made it the opportunity of giving it to the Eton boys. G. Smith, who at that time was still in a somewhat junior position, went in for it. His Latin was so good that he got the prize; but he was too young to avail himself of it. By arrange- ment with Jelf he was to postpone going up to Christ- church for 2 or 3 years. When the time arrived, the other Canons of Christchurch refused to recognize the promise made by JeK, and confirmed by themselves. The result was that Smith found there was no student- ship for him. He got a Demyship at Magdalen. I need not say that his treatment aroused very great indignation in Smith and his friends, indignation which led ultimately to great changes in Oxford. " After a time he went up to London to read Law, but never took keenly to it, and in point of fact I saw less and less of him. Finally circumstances occurred, of which you must be well aware, which led to his leav- ing England altogether, and to his taking up a Professor- ship and a life in Canada." With regard to the Studentship at Christchurch, there was another little Oxford incident, that of the Fellowship at Queen's, upon which Goldwin Smith left with me his own (dictated) explanation. Old Oxford men may remember it and may be interested in it, so I insert it here :^ 20 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS " The Rev. Frederick Meyrick, in his Memories of Life at Oxford, treats the election to a Fellowship at Queen's College, Oxford, about 1850, as the source of the movement for the reform of the University of Oxford. It was a mere incident in that movement, which had in fact been commenced long before by the opening of the Fellowships of Oriel and Balliol, it may perhaps be said by the institution of the Class List. " Queen's had been in a particularly bad state even for a close College. Two of the FeUows, Johnson, afterwards Dean of Wells, a man of the highest academi- cal distinction; and Thomson, afterwards Archbishop of York, desired reform. A Fellowship falhng vacant, they asked and pressed me to become a candidate. It was a forlorn hope, the anti-reformer having a certain majority, while I was pretty sure of a Fellowship else- where. But I did what my friends wished. The result was what it was sure to be. Mr Meyrick says that I passed the best examination, but was in possession of a private income greater than that which the statutes of the College allowed its Fellows to hold, and that on this ground I was rejected. There was no examination. The candidate of the anti-reform party had no academi- cal claims, but was elected simply in opposition to re- form. To hold one would not have been a practical surrender on the part of the anti-reform party. Their candidate had no academical claims. I had no private income and therefore could not have been rejected on that ground, even if it had been a sufficient bar to election into a body which punished an educational staff. It was simply a contest between reform and anti-reform in which reform was voted down. The result may have affected opinion in some degree. Me it did not affect at all. " Where Mr Meyrick, with whom I have nothing to do, gets his experience of my ' singularly sensitive disposition ' I am unable to guess. " Mr Mepick thinks that Oxford ought to have been J kept close to the Clergy of the State Church and dedicated to their training. This glaringly coloura INTRODUCTION 21 his opinions of persons as well as of events and policies. I think it highly probable that Oxford, open and re- united to the nation, teaches more sound theology than she did in her unreformed days." However, I am not here writing a Life of Goldwin Smith. Let us proceed at once to the conversations I had with him as recorded in my Warehouse. PART II CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS Feb. 15, 1898. The Professor talked more about himself than is his wont yesterday. Said he had spent the Sunday — the day previous — in reading again Cicero's De Natura Deorum. The modemness of it struck him, he remarked. Cicero was not acquainted with the theory of evolution, but had he been, he would have accepted it, he thinks, quite unconcernedly and without qualms of conscience. Cicero talks of the ancient gods and of the accepted mythology in quite the sceptical vein of the modem rationalist discussing orthodox theology. His own opinions Cicero does not definitely state ; but he seems to lean towards a sort of argument from design. The Epicurean theory, that there are gods but that they are careless of human events, Cicero scouts. That they are fashioned hke men he considers a purely anthropo- morphic idea. February 16, 1898. " Cicero," said the Professor to me to-day, his thoughts evidently recurring to the De Nahtra Deorum, " was perplexed with the imperfections which he saw combined with the perfections of this world ; and he remarks on the rarity of beauty. He says that among the greges—I suppose classes — of young men at Athens only about one out of each class was beautiful. And yet we have always considered Greece celebrated for her beautiful men and women." " Does he mention beauty of natural scenery — landscape? " I asked. " Ah, the ancients had httle eye for that." I acquiesced, and ventured to corroborate his state- 25 26 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS ment by saying that we rarely get descriptive passages in Homer. "No; though Homer uses very descriptive ad- jectives," was his reply. " There are signs of love of landscape in Homer, too," he went on; " that of Circe's case, for instance. By the way, you might put me out Homer to take with me ; that is the only book I shall take." (Monro's Uiad and Merry's Odyssey.) " I have always kept up my classics. I can still read Greek and Latin as easily as Enghsh unless I come to a . . . " " A corrupt passage? " " A ' snag.' " February 18, 1898. Saw the Professor off for Ithaca to-day by the 2.10 train. While waiting for the train he and I walked up and down the platform chatting. His thoughts are always far away. He seems perfectly bhnd to what is going on aromid him — and yet such, I know for certain and by experience, is the keenness of his subconsciousness, he no doubt is just as perfectly aware of his surroundings and could, if necessary, at once bring to bear on them his acutest thought. What he was thinking of was, of course, his work — instructions to be delivered to the editor of the Sun — the legitimacy of making use of an article from the Cornhill for the Sun — A¥hether or not it would infringe copyright — whether a long letter in the said article was or was not cop5n:ighted — and so forth. Meanwhile " the old lady," his wife, joins us and tells me a piece of gossip. He pricks up his ears at once. " What, no doubt, both Mrs W and Mrs M ," so he dehvers himself, " are after is an aristo- cratic marriage. I can't quite fancy Lord S hldng such an alhance for his heir." But soon he wraps himself again in the impenetrable cloud of his own thoughts, and stalks, shghtly stooping, to and fro in the waiting-room. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 27 June 30, 1898. " What the advocates of ' single tax ' really want," said Goldwin Smith to me yesterday, " is that nobody shall pay any rent, and that those who receive rent shaU pay all the taxes." An invitation to attend — or subscribe to — a mission- ary meeting arrived one morning. " If there is one thing I set my face against," was the Professor's com- ment, "it is subscribing to missions — especially since nowadays it is customary to follow up a missionary with a ' Punitive Expedition.' " July 4, 1898. An interesting httle scrap of conversation with the Professor this morning. I had lent him my first volume of Alexander Sutherland's The Origin and Growth of the Moral Instincts Evidently he had been reading it yesterday (Sunday). " This book," he said, laying his thin dehcate hand upon it as it lay on his desk ; " this book, it seems to me, is based on a palpable fallacy. The author confounds sympathy with morahty. Sympathy is to be classed with our natural instincts or desires. That is not my idea of morahty, which means a curbing of our natural instincts or desires by a recognition of our obhgations. Evolution in these days seems to have run wild." I combated this view — very feebly — by saying that probably he and Alexander Sutherland looked at the subject from two opposing points of view : he regarding Right and Wrong as something external to ourselves; intrinsically distinct, absolutely posited. " No," he said, " I do not beheve in the ' categorical imperative ' or what-not. There is no such thing as Right or Wrong." " Then what is your sanction, sir? " I asked. " Is it the opinion of the community expressed ia laws and statutes? " " Exactly." 1 London, Longmans.— A book, I think, that deserves to be better known than it is. 28 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS These two views surely converge, and Sutherland's theory need not necessarily be based on a fallacy; for surely the mutual play of rights and duties can be shown to be evolved. Sutherland seeks the germ vvhich has so evolved, that is all. July 8, 1898. " I still think your author [Alexander Sutherland] reasons from a fallacy," he said to me the next day, " although I shall not express an opinion till I have read his book. He ought to define what he means by ' moraUty.' To me morahty means a curbing of our natural propensities, either from self-interest, as when the curbing leads to personal gratification, or from the interests of society." July 19, 1898. Curious scrap of conversation with the Professor this afternoon at 5.15, just as I was putting on my coat preparatory to leaving. " Well," he exclaimed, half to himself, lajdng down the evening paper which had just been brought in to the hbrary to him, " I am glad to see those Chinese are waking up at last. They can show fight, some of them. Look at that Taeping rebelhon. Really, I think this process of refining and civihzing people off the face of the globe is going too far. Besides, I doubt if it is a real gain to humanity. All the great things have been done by the wild stocks. Nothing great has been done by an offshoot of civilization. The North American colonies are an exception. But they were founded by a company of rehgious peasants. The rule holds good. No really grand thing — no great man — no great book — has been produced by a civihzed colony. Magna Graecia — nothing; Holland, in Java — nothing; the Spanish colonies — nothing; Canada has done nothing; Austraha, nothing. They have fed them- selves. Theocritus perhaps was an exception. He was Sicilian, was he not? Look him up. Of Syracuse? CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 29 Yes; and lived some time in Alexandria? Yes, I thought so. It is the wild stocks that have done the really great, the grand things. Eh? What? " /. " That is a sweeping generahzation, sir. Was not all Europe an Aryan colonization from a superior civiHzation? " He. " All wild stocks." JuUj 25, 1898. To Lake wood the Professor took with him Homer. To Niagara-on-the-Lake, where he went for a week — in the hottest of weathers — to watch a tennis tournament — he took . . . of all books ! . . . Ovid ! and when he came back he expressed himself over and over again as lost in admiration of Ovid's " briUiancy." " Very briUiant, unfaihngly briUiant — with such ' snap,' and withal a splendid rhetorical roll — an ancient Roman Alexander Pope," so he said to me to-day. — Were I a Coiiington or a Robinson EUis how I could draw him out on these old classical writers ! July 26, 1898. The Professor grows more communicative as he grows older. The New York Sim of (I think) yesterday (Monday, 25th July 1898) referred to an article in (I suppose) the current number of the National Review in which — so it said — a diplomatic secret had leaked out, viz. ; that at the crisis of the Cuban Question Mr Balfour, who was then in charge of the Foreign Office in Lord Sahsbury's absence, had made what was virtually a diplomatic aUiance with the United States, guarantee- ing them against concerted European action hostile to their designs upon Spain. Upon this peg the Professor hung a leading article, or rather a paragraph, signed " Bystander," for the Toronto Weekly Sun, dictating it as he walked round and round the bilHard-table with his hands behind his back, occasionally sitting in his large red arm-chair 30 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS before the grate, absorbed in thought, and evidently intensely in earnest, although the article was sober and calm. (He interests himself intensely in everything he takes up.) Then he talked. He. " That was not unhke Balfour," he said; " I am not surprised. BaKour is hke Chamberlain in that he too is rather given to flying kites. Sahsbury would not have done that. BaKour took up Bimetalhsm once, if you remember." /. " Did he not take up Woman Suffrage too? " He. " Yes, and gave a silent vote for it ; an unheard- of thing for a party leader to do, when it was a question of a political, perhaps a social, revolution." /. " Sir William Harcourt came out very strongly on that occasion." He. " Yes. Harcourt is a clever fellow. He saw how hollow was the sentiment on beliaK of Woman Suffrage. He is an aristocrat [which the Professor always pro- nounces aristocrat] of aristocrats, yet he poses as a Liberal, as a Radical. It was he who said, ' It's a precious good thing for the Liberal party that I ain't an eldest son.' He is overbearmg, insolent, with high Tory leanings. He openly, openly made overtures to Dizzy. He and Dizzy fraternized tremendously to- gether once. I remember they both went down to . . . what was the name of the place, near Dizzy's seat? " I. " Hughenden? " He. " Well, that was the name of the seat.^ At all events a church had been renovated or something, and they went down to participate in the performances of its opening — took the sacrament together and all that sort of thmg — neither of them for one moment beheving in anything at all — Harcourt probably in nothing, Dizzy perhaps in Ashtaroth or in Fire. Well, as he couldn't join Dizzy, he had to go back to his own party ; and for this he had to be purified from his recent 1 It was Chalfont St Giles, he told me to-day (July 27th), that those " two mountebanks " went to. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 31 Toryism. So he got Dizzy to explain at length, either by speech or letter, that there was nothing pohtical in their friendship, that it was merely founded on their great esteem and admiration the one for the other. Those who know these things do not forget them. The fellow is perfectly hollow. Even in his long and pom- pous speeches there is a hollow sound to those who can detect it. But he is very clever. . . . Here is another instance of his hoUowness : — He actually took up Pro- hibition once — Local Option. Now, I remember per- fectly when at Oxford he took distinctly the opposite ground. There is a strong beer vote at Oxford; what with the Hcensed victuallers, the inns, the ostlers and so forth, they poll a large vote. Well, I remember he wrote to a man named Bacur there, a tailor, a noisy fellow with some pohtical influence with whom Har- court pretended to be on terms of the closest intimacy, he wrote him a letter saying something about ' how hard it would be if a man couldn't during a quiet country walk round Oxford or the suburbs of London get his glass of beer ' — some stuff of that kind. ... It is a curious instance of how sometimes a very clever man can make mistakes. This teetotal freak of his lost him more than the election. Anybody who knew any- thing about it knew that there was nothing whatever in this Local Option cry. We knew, I knew, that the Prohibitionists did all the talking and never voted, while beer did all the voting and didn't talk." I. " Harcourt has come out very strongly on this Rituahsm question." He. " Yes, he has. No doubt he thinks — and I believe he is right — that there is a real and strong feel- ing against it. Not, mind you, as I have already said, that there is anjrthing doctrinal in it; there is no ' No Popery ' cry at stake, as the New York Nation thinks; it is purely a feeling that the clergy have no business to draw their stipends from the State and yet foist their nonsense upon the people." This Rituahsm question roused him to even more energetic talk. He continued: — He. "I cannot cease to wonder — I cannot wonder 32 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS enough, at people in this meridian light of science or criticism going back to those preposterous beliefs — actualljr beUeving that a priest, a priest who is not even empowered by his ordination service — that a priest can by mumbling a few words turn a piece of bread into God — for it comes to that — into God, who is said to fill Eternity and be always everywhere present. They worship this piece of bread, beheving it to be God. Why worship it any more than the circumambient air? " July 28, 1898. Just back from the Professor — the heat too much for him to-day. We searched together to-day the Annual Register^ in vain for a report of a debate inaugm-ated by Peel in the 'forties on a railway bill, and he joined in my anathemas on the style in which that work is indexed. He thought it on the whole rather a poor affair " with- out even the merit — or rather requisite — of imparti- ality: much of it reads like a leadmg article " was his comment. " It is of no use consulting Parker's Life [of Peel]," I said, " for that only comes down to 1827." That set him talking, as I surmised, and I sat down on the sofa to Hsten — though it was very nearly luncheon time and I was desperately hungry. "Oh, that book," he said, laying his volume of the Register in his lap: "that book of Parker's has a most curious history. It has stuck fast at the first volume. Parker seems to have been seized with a sort of hterary paralysis. To commence with, it took him some three years to write, though he had every source of informa- tion. An expert could have done it in six months. I venture to say you and I could have pohshed it off in three. He is a curious creature, Parker, nervous and hesitating. All he had to do was to string Peel's letters together with a readable explanation and comment. There is virtually no composition to be undertaken. " Peel's literary executors were, I think. Stanhope 1 The Grange did not possess Hansard. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 33 and Cardwell. I had something to do with it, but I came away. Stanhope, though once a Peelite, con- tracted Tory tendencies and fought shy of the business. Cardwell got creeping palsy. I besought them to get Cardwell to make some arrangement before he died. But they didn't. Then I think Hardinge and Peel's son {Sir Robert, the Speaker, now Viscount) took it up. Hardinge and I dined with Peel one day to settle matters. Hardinge had Tory proclivities too, and looked rather askance at me of course. But a curious thing happened at dinner. We were talking about the Academy pictures, and I said that I saw none that particularly interested me, unless perhaps it was one representing fox-hunting, and that rather for the sport than the painting. 'Are you a fox-hunter?' said Hardinge. I said yes, I was very fond of fox-hunting. At that his face hghted up and his whole manner changed — as if nothing was to be feared of a Radical if he were a fox-hunter! " — and he bent over in his chair and looked at me with a quizzical sort of smile. " Well, the arrangement was that we were to get some man to write the Life — it was my suggestion, and the man was to be Wahond, who had written a capital Life of Lord Elgin. Wahond was then engaged on a Life of Stanley; but he undertook to do Peel when Stanley was finished. But Wahond died. So another man had to be found, and Parker was chosen — with what results you know. Parker's first volume was very weU done, very; but he has stuck fast and nothing will make him move. I have written to Peel over and over again. I suggested that his son should do it. He wrote the life of Ms grandfather for that series [pointing to the Dictionary of National Biography on the mantel- piece before him], and he did it very weU— not the work of a genius, you know, but very well. I proposed that he should come out here and talk it over with me. But I suppose they can't very well change now that they have appointed Parker. I don't know what the delay is." " There was nothing in that man " — meaning Glad- 3 ° 34 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS stone— was the next articulate sentence that I heard. " Look at Tollemache's Talks [ivith Gladstone], there is not a striking sentence in the book. I never once re- member having heard him say a striking or brilliant thing. He talked well, of course, fa va sans dire, but if anyone else said the same thmg at a dinner-table you would not remember it till you got home. He used to say odd things now and again, but nothing strikingly original or deep." /. " What do you mean by ' odd ' things? " He. " Oh, he had some curious, out-of-way theories . . . about Homer for instance." /. "Ah, yes! I see. I think you used to say he found ' mares' nests ' in mythology and cosmogony " — his answer to which I could not catch. " I was on Gladstone's committee at his Oxford election once," he went on presently. " We were trying to prove to him that it was necessary that he should represent two interests, the out-and-out Liberals, who looked to him for a progressive pohcy; and the High Church party who had been desperately put out by Palmerston's wholesale appointments of evan- gehcals to bishoprics, and who looked to him for some appointments more suited to themselves. I put the case before him, and of course, as usual, he at once argued me down, tried to show that it was all nonsense, and so on — his usual way; then he turned round and asked, ' Whom do you want made a bishop ? ' I said that I was the very last person to ask and the very least desirous of suggesting a name. By the way, he did make Thomson Archbishop of York — Thomson was fairly High Church." I asked him about Palmerston's appointments. " Shaftesbury was the recognized leader of the Low Church party," he went on; "and Palmerston saw that there were votes to be got there, so he made evangelical bishops by shoals and the Rock — no, the Record was their organ then — the Record called him a ' man of God ' — or if it dichi't, it was on the point of doing so — Palmerston who was one of the loosest of dogs ! Why, he was accused of crim. con. when he was CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 35 past seventy .1 He was one of the loosest of dogs. He tookC into his Cabinet, knowing that C had debauched two young Irish ladies. He thought the thing had blown over, but it hadn't." September 10, 1898. Have several bons mots of the Professor's to insert, the fruit of quite recent conversations : — " Of a surety the Church of England cannot at all events be convicted of narrowness ; she embraces people who have given up all behef in the existence of a God ; and she embraces people who worship a wafer. At least two of the former I have personally known — one endowed a church for pohtical purposes." " Did you find anything of interest in the Quarterly [for July '98]? " I asked him yesterday. " Oh, yes," he answered at once; and added, " The Quarterlies alone of aU our magazines still give us a sense of repose in their articles." He has been re-reading Macaulay's History lately. " EeaUy," he ejaculated the other day, " his pen runs away with him. His language descends to the language of an auctioneer." And again: — " Really, you don't know how far to trust him amid his heaps of accumulated hyperboles." We were talking of modem novels. " To me," he said earnestly, " it seems to be a serious question how far this tidal wave of pig-wash is going to affect men and women. They are surfeited with this trashy fiction and do not give their minds to the vital and important questions of the day." " Trash " — " chopped straw " — " saw-dust "— " pig- wash " are his ejaculations when laying down a modem novel after vain attempts to read it through. But Scott he never tires of. George Ehot he thinks a mere second-rate Jane Austen padded with pseudo- philosophical language. ' Lady Dorothy Nevill says this wasTafmere rumour. See her Under Five Reigns, p. 79. London, Methuen, 1911. 36 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS October 8, 1898. The Professor has been talking a Httle again. To- day it was about Liddell, Dean of Christ Church College, Oxford, compiler of the Greek Lexicon. He said that Liddell had once been regarded as a possible leader in the " Oxford Movement " — on the liberal side, i.e., as opposed to Pusey; but that, perhaps because "his serene mind " hated controversy, and because he saw that devotion to theology in those days meant con- troversy, he " turned aside " and plunged into his dictionary. Talking to me he spoke more freely and openly. He said that, in his private opinion, Liddell found himself going farther in the hberal, in the rationahstic, direction than he himself at first suspected was possible, farther than those who looked to him for guidance would be Hkely to follow ; found himself, in fact, hasten- ing on a path that led not to a controversy merely but to a " precipice." He compared him with Jowett in this respect. " I can't understand Jowett," said the Professor; "we all suspected he wandered pretty far from orthodoxy, and his letter.s show that he wandered with a vengeance; yet he made himself comfortable in the Church, put on his surplice daily or weekly and chanted Psalms and recited Lessons. Yet that man beheved that the sole authority for all the New Testa- ment traditions was a single anonjanous manuscript dating from the second century. The other [Liddell] couldii't have done that." " I have half a mind," he went on, " to write some- thing one of these days on how criticism of the New Testament should commence. Everybody begins on the wrong side, with the Gospels, namely. What are these? Anonymous, unauthenticated documents of an uncertain, probably of a late, date. There are only two authentic contemporaneous authorities for the life of Christ — Tacitus and Paul. We should clear our minds of everything in the Gospels and begin our criti- cism with the Pauline Epistles." Speaking of the rector of his church who talked to CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 37 him of people being " led by the Holy Ghost," his half- audible ejaculation was " a Byzantine fiction." A correspondent writing on the subject of his article on " The Origin of Morahty," i argued that " moral instinct," the phrase used in the title of the book on which the article was based,'-^ was inappropriate, and that " divinely-implanted germ " should be sub- stituted. " I don't see much difference, do you? " said the Professor; and continued: "I too can admit the divine origin of all things " — but then he suddenly pulled himseK up mentally, as it were, and hurriedly and indistinctly added something to this effect: "At least what do we know? I don't know whether the universe has a soul." The last phrase was really all I distinctly caught. To-day he was once again on the relationships between Church and State. " I see someone has been saying that the Church should not be amenable to Parhamentary legislation," he said, " but the Church is paid by the State, and the payment comes out of my pocket. If a man hkes to worship a wafer it is nothing to me : but it is something to me if I am compelled to pay him for estabhshing and propagating that creed." " Disestabhshment must come some day, sir; don't you think so? " I asked. " Of course it will." " And don't you think the clergy are unwittingly hurrying that date? " " Yes. There is a httle thing that the clergy are very much afraid of which everybody doesn't see. Of course disestabhshment will deprive them of their stipends, it wUl do away with tithes; that is a serious enough matter. But there are certain things of which they will not be deprived; endowments, for example, ' NoTlh American Review, October 1898. » The Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct, by Alex. Suther- land, M.A. London, Longmans, 1898, 2 vols. 38 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS and their churches, perhaps their rectories and vicar- ages, and certainly their glebes. Nevertheless, they will not be allowed to administer these properties as they please; Parhament will bring them under a con- stitution ..." " Will impose conditions," I interposed. " Will impose conditions, and among the conditions will be that the laity shall have a voice in the adminis- tration. And if there is anything the clergy abhor it is the interference of the laity. But the laity will insist upon having a say in all matters — even the ritual- istic laity wiU do that ; and of this the clergy are terribly afraid. Again, as has been proved upon this continent, where State and Church are disunited, the laity will be adverse to change. Democracy fights shy of ex- tremes. It will put an end to high ritualism. The married clergy are most afraid and go softly; it is the yoimg curates, the young graduates, who go in for high ritual." Oct. 17, 1889. 4.36 p.m. Just home from work. Lunched at The Grange. Their luncheons do not suit me. — And no wonder. The Professor helps himself to rice-blanc-mange or " punkin' pie " — the latter is one of his pet dishes; they grow pumpkins on purpose for him. This he washes down with a cup of tea : and his luncheon is over — time, about seven minutes. I make as much haste as a very good appetite can, and always by eight minutes to two at the very most we are back at our respective desks. — No ; I can't write to-day. Later I try. Yesterday the Professor was talking about the antagonism between the Whites and the Blacks upon this continent. Incidentally he asked for Fronde's Oceana. " Froude! " he said, as he carried the volume across the hbrary to his arm-chair before the fire, " it's diffi- CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 39 cult to say who takes the palm for mireUabiUty, Froude or Macaulay. Macaulay is always hyperbolical and exaggerative; but Froude ..." To-day he received a letter from a reader of the second edition of his Guesses at the Riddle of Existence. Something (I do not think it was contained in this letter — which, by the way, was from Minot Savage) led him to speak of " the evolution of God." And he began to talk. His usual attitude when talking is to lean back in his great red arm-chair before a glowing coal fire, put his two elbows on the arms, fold his hands, gently twiddle his bony thumbs, cross his thin legs and gently move up and down his left foot, encased in a flexible black leather shoe. " Evolution," he said, speaking very slowly and emphatically, " evolution is a purely physical process. To evolve God, we must go back to the primeval atoms. Out of physics you can get only physics." " But," I interjected, " there are metaphysicians who think that puff's grades into ute^ ipusis." " Well the physicists and the metaphysicists may talk as they hke. The evolution of God is exactly the same as the evolution of a worm into a man." October 23, 1898. " I knew both the Stephens — Fitz James and Leslie," said the Professor to me yesterday, quite suddenly, in fact in the middle of reading quietly to himseK, in his arm-chair, the second revise of his chapter on James II. — but I had, about half an hour previously, put by his elbow Leshe Stephen's two volumes of Studies of a Biographer, thinking they would interest him; " I knew both the Stephens. They were both hard men, Leshe less hard, more genial than Fitz- James. They were both critics. Neither of them set out to construct anjdihing, to prove anytliing, to estab- Ksh anjrthing. They were always criticising what other people did." 40 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS Dr Minot Savage wrote him a long letter the other day which led him to talk about Unitarians. " The modem Unitarians differ from the old," he remarked. " The old rejected only the divinity of Christ but ac- cepted everything else — miracles and all; the new are simply deists accepting the Christian system of ethics." More talks with the Professor lately. He was buying a new horse yesterday. After leav- ing the Ubrary to go and see it, he remarked on his re- turn, " Trying a new horse is very hte a honeymoon; you don't know how the marriage is going to turn out! " Apparently he received a letter the other day from someone who asked him the secret of the antagonism between him and Disraeh. He did not show me the letter, but he talked on that topic pretty freely and openly — giving me the impression that he would hke to leave with me the facts of the case as he interpreted them. " I only met Disraeh once," he said. " Dizzy attacked me more than once in the House." He made me copy out pages 56 and 57 in Caimes's Political and Economical Studies, in which he was laudatorily referred to as the advocate of retrenchment of the Empire, and then went on: "My letters had brought me very prominently forward, and when my pohcy was so signally endorsed by the cession of the Ionian Isles to Greece it was almost hke a direct blow to Disraeh, who had strenuously taken the other side. I got the better of him, and he never forgot that sort of thing. " We took opposite sides on the land question too, and again in the objects and results of the Oxford Commission — there too I got the better of him. Dizzy never forgot such things, and even some time after- wards, in that novel of his, which was it? " " Lothair?" I asked. " Yes, Lothair, he called me a ' social sycophant.' I hope I am not a ' social sj^cophant ' ! There was not a particle of foundation for that. The Duke of New- castle and I were great friends, intimate friends when I was in London. He took me up when I was in London. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 41 Perhaps he thought I was mtending to enter public hfe. But that I didn't. I hked being with him, and it was pleasant to meet leaders in poHtics and society, and statesmen. But our friendship was open and in- timate. I was often useful to him, too, in a way, my historical information and that sort of thuig. The only difference we ever had was my persistent refusal to accept his many invitations to go to Clumber with him- — London was pleasant and I enjoyed my Club life. That is the whole history of the affair." He spoke, poor old gentleman, as if the topic were painful to him, and walked about the room, faced me and looked me full in the eyes sometimes with shy move- ments both of features and of hands. Evidently he was perturbed. What his answer to the letter was I do not know. The Lothair episode perhaps I ought, for a younger generation, to explain here. " Disraeh," says Goldwin Smith in his Reminiscences, " pursued me across the Atlantic and tried to brand me, under a perfectly transparent pseudonym, if ' Oxford Professor ' could be called a pseudonym at all, as a ' social sycophant.' " The allusion is to the following passage in Lothair, which was pubUshed in 1870, two years after the Professor left England: — " The Oxford Professor, who was the guest of the American Colonel, was quite a yomig man, of advanced opinions on all subjects, rehgious, social and pohtical. He was clever, extremely well-informed, so far as books can make a man knowing, but unable to profit even by that Hmited experience of hfe from a restless vanity and overflowing conceit, which prevented him from ever observing or thinking of anything but himself. He was gifted with a great command of words, which took the form of endless exposition, varied by sarcasm and passages of ornate jargon. He was the last person one would have expected to recognize in an Oxford professor but we hve in an age of transition. " A Parisian man of science, who had passed his life in alternately fighting at barricades and discovering 42 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS planets, had given Colonel Campian, who had Kved much in the French capital, a letter of introduction to the Professor, whose invectives against the principles of Enghsh society were hailed by foreigners as repre- sentative of the sentiments of venerable Oxford. The Professor, who was not satisfied with his home career, and, like many men of his order of mind, had dreams of wild vanity which the New World, they think, can alone reahze, was very glad to make the Colonel's ac- quaintance, which might facihtate his future move- ments. So he had Honized the distinguished visitors during the last few days over the University; and had availed himself of plenteous opportunities for exhibit- ing to them his celebrated powers of exposition, his talent for sarcasm, which he deemed peerless, and several highly-finished pictiu-esque passages, which were introduced with extemporary art. " The Professor was much surprised when he saw Lothair enter the saloon at the hotel. He was the last person in Oxford whom he expected to encounter. Like sedentary men of extreme opiuions, he was a social parasite, and instead of indulging in his usual invectives against peers and princes, finding himself unexpectedly about to dine with one of that class, he was content to dazzle and amuse him." (Chapter xxiv.) " His allusion to the ' Oxford Professor ' who was going to the United States," continues Goldwin Smith,' " was as transparent as if he had used my name. Had I been in England, where my character was known, I should have let the attack pass ; but I was in a strange coimtry where, made by a man of note, the attack was Ukely to tell. I therefore gave Disraeh the he, and neither he nor any of his organs ever ventured to repeat the calumny." He " gave the he " by means of the following letter, which was sent to the London Times : — " In your Lothair you introduce an Oxford Pro- fessor who is about to emigrate to America, and you ' In his Reminiscences. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 43 describe him as a social parasite. You well know that if you had ventured openly to accuse me of any social baseness you would have had to answer for your words ; but when, sheltering yourseK imder the Uterary forms of a work of fiction, you seek to traduce with impunity the social character of a pohtical opponent, your ex- pressions can touch no man's honour — they are the stingless insults of a coward." November 1, 1898. I put LesHe Stephen's two volumes of Studies of a Biographer before the Professor on Saturday for Sunday reading. " I have read Stephen," he said on Monday morning; " there isn't one single definite assertion on any subject; he is purely critical. He is right about Jowett." " Jowett 's influence seems to have puzzled him," I ventured; " Leshe Stephen is surprised that a man whom no one could look up to as an intellectual or rehgious guide should have wielded such influence." He. " Jowett 's influence was purely social and col- legiate. Not only did Jowett avoid accepting any tenet, he seemed to deprecate anybody else accepting any tenet." /. " Did Jowett talk seriously," I asked, " or did he indulge in banter, did he hide his real opinions behind a mask? " He. " Oh, no. He talked seriously enough. If he resorted to banter it was perhaps the result of his shyness. But what surprises me about Jowett is that a man hke that should daily put on a surphce, conduct the Enghsh Church service, preach, and yet beheve so httle, so very httle, of Christianity. Leshe Stephen," he went on, " is a sceptic. You noticed that? " /. " Yes, I think perhaps the four words, ' Why not drop it? ' at the end of his remarks on Jowett's exposition of the Atonement form the one definite utterance in his two volumes." He. " Yes, perhaps they are." He was lost in amazement at the Archbishop of 44 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS Canterbury's (Dr Temple) stand on the Ritual question as evinced in his charges to his clergy. (Vide Times of circ. October 8, 1898.) I asked him if he thought the Archbishop sincere. "Well, it is a serious thing to think otherwise; but that a man who once contributed to Essays and Reviews, and who at all events, even if he did not go as far as his fellow-contributors, at least associated himself with that school; a man of intellect, active if not profound, a man who thinks, and who has watched — as he must have done — the comrse of inquiry — that this man should now sincerely side with and uphold the High Church party, the party that beheves in the 'Real Presence,' that worships a wafer — this to me is scarcely credible." Somehow the conversation drifted to Carlyle. " Carlyle," said the Professor, " was a imiversal cynic; he criticized everything and everybody, he criticized a person for taking up a certain position, he criticized him for changing it." He (the Professor) got another letter to-day ani- madverting upon his Guesses. Holding it before him (I had not seen it) he pounced on the word " in- scrutable " which, apparently, his correspondent had made use of. " What difference is there," he asked me, " between ' inscrutable ' and ' unknowable ' ? " Then he went on — " ' Infinite ' is a purely negative term signifying merely ' not finite.' How can we assert the existence of, or ascertain the attributes of, the Infinite? " Presently he drifted on to American poUtics. " What impresses me most," he said, " is their want of leaders. They have no leaders, they have only poh- ticians. If they go in for Imperialism, their Imperialism wiU be the Imperialism of Kentucky. There's that man M'Kinley going about the country talking inflated nonsense about ' the currents of destiny flowing through the hearts of his countrymen.' The man is a rogue. They say he is amiable and has hosts of friends. Many a rogue is amiable and has hosts of friends. He is a rogue." CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 45 ' What of Cleveland as a leader? " I asked. He. "Ah! he is an ex-president, and according to an absurd tradition he is shelved." I. " Cannot he stand again for the Presidency? " He. "No; Washington would not accept a third term and they think they are bound by Washington's precedent. Whereas the reason of Washington's re- fusal is simple enough: he was growing old, the cares of office had told on him, and he wanted to be quiet and do nothing." I. " Then there is no such inadmissibihty in the Constitution? " He. " Not a bit of it." Two things, apparently, the Professor cannot help doing, and he does both more and more the older he grows: flog dead horses and gird at dead antagonists. He is writing an article for Sdf -culture on " The Seamy Side of Empire " (the title is sufficiently significant), and in it poor dead-and-buried — and probably forgotten — Governor Eyre, and poor sick John Ruskin, who supported him, come in for more vilification. In fact the whole article is highly characteristic of the dear old Professor's dogged insistence on theories for which he fought hard in his famous days. The gist of it is simply that Empire had a bad effect on EngHsh character, Empire will have a bad effect on American character — ergo, America had better not try its hand at Empire! Nov. 8, 1898. "What is 'Ritualism'?" repeated the Professor haK to himseff yesterday as he picked up the current Contemporary : " Ritualism is a return to the religious superstitions of the Middle Ages, due to disbehef in the creed of the Church on the part of the man; the con- sequent falling of the Church into the hands of women and effeminate-minded men, and social flunkeyism." My Chief said a noteworthy thing to me yesterday and said it impressively. Now and then, very rarely, he speaks, even when alone with me in his quiet Ubrary, 46 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS shut ofF by an ante-library and a passage from the rest of the house, very impressively: he speaks slowly, dehberately, and in a low tone ; he either rises from his chair and looks me in the face, or he still remains huddled in his arm-chair before the fire, his head sUghtly stoop- ing, his thin legs crossed, one foot gently moving up and down. And when he speaks thus impressively, he often holds out his left hand with the fingers extended and emphasizes his words slowly and periodically by striking it with the other. This was his attitude when, putting down a curious and " very hberal " — so he called it — book entitled Opposites of the Universe, he said: " After all, the crux of the whole thing is this : Do they or do they not be- lieve in the Book of Genesis? If they do, science is there to refute them. If they do not, if they call it a mere Allegory, then the Fall is an Allegory; if the FaU is an AUegory the Redemption is an Allegory, the In- carnation is an Allegory. I do not see any possible way of getting over that cham of reasoning." >. ' Nov. 16, 1898. A Httle " Browning Club " here is going to read Strafford at its next meeting, and the Professor has been asked to give a short " talk " on the Hfe and times of the hero of that play. I had to get from the Mbrary for him a copy of the work. Yesterday he unburthened himself about it in a single sentence. " This Strafford," he said suddenly, "is trash. Its liistoric note is faulty; its metre is detestable. Here are pages and pages ending in a dull monosyllabic thud "■ — and he read aloud pp. 236 and 237 ^ emphasiz- ing terrifically the lineal terminal monosyllabic thud : — " Lady Car. — For life on earth I am your own, dear friend! [goes out. Went. — Heartless ! but all are heartless here. Go now. Forsake the People ! — I did not forsake The People : they shall know it — when the King • Robert Browning's Complete Works, published by Ticknor & Fields, Boston, 1864. Sordello and Other Poems. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 47 Will trust me ! — who trusts all besides at once, While I have not spoke Vane and Savile fair, And am not trusted : have but saved the Throne ; Have not picked up the Queen's glove prettily, And am not trusted. But he'U see me now. Weston is dead : the Queen's half Enghsh now, More Enghsh : one decisive word will brush These insects from . . . the step I know so well ! The King! But now, to teU him . . .no — to ash What's in me he distrusts : or, best begin By proving that this frightful Scots fair Is just what I foretold. So much to say. And the flesh fails, now! and the time is come, And one false step no way to be repaired ! You were avenged, Pym, could you look on me! [Pym enters. Went. — I httle thought of you just then. Pym.— No? I Think always of you, Wentworth. Went. — The old voice ! I wait the King, Sir. Pym. — True — you look so fole ! A CouncU sits within; when that breaks up." Etc., etc., etc. November 29, 1898. I think I can put down verbatim another httle talk with the Professor to-day. Work was over for the morning and I was pulling on my gloves preparatory to leaving for luncheon. Suddenly, a propos of nothing, he commenced: — He. " I see that man . . . that Outlook man ..." /. "Lyman Abbott? Yes, I see that he has re- signed." He. " Lyman Abbott, yes. I suspect he found himself in a bhnd alley. He made a mistake which his predecessor avoided. Henry Ward Beecher never disclosed his philosophy. He had the knack of preach- ing ethical sermons with a rehgious tinge to them which had all the appearance of being backed by a 48 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS philosophy ; but he never brought that philosophy out of the cupboard. Lyman Abbott has." January 8, 1899. A pleasant evening at the Eound Table Club last night. The Professor opened a conversation on " The Dechne of Poetry." He began by sajdng that he ought perhaps rather to say " The Eclipse of Poetry." He asked what poets we had now. He remembered John Bright having read aloud to him — John Bright was one of the most beautiful readers of poetry he had ever heard — several pages of Lewis Morris's Epic of Hades. But what chiefly attracted John Bright was sonorous verse. He ventured to think there was not much else than sonorous verse in The Epic of Hades. Lewis Morris, he went on, was not surely a great poet. Had we really a great poet now? Was not poetry echpsed? William Watson was a Tennysonunculus. Edwin Arnold had a facihty for writing luscious verse, nothing more. The Light of Asia " took " because the character was new; The Light of the World did not take because the character was old. Browning, he thought, wrote obscure essays in bald verse, and in pages upon pages of his poetry the Unes ended in monosyllabic thud. You could not call Matthew Arnold a great poet. Tennyson was a poet certainly, but even he was a mere reflection of his age. His poetry was utterly devoid of action. Its note was languor, which was the note of his age. The fine arts seem to come in zones. After the Pheidian zone in Greece, sculpture declined. After the Beethoven and Mozart zone in Germany, music declined. England had a poetical zone at the time of Wordsworth, Cole- ridge, Shelley, Byron, Keats; but now poetry had declined. What was the reason of the dechne? Had science eclipsed poetry? Darwin admitted he had lost the taste for poetry. Very few of his hearers agreed with him, and the conversation soon became very desultory, and after a CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 49 short time the members gathered in httle groups — my group stoutly maintaining the claims of Kipling as a poet. February 3, 1899. The following paragraph appeared in the Toronto World of Wednesday: — Criticism of Goldwin Smith The Saturday Revieiv Gives a Dig at the Professor Who Lives at " The Grange." London Saturday Review : — Lord Beaconsfield de- scribed Mr Goldwin Smith in Lothair as " the Professor who was not satisfied with his home career, and hke many men of his order of mind had dreams of wild vanity, which the New World, they think, can alone reaUze." Well, Mr Goldwin Smith has certainly not reaUzed his dream of uniting Canada with the United States; and now he writes from Toronto to tell us that the party system has been weighed and found wanting, and must inevitably disappear. For a pro- fessor of history this is a very superficial judgment, and discovers an entire forgetfulness of the eighteenth century. For forty years, from the suppression of the last Jacobite rising in 1745 to Mr Pitt's general election in 1784, there was no such thing as party principle. It was merely a question of whether the Grenville Whigs or the Rockingham Whigs were to hold office, and what was to be clone for the Duke of Bedford's friends or what would satisfy His Grace of Newcastle. But oru" vigorous party system smrvived this interlude of faction, just as it will survive the present period of con- fusion and weakness through which the Liberal party is passing. It aroused the Professor's keenest resentment. He debated a long time with himseK and with me what steps he should take to answer it — whether he should write to the Saturday, whether he should write to the 4 50 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS Times, his letter in which on the Liberal Leadership was the peg upon which the Saturday hung its remarks, or what he should do. I suggested stating his case in his Reminiscences and passing it over at present in silence. But evidently it cut him to the quick, and he was bound to express himself at once. At last he made up his mind to use the [Toronto] Mail as his channel. He drove down to the office and saw one of the editors, and obtained permission to insert a paragraph in the form of an interview. After all sorts of corrections and re-corrections this was what appeared in Thursday's Mail : — " Mr Gold win Smith's notice was yesterday called to a paragraph in a contemporary alluding to an offen- sive account given by a London journal of his motives for setthng on this side of the water, and he was asked, as other injurious accounts of the same matter had appeared before, whether he would object to giving the true account. His answer was: — " ' My settling on this side of the water has before been ascribed to discreditable motives. The real ac- count is simply this: — I held the Professorship of Modern History at Oxford, the chair held before by Arnold, and since by Freeman and Stubbs, which was the summit of my hmited ambition. I resigned it because family reasons obhged me to leave Oxford, requiring my presence at home. On my father's death, having independent means and no profession, I was rather at a loss for an object in life. I was offered a nomination to Parliament, and for a sure seat; but I knew that I had neither strength for the work nor any gifts that way. I had visited America, and had formed the interest in American history and poKtics which has since led to my writing a httle history of the United States. My thoughts were turned that way when I fell in with Andrew D. White, now American Ambas- sador at Berlin, then president of the Cornell LTniversity, which was being founded under his own and other very noble auspices for the special benefit of poor students. White invited me to take part as a historical CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 51 lecturer in the enterprise. I consented, feeling that I should thus combine an object of practical interest with the fullest facihties for my American studies. Two very happy, and, I hope, not unfruitful, years I spent at Cornell, with which I maintain a more than friendly connection. Then I took up my abode with members of my family who had settled before me here, and presently I married and became permanently resident in Canada. I may say that while living here I have received offers, both poUtical and academical, from the Old Country, which showed that I had still most kindly relations both with pohtical and academical friends. This disposes of another set of reports. Since I have settled in Toronto I have allowed a series of these fictions to pass with the disdain due to those who cannot discuss pubhc questions without assaihng private character and feelings. I do not even know whether I ought to say what I am saying to you now. But I hope it will be taken less as an answer to my enemies than as a tribute to the opinion of my friends.' " That is the Professor's account of his resignation of the Regius Professorship of History. What took him to Cornell he has explained. What took him to Canada and kept him there, he tells us quite simply, is that he had relatives here, that he married here, and that his wife and her friends (perhaps, too, her property) keep him here. But his own ostensible reasons for settling in America he had given long before this. His first pubhc explana- tion was probably in the New York Tribune in 1868, when he said: — " I am going to devote myself to the study, and if after due study I feel equal to the task, to the com- position of American history. With this view I shall probably take up my abode in the United States in the course of the summer." > And yet in spite of these explanations why Goldwin • See the London Times, 11th February 1868, p. 7, col. 6. 52 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS Smith left England and buried himself in the Western Hemisphere, nobody really loiows. Nor did he divulge his secret to anybody. From what I know of his character and career, from what he has told me, and from what I have read about him, I think the reasons for his expatriation were many and complex. I. With great self-abnegation he resigned the Regius Professorship of Modern History at his own University in order to be with his afiflicted father. This he himself told me. He also told it to his friend, Charles Eliot Norton, in a letter, dated 23rd February 1867, which I am permitted to use. He writes thus: — " Mortimer, Reading, Feb. 23, 1867. " My dear Norton, — I write this in a sad house. My father's malady, as was feared from the beginning, has affected his brain and he is now in a state of inter- mittent insanity at once most distiurbing to the patient and most trying and embarrassing to his relations. I have taken up my abode here to see what can be done. The old servants behave admirably well, but of course they require superintendence, and my mother-in-law ' remains completely enfeebled by rheumatic gout. An endless prospect of misery! " I am struck by the very narrow hmits withia which the science of Medicine is still confined. The disease is certainly physical, though it has at last affected the mind and, one should say, of a very marked character. Yet the physicians are utterly unable to give any account of it. They have seen similar, or nearly similar cases, and that is all they can say. Their remedies are applied in the dark, and, as I beheve, have done mischief. " Of course, this state of things at home suspends all hopes of coming to America. But you may be sure that, as soon as domestic duty permits, my thoughts " He, of course, means his stepmother; it is a lapsus calami. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 53 will be turned again in that direction. Among you I passed the happiest months of my hfe." Indeed, Goldwin Smith often told me himself that his father needed supervision and control, and that he, the only surviving son, was the only person who had influence over him. He has told us in his Reminiscencea also that, after his father's unfortunate death, being without occupation, and yet having independent means; being also, as he hints, distraught with all that he had gone through, by a happy chance he was asked by Andrew White to accept a chair at Cornell. He accepted. But the acceptance was doubtless reinforced by other motives. Thus: — II. In the year 1867 the unhappy circumstances of his father's death had been made pubho by periodicals which lay on the tables in every Club and in the house of every county family. III. Lady St Helier,i an intimate friend, in her Memories, published in 1909, discusses Goldwin Smith's expatriation. " He left England," she writes, " be- cause he foimd it unsympathetic, and it did not meet his particular views of life. . . . He still entertains his stern Repubhcanism and his objection to mon- archical and hereditary institutions." ^ Very early in his career did this antipathy between himself and his own country, and a sympathy between himseK and his afterwards adopted country, reveal themselves. Even before he had seen the New World, he wrote to his friend, Charles Ehot Norton, in America thus — the letter, I think, is worth giving in full : — " Oxford, May 24, 1864. " My dear Sir, — Accept my best thanks for your letter, which has given me, I assure you, very great pleasure. ' Widow of Lord St Helier, formerly Sir Francis Jeune, President of the Probate and Divorce Court. ' Memories of Fifty Years, by Lady St Helier (Mary Jeune). London, Edward Arnold, 1909, pp. 289, 290. 54 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS " I rejoice to hear from you that my pamphlet ' is Ukely to do good in America. The appreciation of American institutions which you observe in it arises perhaps from my being an ' American citizen,' in sym- pathy, more decidedly than you suppose. I am as far as possible from desiring to see any violent revolution in this country. But, for my own part, I have fairly thought my way out of social and pohtical Feudahsm, and out of the State Church which is its rehgious com- plement; and my inteUeot and heart are entirely with those who are endeavoming to found a great com- munity on the sounder as well as happier basis of social justice and free rehgious convictions. In my senti- ments, at least in the definiteness of my sentiments, on these subjects I probably stand nearly alone among people of my own class. So that my writings, I fear, have httle value as an index of Enghsh opinion. Most likely I shall be more in my element, in some respects, at Boston than I am at Oxford. " However, as I said before, you have the mass of the intelhgent working classes here upon yoiu: side; and if an attempt were made to use the power of England against you, they would I have no doubt do aU that, without the franchise and without powerful leaders, they could do for a cause which they now clearly see to be their own. " The rehgion of the country is also mainly on your side, though the clergy of the EstabUshment are of course by position hostile to a community which is the great representative of the Voluntary system. "As to the upper classes, who are mainly against you, they are at this moment full of wealth, which is httle shared by the mass of the people, and destitute of faith, owing to the dismtegration of dogmatic systems and the pestilential decay of the State Church. These causes do not fail to produce their natural effects — sensualism and pohtical cowardice, the latter aggra- ■ Either Does the Bible Sanction American Slavery ? (Oxford, Parker, 1863), or A Letter to a Whig Member 0} the Southern Inde- pendence Association (London, Macmillan, 1864): probably the latter. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 55 vated by a latent feeling that the arrangements of society among us are not just, and that whatever pubhc men may say m after-dinner speeches of the loyalty of the people, the indigent and imenfranchised masses regard the Constitution with apathy, and the more active-minded of them with sullen disaffection. The ruling spirit of the hour is embodied in Palmerston,* a sensuahst, a rehgious and pohtical infidel, the fit minister of a selfish and cynical reaction. The pre- valence of all that is worst among us from scepticism to prize-fighting marks the mood which has given birth to this burst of mahgnant exultation over the misfortunes of the American RepubMc. Perhaps the most repulsive feature of the whole is the aUiance which has been formed between infidehty personified in Palmerston and the worst spirit of fanaticism personi- fied in the Puseyites and the party of the Record for the joint purposes of pohtical and ecclesiastical Reaction. Unless some great shock reawakens the better spirit of the nation we may before long have reason to wish that your lot, which is pointed at as so miserable, were ours. " Gladstone's speech in favour of the extension of the suffrage has somewhat revived the Liberal party 1 from the state of asphyxia into which it has been thrown | by Palmerston. But the ohgarchy is deeply rooted, i even the middle classes having to a great extent joined | the conspiracy to exclude the working classes from the ; franchise. I suspect the disintegration of the present \ system is hkely to commence in the ecclesiastical rather ' than in the pohtical sphere. " One sentence in your letter was most welcome — that in which you told me that the news from Grant was on the whole thought encouraging. The telegrams produced the impression of a great disaster. I assure you that I did a very bad morning's work after reading the news yesterday.^ My only comfort was my con- ' Who was at this time at the head of the Government. « Lee and Longstreet, the Southern Generals, advanced rapidly early in this month (May); and the severe and indecisive battle near Chancellorsville in the " Wilderness " -was fought on the 5th and 6th of the month. 56 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS fidence in Grant. The characters of history are not, any more than its scenes, repeated; and it would be absurd to expect the reappearance of the great Puritan chief ' in the America of the present day. But this man seems to me of all that have come forward in the war to be the most hke Cromwell in the quahties which command confidence, sustain hope amidst difificulties and misfortunes and lead on through all trials to victory. From Cromwell's ambition (if Cromwell was ambitious) he seems, happily for himseM and his country, to be nobly free. Of his mihtary merits of comse I can form no judgment. But his character, so far as I can dis- cern it at this distance, makes a great impression on me ; and I feel that in him there is embodied at last the best spirit of your nation. " I shall be glad to see you safe through the crisis of the Presidential Election.- The feeling of your friends here is, I think, universally in favour of Lincoln, both because he seems to them on the whole to have done his part well and because it would be a proof of constancy on the part of the ' fickle democracy ' of America. His recent letter, explaining the principles of his conduct on the question of Slavery, appeared to all of us an admirable document. No State paper equal to it in sterhng quahties has been produced on this side of the water for many a year. " I hope to sail for Boston about the end of August. I shall not sail till then, among other reasons, because it is possible that in the meantime there may be a use for my pen. We are not so strong as we ought to be among the hterary class or in the more powerful part of the Press. I think of coming in a sailing-vessel, in order that (when my sea-sickness is over) I may be among real sailors and really enjoy the sea. But this depends on my finding a good ship willing to take a cabin passenger, which I beheve is not easy. Any in- formation or advice you can give me will of course be ' Cromwell — -whom lie has elsewhere styled " The Great Puritan." '' The contest was between Lincoln and M'Clellan. Lincoln was re-elected. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 57 most welcome, and I need hardly say that one of the greatest pleasures and advantages to which I shall look forward in my visit will be that of making acquaintance with you. As to the ' burdensome expressions of grate- ful feehng,' I trust that by that time they will be effectually diverted to worthier objects by the return of your victorious army; a sight which I would give not a httle to behold. — I am, dear Sir, yours very faith- fully, GoLDWiN Smith. " C. E. Norton, Esquire." And this is what he himself, after coming to America, told his American friends seated round the table at the breakfast given in his honour as a welcome by the citizens of New York in 1864: — " Till I came here I was — not a revolutionist, for no man can more heartily abhor violent evolutions, but somewhat impatient of pohtical evils, and anxious for vehement effort and for immediate change." On his return to England from America, he writes to Norton again in the same strain: — " The Jamaica question ' has now reached its crisis," he says in 1867. " Probably we shaU be baffled by the clumsiness and the techjnicahties of the law, and by the partisanship of Squirearchical Grand Juries. Even our Counsel are a httle affected by the influence of ' Good Society ' and we have some difficulty in keeping them up to the mark. . . . Most of our hterary men are, like Dickens, under the influence of the ' Good Society ' of London. Punch, which is written by the Dickens set, is full of Tory truculence and flunkeyism. . . . Our aristocracy are going, if they can, to plant an offset of their own institutions on your Continent under the name of the Canadian Confederation, which our Government has been assidu- ' The trial of Governor Eyre for murder and cruelty in that Dependency. I 58 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS ously promoting. I hope it is not unpatriotic to pray that the shp of the upas tree may not grow and that the Canadian Monarchy may share the fate of the Mexican Empire. If it flomrishes, it will brew you mischief." Nine years after this, he expresses himself, if possible, with even more bitterness. Writing ia 1876 to George Wnham Curtis, he tells him : — " The slave-owners and the French Empire have been led, by the folly which always goes with crime, to rid the world of their presence. What if the third great power of pohtical evil, the British aristocracy, were to do the same ! The ultimate gain to the English people would be as great as that which has come to the French people in the guise of mihtary misfortune." IV. Besides, it must be remembered that all his friends and contemporaries knew that from many quarters he was, for these his opinions, assailed with the most bitter of pubhc contumely. The Lord Elcho of the day on the platform denomiced him as an " advocate of Repubhcanism " whom it was " strange " to see holding a Professorsliip at Oxford. The Standard, one of the leading Conservative news- papers of the day, speaking of his resignation of the Regius Professorsliip of Modern History at Oxford, writes ia a leading article thus : — " It is easy to imagme that a man of such extrava- gant opinions, and one of the most violent adherents of a faction whose first principles are antagonistic to everything that is associated with the name and traditions of Oxford, may have fomid the social atmos- phere of an ancient, venerable, learned and Conserva- tive University very imcongenial. It is not impossible that the guest and friend of General Butler may have found himself uncomfortable and out of place ia the midst of a community of high-bred and cultivated gentlemen, among whom every variety of pohtical opinion and sympathy meets with courteous tolerance, CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 59 but whom no political preferences can induce to forget the traditions of chivaLry, or to regard with indifference brutality to prisoners, cruelty to non-combatants, and cowardly outrage to women. But whatever the causes of the Professor's retirement we cannot but regard it with satisfaction. Though learning and talent might quahfy him for the office, bitter prejudices, and a spirit of class-hatred, to which even Mr Bright's antipathies are moderate and gentle, utterly unfit Mr Smith to be the teacher of the youth of the higher orders, especi- ally in a subject in which, at every turn, his instruction must be perverted and distorted by the exaggeration of his opinions and the injustice of his temper. A letter which he has recently written to the editor of the Beehive ^ surpasses, in the bitterness of its vitu- peration and the malignity of its purpose, any ebuUition of demagogic malevolence that has been called forth by the angry controversy to which it relates; and we think that few will read it without a feeling of thank- fulness, that one who regards in such a temper, and can vihfy with so httle respect for truth, the greater part of the gentry of England and the whole of a powerful and honourable political connection, no longer fills a high and dignified office in one of our oldest and chiefest seats of learning." ^ What Goldwin Smith's life at Oxford was, only his contemporaries could have told us. There is a para- graph, however, in a letter, dated 1869, written to his American friend, J. M. Forbes, which gives us a cmrious ghmpse. It is this : — " I acknowledge your magnanimous congratulations on the Boat Race and take off my hat to you in return. But I am rather at variance with my species on the subject. All this tends not only to the glorification of mere muscle (in the case of boating especially there is nothing else) but of aristocratic idleness, and all that is connected with it. Athleticism is becoming the bane ' Probably on Governor Eyre and Jamaica. » Standard, 3rd Sept. 1866. 60 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS of our schools and universities — almost of the nation — and if you inoculate yourselves with it, you wiU have cause to rue the day." And the eminent Regius Professor himself suppHea a commentary on the whole passage in the Standard in a letter written from his home at Mortimer, Reading, to Charles Ehot Norton on 26th July 1867:— " This is a very rural spot, eight miles from the nearest town — further than I am now able to ride — a proof of my diminished strength, for a few years ago I could ride after fox-hounds aU day without fatigue. It is a pleasant country and this house itself is pleasant, but the only society is that of a few squires, with whom I take care to keep on good terms, but with whom I have of course httle in common, and who probably regard me in their hearts as a very subtle and noxious kind of poacher." And there was no doubt a covert allusion to the Professor in that sentence in Benjamin DisraeH's speech on the cession of the Ionian Isles ia which he said, " Professors and rhetoricians find a system for every contingency, and a principle for every chance; but you are not going, I hope, to leave the destinies of the British Empire to prigs and pedants." ■■ V. Before his father's death Goldwin Smith was looking longingly across the Atlantic. As early as 1864, three years before his father's death, six years after his appointment to the Chair of Modern History at Oxford, he wrote to Charles Eliot Norton, on the eve of his first visit to America, thus : — " The Cunard, which leaves Liverpool on the 20th August, will, I hope, bring me to Boston. I shall come with feehngs very different from those of a mere tourist to a land which, since you have irrevocably broken your cormexion with Slavery, I have learnt to regard almost as my own. For, with all loyalty ' See Hansard for 5th Feb. 1863, third series, vol. 169, p. 95. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 61 to the land of my birth, the heart of a poUtical student cannot fail to be, ia some measure, with the nation which in spite of aU the calamities which beset and all which (it is to be feared) still await it, bears, more than any other, in the bark of its fortunes, the pohtical (and, as I beheve, the rehgious) hopes of man. I am sure no American can have watched with more intense interest or deeper anxiety than I have the terrible crisis'through which all that you and I most value is now passing." And when he came back from this visit he writes to the same friend thus : — " I often think of you. ... My heart often turns to Shady Hill [Norton's house] and its uimates, and I long to be a guest again under that kind roof. And so, some of these days, I steadfastly hope to be. . . . I read the Boston Advertiser and the Nation, which some kind hand (is it yoiu-s?) sends me regularly; but I am glad to have your more private and authentic account of what is going on in my second country." And in February of the same year (1867) he writes to the same correspondent: — " What will come of our present pohtical movement it is most difficult to see. I should not be surprised at a triumph of Plutocracy and Grosvenor Square which would make me an American citizen." VI. The fact is that in his visit to the United States in 1864 (largely as the mouthpiece of those who so strenuously took the part of the North in the American Civil War) he was received on every hand with un- hmited adulation. And this was but natural. He was an emiuent Oxford Professor. He came represent- ing eminent men. He came bringing an expression of the sjmipathy of these eminent men with the North. His culture, his refinement, his earnestness, his dignity of bearing, aU no doubt shone out and deeply impressed all American citizens. No wonder they made much of him. No wonder also that this their adulation left 62 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS their impress upon one who, in his own country, in some quarters, perhaps in his own University, was looked upon rather askance. The Americans never forgot the services he had rendered them; and he on his part never forgot their kindly reception of him. Even when afterwards he had to chide his pet nation, his " second nation " as he calls it, as, at the time of the Spanish- American War and the Annexation of the Phihppines, he considered himself called upon to do, he did it in a most fatherly way, and not often did Goldwin Smith chide in a fatherly way. VII. By this time too (I am speaking of 1867 and 1868) his Liberal poHtical colleagues were either dead or had lost their prestige. Peel, his idol, had fallen from power in 1846, and died in 1850. Sidney Herbert (afterwards Lord Herbert of Lea), Secretary of State for War in 1859, died in 1861; and in the same year died that other poUtical friend both of Goldwin Smith and of Herbert, Sir James Graham. His close friend and confidant, the fifth Duke of Newcastle, Irish Secretary, Colonial Secretary, and Secretary for War, died in 1864. Cobden died in 1865. VIII. Goldwin Smith's pohtical opponent, Disraeh, was in the ascendant, having become Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1866, and Prime Minister in 1868 and again in 1874. (It was in 1868 that Goldwin Smith left England.) By the way, some people think that it was Disraeh 's satire in Lothair that drove the Professor into exile. This is a mistake: Lothair did not appear until 1870. IX. The " Imperiahsm " against which he had so strenuously fought was gaining ground, and the Colonies, the retention of which he so powerfully opposed, year by year were growing, both in importance and in in- fluence. (The Dominion of Canada was consolidated in 1867.) X. America opened a new field. There, the re- pubhcan and democratic North had conquered. Per- haps the stern Repubhcan thought that in that re- pubhcan and democratic North there was a scope for his ambition. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 63 And that he was ambitious, despite his own assevera- tions to the contrary, we must believe. The proofs of this are overwhelming. His poUtico-journahstio energy in England was intense: he wrote to this, that and the other paper ; he spoke on platforms ; the Dean of Winchester (the Rev. W. R. W. Stephens) says that " he came forward as a candidate for various chairs, both in Oxford and elsewhere."^ XI. Lastly, and chiefly, from the innumerable conversations I had with my revered Chief during the eighteen years I was at his elbow, I gradually came to think that, although the great man never, himself, openly avowed such an ambition, yet in his inmost heart he really thought that he might, before his death, be acclaimed as the successful apostle of what he always called and never ceased to preach, the "reunion of the Enghsh-speaking peoples on this [that is, the American] continent." AU his energies during all the best part of his hfe were directed towards that con- summation; and innumerable — and most optimistic — were his references to such consummation in his letters to his American friends. Nay more: not only did Goldwin Smith look forward with hope to a reahzation of this dream during his lifetime, but XII. From many not too-cryptic utterances I gathered that he hoped also to be the means of mollify- ing the somewhat harsh sentiments with which, during and after the War of Secession, the people of Great Britain and the people of the Northern States of America regarded each other ; and so to be a harbinger of a " moral reunion " (the phrase is his own) greater even than that of the political coalescence of the two races already upon this northern continent. Every reader of Goldwin Smith's works will know how strenu- ously, yet tactfully, he spoke of England in American magazines, and spoke of America in Enghsh magazines. Out of sympathy with England, then; in entire sjTnpathy with North America; lauded by all North America; holding high hopes for the future of the North American continent; willing to devote his life ■ 1 " ! ' Lifeyi E. A. Freeman, vol. i. p. 219. 64 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS to such hopes; himself a University Professor, being offered a Professorship in a new North American University — the die was cast: he accepted. That is my solution of the enigma. He himself tells us that he had relatives in Canada, and half hints that they were the attraction. But Canada is far from Cornell; and I did not myself see much evidence of his partiahty to family ties, either during his hfetime or in his will. Besides, there is another reason for the continued expatriation of Goldwin Smith. XIII. After two or more years at Cornell he went to Canada. There, in 1873, he married Mrs Boulton, a widow with ample means and a comfortable mansion. In that mansion he settled and built himself an aimexed study-Mbrary and wrote. He was offered the Master- ship of University College, Oxford; people begged him to come back to England — they offered him un- contested Liberal constituencies if he would stand for ParMament; the Radical party, for a time bereft of its leaders, sought him; the Liberal-Unionist party, wanting a strong Anti-Home Rule advocate, sought him. But Mrs Goldwin Smith's interests and pre- dilections were perhaps hardly such as would enable her to adapt herself readily to the duties which would devolve upon the wife of a Head of an Oxford College or of a leader of a pohtical party. Besides, all her re- lations, friends, and social and domestic ties were American or Canadian. Therefore Goldwin Smith dechned. Indeed he told me that, although his wife had consented to accompany him to England, he felt that such a step would have been an " uprooting " of her whole hfe and interests. So he stayed in Canada and — wrote. Henceforward he tried to appease his ambition by the products of his pen. In a mamier, therefore, it may be said that the whole of Goldwin Smith's hfe was shaped by two great acts of self-abnegation: (i.) The resignation of the Oxford Professorship on account of his father's health; {ii.) The resignation of all opportunities of academical or pohtical cGstinction at home on account of his wife's CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 65 social and domestic ties. That he sometimes looked back longingly towards England I am sure; more especially when it began to dawn upon him that the annexation of Canada to the United States was a thing becoming more and more remote as time went on, and when perhaps it began to dawn upon him also that a single pen fitfully contributing to ephemeral journals did not bring the two mighty nations which inhabit the opposing shores of the turbulent Atlantic very much nearer the one to the other. Yet never once did he allow a syllable of regret to leave his hps. Often have I wondered what was passiug in the great man's mind as he sat pensively at his desk, gazing out of the window on to his quiet lawn, a black skullcap on his head, his pen held idly in his hand. Did his memory go back to the sward of Oxford, and in his mind's eye did he see Magdalen's " cloistered and ivy- mantled quadrangle " ? ^ To his lasting honoiu' be it said he never turned aside from the work he had set himseh to do, or allowed either criticism or contumely to cause him to relinquish the great ideals he had created. Of the relationship between himseK and Disraeh Goldwin Smith can rarely speak without an ill-concealed bitterness of tone. His explanation of the origin of that relationship is curious. He thinks it arose from, first, a difference on the question of the cession of the Ionian Isles; then a difference "on some land ques- tion"; but lastly and chiefly the Professor thought that " Dizzy," as he invariably calls him, suspected his acquaintance with the Peel papers and consequently his acquaintance with Disraeli's correspondence with Peel. This, he thinks, stung Disraeh into the famous characterization in Lothair. The Professor's explanation of Disraeh's hostiUty to the cession of the Ionian Isles to Greece is character- istic. Of course he is particularly fond of attaching to Disraeh the word " Semite." Well, he argues that the Semite is always "pro-Turk" and "anti-Greek." ' OxioTd and her Colleges, by Goldwin Smith, p. 72. 5 66 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS " The chief rival of your Jew," he says, " is your Greek; and I can't help thinking that Dizzy shared the anti- pathy." To me, however, the whole subject is most weari- some. Yet the Professor again and again returns to it; and I rarely saw him under the influence of so strong yet so concealed a state of mental excitement as on the morning in which he heard that Parker's Life of Peel had been completed and pubhshed, and he read in the papers long references to and quotations from Disraeli's and Mrs Disraeh's letters to Peel. He walked up and down the room; he broached the topic the moment I entered the hbraiy; he spoke of it to every one who called — he seemed to look upon himself as vindicated, as avenged. I begin now to see his extreme impatience at the delay in bringing out these latter volumes. LTndoubtedly "the stingless insults of a coward," as he once pubhcly characterized Disraeli's Lothaiz'ean dei^icture, sank deep and rankled long. By the way, two of the latest of the Professor's bons mots are worth recording. He read in the papers some averred utterance of some parson questioning the efficacy of missions. " That," said he, " is the most unlooked-for utterance since that of Balaam's ass." " People talk," said he one day, " of the immense loss to literature caused by the absence of reports of Bolingbroke's speeches. ^ I thinii I would rather possess Wilkes's Essay on Woman, a parody on Pope's Essay on Man, with mock notes by Bishop Warburton the great admirer of Pope." May 20, 1899. Once again the Professor reiterated to me (yester- day) his determmation to close his Reminiscences with ) " Pitt is reported to liave said that he would rather have re- covered one of those speeches [of BoUngbroke] than the best com- positions of antiquity" (Did. Ned. Biog., i. 143). The Dictionary of National Biography gives full particulars of Wilkes's (? Thomas Potter's) Essay on Woman. There is a copy in the Dyce Library at the South Kensington Museum; it was also privately reprinted in quarto form ui London in 1871. There were many imitaUons. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 67 his settling in Canada. " I dislike the country and its people," were his words; " I should be obhged to touch on matters which it would be pain to me to recall." I tried to combat his decision, saying that numberless friends would be sorely disappointed, and hinted that he might treat the episodes coim.ected with his life here most judicially and calmly, and what he said would form a sort of apologia. He seemed inclined to consider this view. Sept. 20, 1900. The Professor continues to pour out in the [Toronto] Weekly Sun two or three columns weekly diatribes on the Boar War and aU connected with it — except the Boers themselves. But nobody repMes to it or takes note of it. Age is telling upon him. He has not for many years said anything which he has not already said a dozen times; and his ingrained propensity to hold and persistently to advocate the impopular side of any and every pubhc question has become more ingrained still. I would he would stick to matters hterary or historical. His History sold well; the first edition is all but exhausted. At the present moment he is publishing a pamphlet on the Presidential election in the United States, taking the Bryanite, i.e., the anti- Imperiahst, side ! (Four years ago, after hearing Bryan lecture, he called him, in speaking of him to me, a " clever mountebank.") He is also preparing an article for the Contemporary Review on the history and present aspect of rehgion. The day before yesterday he permed a letter on the British elections for the Man- chester Guardian. He has also been upholding the Boers and vilifying the British Government in the New York Nation over the signature of " Equity." ^ I disagree with him so entirely on these subjects, ■ The letters referred to, -written by " Equity " in the New Yorlj Nation, will be found in Volume 71 — August 30, 1900, p. 169. September 13, 1900, p. 210. November 15, 1900, pp. 383-4. December 6, 1900, p. 443. 68 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS or on most of them, that it is with difficulty I maintain a frigid silence. On matters in which we sympathize the talk between us is free and cordial. The Times article on Lord Roberts' proclamation of the annexation of the Transvaal (4th September) must have been gall and wormwood to him. He will stick to it that the war was made for the poUtical ambition of Mr Chamberlain and the pecuniary ambition of Mr Cecil Rhodes, and this he reiterates ad nauseam. He goes further, and declares that the casus belli was England's demand that the franchise should be bestowed upon " the Jews and gamblers of Johannesburg." And these things he continues to asseverate with bitterness and bias. He is not calm, judicial, statesmanlike in his advocacy; and he sometimes descends to person- alities — the prevalence of which in poUtics in this country he deplores. Yet the presentation of his facts is so subtle, his use of language so deft, his suggestions and allusions so delicate and indefinite, that it is difficult in the extreme to pin him down to categorical assertion and to refute it. Yet withal he is sincere — or thinks that he is. A most momentous distinction, and one often lost sight of, not only by those who deceive themselves, but also by those who are deceived. He has forced himself truly to beheve that Great Britain has in this Boer War committed the " folly " and the " miquity " of the century. And he has forced himself equally truly to believe that she is continuing to act foolishly and ini- quitously in her present dealings with China. For the recent outbreak in that Empire he dehberately traces to our "opium" and "Lorcha" wars. For forty years he has preached " anti-Imperiahsm " and to-day he sees every nation, including his particular pet, the United States, scouting that doctrine. The only single and minute instance to which he can point as a practical outcome of his teaching is the cession of the Ionian Isles, and those poor little Ionian Isles have been dragged in to point the moral till I, at least, am tired of hearing of them. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 69 Of political influence the Professor has little. He is no orator. Indeed his speech has no more motive power than a pretty purling rill. The man lacks something. He lacks that personal effluence without which speech is but tinliling cymbal. His intellect has been developed at the expense of his heart. Even when he is bemoaning the lot of slaughtered Chinese, defeated Boers, or unenfranchised Hindus, you feel that it is the brain not the heart that is at work. The horrors and sufferings of war he paints admirably; but you feel that the colours have been mixed with the coldest and most calculating skill. His writings are as ineffectual as his oratory. They glitter; they do not warm. They are not suffused with wholesome optimism, hopeful conviction. Con- viction is apparent enough; but it is the conviction of the intellect not of the emotions. A page of Carlyle sends you away thrilled; a page of Goldwin Smith sends you away chilled. He hves the life of a recluse, shut up in his Ubrary surrounded by books, seeing and conversing only with those who are in sympathy with him. Yet his ideas are arid and windy as the desert. DisraeU well called him the " wild man of the cloister," and I think he added, " going about the world mahgrdng men and things." He has outlived his day. His day was the day of the 'forties, 'fifties and 'sixties. He talks of Peel as of a contemporary — which of course he was. Con- tinually does he harp upon the distinction between " colonies " and " dependencies," forgetting quite that colonial self-government is now as accepted a fact as is the abohtion of the Corn Laws. In his day, and in his way, doubtless he did a great work. He deprecated aggressive war; he advocated the enfranchisement of the artisan; he saw the futihty of binding to the Empire restless and obstreperous dependencies then falsely called colonies ; he preached the brotherhood of man, the family of nations ; he read history as a human narrative replete with human frailties. He fails to see that his lessons have been learnt by heart, and that 70 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS now far other and far graver lessons are to learn. In the reign of George III. he would have been a states- man. To-day he is a " Bystander," a bystander judg- ing of the present with eyes fixed on the past — or on a too-distant future. For in many things he is far in advance of his age. The brotherhood of man is a long way off, so is the " family of nations " — a particularly pet phrase of his. Disestablishment is hardly dawning. Extinction of war is far below the horizon. To advocate, even ten- tatively, such schemes as these, proves him, I think, scarcely a safe adviser in schemes less Utopian. He will not take the world as he finds it. "Why cannot men and nations be content with what they have? " is one of his printed and pubhshed queries. It is easy for an ex-Oxford Regius Professor living in otium cum dignitate, with income, house, wife, servants, horses and secretary, to be content with what he has. He has known what it is to struggle for fame ; he does not know what it is to struggle for food. The one is a matter of intellect, the other is a matter of stomach, and, when wife and family are added, it is a matter of feeling also. He is immensely to be pitied. He breathes two atmospheres: one of adulation and service; the other of contumely and criticism. Neither is tonic: the one enervates ; the other exasperates. January 26, 1901. (The Queen died on the 22nd.) — Have had some very interesting httle bits of talk with the Professor lately. I make a few notes on them while they are fresh in my memory. — " Professor C came to see me yesterday," he remarked as I took my seat at my desk one morning soon after nine o'clock. " He told me he had been writing something controverting me and hoped I didn't mind. I assured him I shouldn't mind at all, but I thought I would take the opportunity of putting the matter ciuite plainly for once before the young gentle- man. I said, ' Does not the whole matter rest upon CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 71 this, that I am asked to beUeve that the Being who fills Infinity and Eternity became an embryo in the womb of a Galilean maiden in order to redeem mankind? Is there a tittle of evidence for this ? Science has proved that instead of there being a Fall of man there has been a gradual ascent of man. If there was no Fall, there could be no Redemption, and therefore no Incar- nation.' " I asked him how C had met the argument. "Oh, he went off into something about historical evolution of interpretation " — or some words to that effect. " But," added the Professor, " I think he was impressed. At all events I gave him something to think about." The courageous way which, at the age of seventy- seven, this brave old searcher after pure truth regards these momentous questions evokes sincerest admira- tion. Of the actual Secret of Life, of the " Riddle of Existence," of life after death, I cannot get him to utter a single positive phrase. Sheer and mere Agnos- ticism he has more than once in his writings discounten- anced; but actually what amount of gnosticism he retains, and the grounds for its retention, he seems imwiUing to tell or to explain. If he speaks of " the Soul of the Universe " — and he does so speak, he adds, " if the Universe has a Soul." He thinks Jean Mesher has never been refuted, and he speaks very highly indeed of Jean MesUer's arguments. He thinks that if they were not the actual work of, or inspired by, Voltaire, they passed through Voltaire's alembic. {See the New York Sun for 1901.) He thinks very highly too of "Supernatural Religion"; which, he says, even if it was successfully answered as regards some unimportant details, is imanswerable as a whole. Now, Jean Mesher is, in his tendency, absolutely atheistical. This the Professor has categorically ad- mitted to me. He was talking to me about Dean Mansel two days ago, " a coarse wire-pulling Tory," he said; " I received not a few letters of thanks for my refutation of his 72 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS Bampton Lectures. John Stuart MiU said the same thing that I did, not having read my paper." Ever since the death of Queen Victoria the Pro- fessor has very evidently been doing his best to conceal a large degree of irritation at what he calls the " un- reasonable panegjn-ic " with which the papers have been full about the deceased sovereign. " She was a most ordinary woman; she had no intellect. She dislited the society of intellectual men. That was why she hked Osborne and Balmoral. She was amongst her own people there. She was a good woman and an excellent mother. But, dear me, I hope these are not such rarities among Enghsh ladies! She was very wayward. No doubt she inherited this." Numberless newspapers telegraphed to him asking for something from him about the late Queen — about the effect of her demise on the Constitution — about her influence on the nation — about what-not. To aU he sent a polite refusal. " I am glad," he said one day after dictating one of these refusals, " I am glad none of them have got on to my connection with the Prince! " Yet of the Prince — afterwards King Edward VII, — he always speaks very nicely, though he qualifies his praise. He thinks an enormous change has come over the character of the people. He continually reverts to their love of excitement and sensation nowadays. I remarked that he could look back many years to make his comparisons. " I can look back fifty-eight years," was his reply; " at ten I was able to look about me intelUgently." July 14, 1902. This " flag- worship," as he calls it, amuses him immensely. Somebody sent him a cUpping from the Boston Post containmg an account of the presentation of a medal to a Boston pohceman for arresting a rag- man for desecrating the American flag by wrapping CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 73 up junk in it. At once he made it a peg for a " By- stander " paragraph in the Sun. Nor did he quite Kke my behtthng of this hysterical exaggeration of the sentiment as a Bostonian fad, originating in the home of " Christian Science " and other fancies, beheving, as I know he does, that "flag-worship" is coeval and coextensive with " Jingoism," as he calls it. (By the way, he said to-day and put down in black and white, that football — which he considers the most brutal of sports — " came in with ' Jingoism.' ") It is easy to see the source of the Professor's derision of " flag-worship." All his hfe he has been behtthng patriotism (to any one country) and loyalty (to any one monarch), and has been preaching devotion to " humanity." Undue reverence for the symbol of a specific patriotism and loyalty of course he cannot away with. " Loyalty," he is careful to remind his readers, is derived from loi. We talked about the American Civil War to-day, and once again I asked him if he did not think that the consensus of civihzed opinion on the slave question would not gradually have ousted slavery from the South without bloodshed — for it was solely because that war put an end to Southern slavery that he advocated so strenuously the cause of the North (at least so he avers — those who know his bias will perhaps gauge the in- fluence of Northern democracy upon his stand). He hesitated before he answered, but then said, "No; you see all the work was done by the slaves. Besides, there was always the fear that the South would extend the area of slavery." That it was a war between two separate nationahties he now admits. But he went over the whole ground in his article in the Atlantic Monthly of March of 1902. We talked also of the Education Bill now before the House of Commons, when he gave utterance to a curious opinion: "I cannot understand," he said, " how the State can go on supporting a Church which inculcates a certain rehgion, and at the same time supporting a system of education which is irrehgious." 74 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS July 19, 1902. He. " So the Campanile of St Mark's has fallen. Have you ever seen Venice? " /. " No, I am sorry to say." He. " Well, come up and look at the picture in my bedroom — a very good picture. Venice without the Campanile would be like my lawn without those elms " — pointing out of the window to two tall and conspicu- ous trees. " It was a beautiful structure. How they built those things in the Middle Ages I don't know. There is a spiral road in it, you know, not steps, going all the way up ; and at the top they afterwards put an enormous statue." I asked him about the Church of San Marco. He. " It is small, and certainly beautiful; but noth- ing to go into ecstatic raptures over, as Ruskin did. Ruskin went mad about it. He filled Europe with consternation when he found they were levelling the floor, the stones of which had given here and there I beheve, and actually had the work stopped I think. There was nothing beautiful about the stones of the floor, and there were no associations connected with them. In my opinion St Paul's whips them all, St Mark's, even St Peter's. St Peter's stimulates no re- hgious emotion. It is capacious and luminous, but it lacks the religious aspect. Strange how these great buildings, which seem built for eternity, inevitably decay." /. " There are fears for St Paul's, are there not? " He. " Apparently. When Wren built, the founda- tion, it seems, owed its solidity to the moisture it con- tained; now the sub-soil is being drained by these railway tiumels." /. "I thought I have detected a touch of the tawdry in so many Roman Cathohc churches. Is St Peter's free from this? " He. "Well, yes; I think so. St Peter's is so large. The details escape you. Perhaps if you examined minutely you would find it. Anything that the Jesuit had a hand in had a touch of the tawdry." /fai^ GOI.DWIN SMITH I\ HIS r.ICI 11 M^; 11 1 \ iCAR (I'lu'lol.y Di.roii. Toioti/o) CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 75 July 19, 1902. He is at present working on an article on Napoleon Bonaparte. He utterly detests and contemns the char- acter of Napoleon. " Low — no gentleman — a Quilp — a man who would have been in the dock fifty times if he had been in private life " — were some of his ejacula- tions about him to me. " He lied, he cheated, he murdered, no one could trust him. His conduct to Josephine was abominable. To the Queen of Prussia he was brutal . He was immoral — had a lot of mistresses , used to have actresses sent to him. — A man can be great and yet be immoral; many a great man has been im- moral — Wilham III. for example. But I still am in- clined to think that a great pubUc character is finer if based on a moral private character. And the idea of calling his treatment at St Helena a ' martyrdom ' ! a treatment largely incurred by his own peevishness." His miUtary genius also the Professor decries. " He forced Villeneuve, against that Admiral's own judgment, to fight the battle of Trafalgar. Villeneuve's brother (it was rather roundabout certainly) told the brother of Admiral Lyons, who told me, that Ville- neuve knew it was all up with him the moment he saw Nelson's two columns bearing down upon him." August 18, 1902. The Professor is at work on an article on Jesus of Nazareth ^ from the personal, that is from the secular, point of view. A p-opos of nothing he suddenly said to me to-day (Monday), " I am more and more convinced that there is nothing in the Gospel of St John. It is a rehgious disquisition on a pseudo-biographical basis. It is Alexandrine, of course." He spoke, too, to-day, more confidentially than is his wont, about his attitude on the Boer War. Touch- ing on the reception by the King (Edward VII.) of the Boer Generals, Botha, De Wet and De Larey, he said : ' This -was published as a pamphlet in April 1903, with Uic title The Founder oi Christendom. ' 76 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS " Those Boer Generals have acted with great com- mon sense — acted just as they should have done. They refused to attend the naval review, they were right. They went to see the King at the King's invitation. In this too they were right. Whatever people may say to the contrary, I believe the Comrt was against the war. I have been in fairly close touch for many years with the Duchess of Albany — we have not corresponded directly, but through her Master of the Household, Colhns.' " At the outbreak of the war Collins wrote to me, not precisely asking my opinion, but evidently drawing me. It was not Colhns that wanted my opinion; that I knew. I gave my opinion and put it pretty strongly too. I have httle doubt but that it found its way to the Duchess and through the Duchess to the centre of the Court. I am sure the King had his o^vn opinions on the war, despite Messrs Chamberlain and Co. ; and I am sure that at the end he broke through and sent Wolseley out as his envoy for peace. It was said of course that the Old Lady's (Queen Victoria's) heart was in the war. No doubt she did all that she was told to do, and quite properly. But I am convinced that the Court was against it." August 19, 1902. " I find this an mteresting subject," said the Pro- fessor to me to-day, referring to his article on Jesus; " I don't think anybody has approached it from quite the same point of view: I mean the lesson that Jesus had to teach humanity as a simple man. It is astonish- ing what a small basis all this elaborate superstructure of rehgious dogma, State-estabhshed Churches and what-not has been founded upon — really upon no basis at all. It is astonishing." I asked whether his article might not serve as an additional chapter to his Guesses at the Riddle of Exist- ence. " Oh! it will probably make a booklet in itself." ' He refers to Sir Robert Hawthorne Collins — now dead. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 77 I hope so. Goldwin Smith's attitude towards the central Figure of Christianity has puzzled, has aroused the earnest curiosity of many. He has been so nega- tive in his utterances. His Guesses left his readers in a quagmire. His attitude towards dogmatic the- ology has ever been tentative, vague, non-committal, inconclusive, almost timorous. Anything positive that he may have said has been said incidentally, in a pre- fatory note, or by the way. He seems to have fought shy of any definite critical assertion. If he wiU only, in this booklet, for once speak out, he may strengthen many feeble knees. We shall see. His one positive assertion with regard to dogmatic theology is this : ^ — Science has once and for all dis- proved the Fall of Man. The doctrine of the Redemp- tion of Man depended upon the doctrine of the Fall. The Fall, haviag been disproved, the doctrine of the Redemption, of the Incarnation, and by consequence the whole circle of rehgious dogma, falls to the ground. This he has time and again iterated and reiterated to me; and I shall never forget the day upon which the cogency of this argument first dawned upon him, and upon which he discoursed upon it openly and freely to me in that quiet secluded hbrary at The Grange. It was a remarkable day to me. It is astonishing how frankly he opens his heart to me on these matters. Poor old gentleman! He has not many minds with which he can come into close contact. Sympathy means a great deal to him. And in his pro-Boerism, his anti-Imperiahsm, his ultra-Radicalism, and his Annexationism, precious Uttle sympathy does he get. From what I know of him, his real views on the Great Question are these: Man is a free agent. The determinist or necessarian position he considers ab- solutely untenable. His objection to the necessarian position he frequently sums up in the semi-humorous, semi-epigrammatic, but wholly serious semi-query: " Fancy an automaton automatically discussing the questionings of its own automatism! " Well, man ' See Preface to Guesses at the Riddle oj Existence. 78 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS being a free agent, man is responsible : responsible both for his deeds and his thoughts. With regard to his deeds, the highest good for Humanity (with a capital H) should be his aim. With regard to his Thoughts, man cannot do better than seek Truth, untrammelled by rehgious dogma. Whether there is a future for the individual human soul — upon that point he has never definitely expressed himself. This I have par- ticularly noticed. Of that question he always fights shy. When I have sometimes referred to the Kantian doctrine of the purely subjective character of time, and the bearing of that doctrine on any theory of an eternity of existence, he has sheered off, as if not having regarded that metaphysical aspect of the question — at all events from the Kantian point of view. But what he comforts himself with is the fact that " in the sum of thmgs," and here I c[uote his own oft-repeated phrase, " it will be well for him who has sought the Truth." Death I think he fears. I have seen him curiously silent and contemplative when the subject of Death came within the purview of our discoiu'se. Even, I have thought, I have seen him arming himscK, nerving himself, strengthening himself, in face of the thought of Death. He has been strangely silent sometimes when the end of fife and the maknown Hereafter have been brought into the sphere of our discourse. Marcus Aurehus's phrase anent oiu: being resolved into the " general frame of the universe " sometimes escapes the Professor's hps. He does not, to me, seem to have anchored in any harbour yet. I wonder if this, his investigation into the personal and secular mission of Jesus, is an attempt, m this his eightieth year, to find some anchorage? It may be. I should not wonder. February 19, 1903. The old Professor was particularly polyantagonistic to-day; he reviled everything and everybody, and girded at men and things and theories. It was a bitter cold day, and something must have stirred his bile, for his first remark was: "Never; CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 79 they will never make a highway of these sub-arctic regions. Why, our water-pipes are frozen." This ex- plained the bag of plumbers' tools I had encountered in the hall. To me pohtely dissenting with a reference to the brilliant future prophesied for the North-West by North- Westerners, was vouchsafed only an unin- teUigible and semi-audible grumble. Nothmg pleased him : he was hyper-pessimistic. He wrote on in silence. Lord Onslow had recently mentioned his name with disparagement as a contemner of Colonies (vide the current Times, weekly edition), couphng, so it seems, his name with that of DisraeU. I had found a report of the speech, but no mention of Disraeh. This I mentioned. The name " Disraeli " was enough. — "Disreeh was a Jew" — this, leaning back in his chair and laying down his pen; " a Jew [emphatically] with an oriental imagination. He cared for nothing but India. They talked once of making him Governor- General of India! I almost wish they had. It would have been fun. He and Mrs DisreeZi (who was the most vulgar of her sex) would have made a great splurge, riding on gilded elephants and what-not." I held my peace, and he continued his small inaudible writing. Presently the Alaska Boundary question came up. We seemed fated to-day to touch prickly topics! Of course he took the part of the United States. "Canada's weak point is this: When the Joint Commission met, ostensibly to discuss Reciprocity, the Canadian Commissioners, having virtually given a promise to the manufacturers that there should be no reduction of the tariff, when they found things going that way, suddenly introduced the Alaska question and insisted upon its settlement before anjrthing else was settled. F told me they were tremendously smprised. That is Canada's weak point. The United States have shown themselves most moderate. I have not gone very far into the question, but I take it they can claim absolute possession of the disputed territory for a long term of years. That of itself makes 80 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS a legitimate claim. It is not dissimilar to the Statute of Limitations. Besides, they have the power. They might well say, We have undisputed right to this terri- tory; it is open to you to dispute it by an appeal to arms. I say that, possessing this power, the United States show moderation in acquiescing in a judicial inquiry — though what wiU come of it I don't know. It is very stupid; they won't agree, nothing will be settled. " They show great moderation. There is a hmit to arbitration. Suppose they claimed Nova Scotia? Would Canada agree to arbitration on such a claim? There is a hmit to arbitration. Their virtual holding of the disputed territory is a vahd claim." That, as near as I can recollect his exact words ten or eleven hours after they were spoken, was his attitude on the question; but of course he dragged in the Boer War and England's refusal to arbitrate " although Sir Edward Clarke, the ex-Sohcitor-General, had expressly declared the claim to suzerainty untenable," and so forth, and so forth. Then came England's Turkish policy a propos of Macedonia and the Austro-Russian understanding. Poor England received hard knocks. February 20, 1903. Very different sort of tallc to-day. " I see they are going to pubhsh more of Carlyle's Letters," said the Professor, a propos of nothing; " I might have some- thing to say about that. I am, I suppose, one of the last survivors of that circle. I met Carlyle and his wife often at the Ashburtons'. It is folly, perfect folly, to speak of Lady Ashburton and Mrs Carlyle as they do — as Froude hints. Lady Ashburton was always treated as a Queen, and those who are constantly Queened sometimes are not over-careful of the feehngs of others. But that Lady Ashburton could have done an unlady-like act of any sort is simply preposterous — of that I am as positive as I am that that church steeple [St George's, in John Street, Toronto, seen out of the CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 81 window] is not standing on its head. Mrs Carlyle was a quiet, demure person who had made no name, and although she formed part of the circle, quite naturally she was in the background — she could not but be in the background. She had no reputation for cleverness. Besides, she did not marry Carlyle for love ; she married him for his position, and she was simply dragged in the tail of his reputation: she got what she wanted. I cannot imagine any woman, sane or insane, marrying Carlyle for love, for there was no such thing as love in the man. Froude was always too fond of probing into these sentimental details. The Ashburtons' town house was Bath House in Piccadilly; it was at The Grange, in Hampshire, that I visited them; they had a shootiiig-box in Scotland where I never was, and a hotel in Paris, where I never was. The Louisa Ash- burton that has just died was, I think, Lord Ashburton's second wife — a very different woman from the Lady Ashburton I knew : she was a Miss Stewart Mackenzie ... a good-looking plump creature ... I suppose he was captivated." March 2, 1903. At the conclusion of an article for the Sun which he dictated to-day, I ventured the remark that surely we had had pretty much enough of democratic government by this time. This roused the old gentleman. " Democracy has its faults — and grave ones; we all know that. And something will have to be done to remedy them. But you don't want to go back to the days of George III., do you? I should Hke to know what would happen if some of our reigning monarchs were let loose." I. " I don't suppose they would hurt the Constitu- tion much." He. " George IV. would have been all right if they had only allowed him to marry the woman he loved. WiUiam IV. was a cipher. I often saw him. He took a great interest in Eton, and we made Eton as interesting for him as we could. He came down to 6 82 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS see a boat-race between Eton and Winchester once, I remember, and when he saw that Winchester was win- ning he ordered his coachman to drive him home. He had a brother — the Duke of Gloucester, I think — who was, if possible, a greater cipher than he. He was called ' Silly Billy.' At the passing of the Reform Bill, it was said, he asked, ' Humph ! Who is Silly Billy now? ' " A few days after this, however, he expressed him- self rather differently, a propos, I think, of Provincial government and its methods in Ontario — the Pro- vincial Secretary had just been accused of offering a bribe.' " The tidal wave of democracy must surely soon eshaust itseff. It seems to have reached its crest. Nothing but a great man can save it now. The worst of it is the great man is so expensive. One hardly hkes to look forward to such a revolution as produced a Cromwell." March 19, 1903. " These have rather a melancholy interest for me," said the Professor yesterday as he looked over excerpts from his old Bystander (1880-1890), which I had made for him; ^ "I could write better then than I can now, I could write better then." He smiled to himself over many a passage, and once or twice could not repress an audible laugh. March 22, 1903. We were discussing to-day the various arguments adduced in different ages by different minds on behalf of the immortality of the soul, among others that of John Stuart Mill, the vaUdity of which he totally denied. I asked him if he had ever seen the possibihty ' The celebrated " Gamey " trial. Gamey was a member of the Provincial Parliament, who alleged that an attempt had been made to bribe him. - He afterwards read over all these excerpts, emending and excising in pencil, and left them with me ready for publication. I hope some day to publish them. They are amongst the best things he wrote. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 83 of the existence of a fourth dimension m space urged as an explanation or argument for immortahty . " Yes , " he said, " I think I have heard sometliing of that kind; but I can hardly imagine the Churches reljdng upon it." Archdeacon Farrar's death is amiounced. Of his Life of Lives the Professor remarked to me when he read it, " It is the most dishonest book I know of ! " April 8, 1903. It has come at last — for months I have seen it coming. This day is pubhcly printed the Professor's solemn recantation of his strenuous and life-long hostihty to Home Rule. It takes the form of " A Bystander's " Comments on Current Events in the (Toronto) Weekly Sun : — " Of all the proposals [for the solution of the problem of Home Rule] the most untenable was Mr Gladstone's last, giving Ireland a Parhament of her own and at the same time a representation in the Parhament of Great Britain. Unfortunately this mad scheme re- ceived the sanction of the House of Commons. " National and Parhamentary union, or Independ- ence — the real choice lies between those two. Seeing how things have gone, what the House of Commons has done, and how strong a spirit of nationahty this protracted struggle has developed in Ireland the By- stander beheves that at present he would be prepared to vote for independence. He would do it in the hope that a peaceful parting might lead hereafter to free and perfect imion." Yet of Irish independence in 1861 he wrote: — "Independence . . . would bring on colhsion; rivalry, jealousy, hostihty would spring up all the more certainly, because there would be between the two coimtries the memory of a former miion, and of a recent divorce; and Ireland, menaced by the power of Eng- 84 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS land, would become the ward and the vassal of France, or some other foreign power, which for its own purposes would constitute itself her protector." ^ Language which was repeated eighteen years after- wards,^ and language which was altered, only to in- tensify its object, thirty-one years afterwards, into asseverations such as these: — " On the other side of St George's Channel stands the Cathohc Priesthood, ready as soon as Ireland is cast adrift by Great Britain to renew its reign." ^ " From what part of it [history of Ireland] would any reasonable and patriotic man draw the inference that it would be good for Great Britain and Ireland, or for either of them, to erect Cathohc and Celtic Ireland into a separate nation? " ■* " Between the two islands the relations could not fail to be hostile, when Ireland was a separate nation." ' " To a moral certainty Ireland would become a thorn in the side of Great Britain. . . . Ireland would be reconquered and the circle of woe would revolve again. . . . Capital would fly the island; employ- ment would fall off. . . . There is no reason for behev- ing that the mass of the Irish people want a separate Parhament." * From " the Protestant minority under the rule of a Roman Cathohc majority in the Province of Quebec," " Ulster may learn what her doom under Home Rule would be." 7 "Civil war is a dreadful thing; but there are tilings even more dreadful than civil war. Submission to the dismemberment of the nation by the suiister machinations of a morally insane ambition, would in the end work more havoc than the civil sword! " ** The reason of the bouleversement is, of course, ' Irish History and Irish Character, p. 180. ' In the second edition. 3 Essays on Questions of the Day, p. 263. i Ibid , p. 299. 5 Ibid., p. aul. 6 ji,ia^^ pp. 301, 302. ? Ibid., p. 305. 8 /6,rf., p_ 306. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 85 obvious: anything — anything rather than alliance or fraternization with a nation that is sunk in " mihtarism " and " imperialism " ; that has made war upon a httle repubhc ; that has annexed more territory. — I am bound to confess, however, that the Professor was far from well when he penned this recantation; and, it must be remembered, he was in his eightieth year. May 1, 1903. This morning's papers told us of the Bishop of London's ire at the celebration by the Reverend R. H. Hadden, Vicar of St Mark's, London, of the marriage between Mrs Rutherford and Wm. K. Vanderbilt. " Do you see the clamour the Church is raising over the re-marriage of divorced persons? " he asked as I entered the library. "What folly it is! Why, the Church has done this very same thing over and over again. The Church, through Convocation, allowed Henry VIII. to divorce Anne of Cleves in order to marry Catherine Howard. It permitted Lady Essex after her divorce to marry Somerset, the favourite of James I. During the lifetime of Mrs PitzHerbert it permitted George IV. to marry Caroline of Brunswick. True, his marriage with Mrs FitzHerbert was not recog- nized by law, but it was recognized by the Church; it was performed with all the rites of the Church. This was bigamy. " Personally I have always held that the innocent party at all events should be allowed to marry again. Besides, it is often extremely important to the children that there should be a second marriage. The interests of the children are too often altogether left out of sight in this discussion." May 1903. The King's (Edward VII. 's) visits to Portugal, Italy and elsewhere cropped up in the course of con- versation. /. " I should have hked to have overheard the talk between the King and the Pope," I said. 86 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS He. " I don't think you would have heard anything very edifying," repUed the Professor at once. " They don't know . . . they think the King ... I don't suppose he ever reads. He does not know enough to have carried on an important conversation with the Pope. I tried to interest him in Walter Scott, thinking he might leam some history in that way ; but . . . " The King has been weU guided, and when he is guided he does well; left to himself he goes wrong. One thmg he does possess, and that is a particularly charming manner. Even when he was a youth at Oxford it was exhibited. I have no doubt I bored him to death with History; but always his manners and his good nature were impeccable. In after hfe he was most unfortunate. At a critical time he lost — ■ all in a short time — his three best counsellors, and then I am afraid he went a bit astray." /. " Who were his comisellors ? " He. " Oh, there was the Duke of Newcastle; there was General Bruce, his tutor; and I mean his father, the Prince Consort. His father was a poor counsellor. He was a martinet, a martinet. He was highly cultured and all that sort of thing, but his importation of German ideas into the EngUsh Court made him very unpopular. He thought to educate the Prince up to his standard of culture. But the . . .the. . . Oh it was impossible ; the mind . . . the . . . was wanting. Well, the Prmce lost his father, the Duke, and General Bruce — they all died within a short time of each other — most lament- able. They kept him very straight. They were men of the world; they knew enough not to hold the reins too tight, but they were gone. The Prince entered London society without a guide. What a pity! You know what happened: bad men and worse women flung themselves at his feet." /. " A very difficult position, that of the heir- apparent." He. " Of course. However, these things were to be expected: they were traditional. The nation didn't mind them. But the curtain was raised in the baccarat affair, when it disclosed the kind of people with CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 87 whom the Prince was associating. Why, actually one of them was said to have been cheating at cards. That was bad. It raised the curtain. He couldn't have done these things as King, no he couldn't." May 1903. The Professor has been reading WilUson's^ book on Sir Wilfrid Laurier. " WilUson thinks I tried to disrupt the Liberal party. He is mistaken. I took no interest in the pohtical parties of Canada. I never was a poUtical aspirant. What happened was this: The Liberal party was completely under the domination of George Brown — a tyrannous and vengeful domination. Edward Blake tried to free himself from this yoke and came to see me, telhng me of his intention to found a new paper to be called The Liberal (in opposition, presum- ably, to George Brown's paper, The Globe). In this in- tention I offered him the support of my pen. But Blake's courage deserted him at the critical moment." May 8, 1903. The idea — which, apparently, he thinks is imphed here and there in Sir John Wilhson's Laurier — that he ever identified himself with any Canadian party, or aspired to any poUtical position in Canada, seems to cause him some perturbation of mind, and he reiterates to me the assertion that notJiing of the kind ever entered his mind. " Castell Hopkins,^ I beheve," he remarked, " has said that I once sought a seat in the Dominion Parha- ment. The origin of that rumour was, I suppose, the fact that my old friend Donaldson was continually pressing me to stand for Parhament, and once went so far as to write to Sir John Macdonald about it. I 1 Mr (now Sir) John S. Willison, the eminent Canadian journalist. He was for many years editor of the Toronto Globe, and now edits the powerful and independent Toronto >!ews. 2 Another well-linown Canadian writer, editor of The Canadian Year Book. 88 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS treated the matter as a joke, and so did Sir John in his correspondence on the matter." Talking of the dearth of servant girls and their crowding into factories, where they are roughly used and spoken to by the foremen, he said humorously, " Surely they would not be so treated in private houses. I never said an3rthing to a servant girl that I wouldn't have said to a duchess." The Professor told me two capital stories about Justice M to-day. He was a fairly fast young man apparently, and perhaps his speed did not slacken with age — about that I am ignorant. One day, it appears, when hving in chambers, he went to bed and put his candle under his bed. The bed caught fire. M staggered out into the hall. The porter rushed up at his incoherent shoutings, saying, " Now, Mr M ■, do go to bed, do go to bed like a sensible gentleman, MrM ." On another occasion M 's sister called upon him at his chambers. On interviewing the porter and ex- plaining her errand, that functionary's reply was, " No, no, miss; you can't go up just yet, miss; there's two of yer there already." May 1903. An illustration of Stonehenge was in his hands to-day. " Everybody professes to be puzzled," he re- marked, " as to how Stonehenge was built. I can't see that there is anything very puzzling about it. They say there are no boulders within miles of Stonehenge. The answer to that is that all the great boulders within that radius were used to build Stonehenge. Nor do I see much difficulty in the method of erecting them. Nature would have suggested an inclined plane and rollers ; and no doubt an inclined plane and rollers were used. The stones are buried deep in the earth. They probably dug a hole, erected an inclined plane at the edge of it, dragged the boulder up this, and tilted it in. So, an inclined plane and rollers would suffice to place the flat slabs on top. There was no scarcity of labour CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 89 — captives supplied that. I don't suppose there was any machinery for raising great weiglits; but the in- chned plane and rollers would do all that was required." May 1903. He is glancing at Rider Haggard's two volumes on Agricultural England just now. Putting the big tome down on his lap for a minute to-day, he began: " It is a mistake, it is a mistake to try to overturn an agricul- tural system which is the growth of ages at a stroke. You can never have peasant-proprietorship in England. The mansions are not fitted for it — what would you do with them? The large farm buildings are not fitted for it. If the mansions only did their duty, if the mansions only did their duty! " " You thuik there must always be the three classes in England? " I asked — " the landlord, the tenant and the labourer 1 It is impossible to get rid of the tenant 1 ' ' " I don't see how you can. The labourer knows nothing of scientific farming. No, you can't change a system at a stroke. Nor can you have peasant pro- prietorship in Ireland. If you try it, I know what will happen : the peasant-proprietor will fall into the hands of the money-lender. The bulk of Ireland is too wet to grow grain — in Tipperary you might grow a httle; but the bulk of Ireland is fit only for the potato or for grazing. Earms will be turned into grazing grounds, and the peasant will be in the hands of the money- lender. If the mansions only did their duty! " he re- iterated. May 1903. A certain New York newspaper has been wanting the Professor to write for it an appreciation of Jonathan Edwards and his works. He felt inclined to undertake it at first, and we hunted up a " Life " or two and got down President Edwards's Works. But on second thoughts he declined. " I read him once," he re- marked; "I see my pencil marks here. But I really can't read all that trash over again. He was a very clever man, and he undertook to prove by some extra- 90 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS ordinary method of logic that some men were to be damned eternally and some were to be saved. He based his theory on the assertion that we must grant the absolute sovereignty of God. Edwards evolved all sorts of attributes for God out of his own mind. Ab- solute sovereignty was one of them, and God showed his sovereignty by consigning some men — in spite of themselves, whatever they might do or think — to eternal flames — eternal; he insisted upon that. Why, he made God worse than Moloch. Moloch only required you to pass through the fire — a painful process, no doubt, but one that would not, I suppose, occupy more than five or ten minutes. " Edwards was a firm behever, I suppose, in what goes by the name of Necessarianism as opposed to the doctrine of Free Will. But surely, however much we may mystify ourselves as to the metaphysics of Neces- sarianism and Free Will, we are conscious every five minutes of our waking fives of the possession of a power of choice." And shortly afterwards he added, " All I contend for is that we are cognizant of something besides antecedent causes. Antecedent causes of course there are ; in the world of Nature we recognize nothuig else. But surely man recognizes in every action a power of choice, an effort of will. How otherwise can we impute responsibihty to our fellowmen? " May 1903. Twisleton's name came up. Twisleton was with him on the Education Commission. He told me Twisleton was one of the most difficult men to work with that he had ever met — if not the most difficult; and he hinted that it was extremely rarely that he ever met anybody with whom he did find it difficult to work. His exact words I cannot reproduce — the talk was desultory and discursive; but he described Twisleton as a man who tried to combine two ambitions: the ambition to be a scholar, and the ambition to be a man of the world to boot. " He was very particular about all sorts of formalities," he said; " he was a pedantic man of the world. He certainly was scholarly, and he CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 91 certainly was practical; yet the result of that com- bination was pecuhar. With all his learnmg, and he made quite a show, quite an ostentatious show of studiousness, if I remember rightly he produced only two works, and what do you think they were? One was a minute investigation supported by innumerable scientific evidences into the question whether those martyrs — what was their name? ('The African Con- fessors ') — could speak after their tongues were cut out. I beheve he did prove that they could talk with their tongues cut out. The other was an equally minute investigation into the authorship of Junius. Person- ally, I think there is no doubt that Francis wrote Junius ; but if there is any problem less practical, and I may say less interesting, than whether you can talk with your tongue cut out, I think it is that of the authorship of Junius." May 1903. Somebody, writing to him about his The Founder of Christendom, objected to, or called in question, his use of, or the significance he attached to, the word " spirit " or " spirituaUty " — I did not read the letter; but the Professor talked about it, seemingly with a desire to impress upon my memory his own real mean- ing of those words. I record it. I might say here that I have often thought I detected a desire on the Professor's part to explain his attitude definitely to me, and he has also often added, "if anything is ever said about So-and-so or So-and-so, that is the answer." " The word 'spirituahty,' " he said, "has had the mis- fortune to have gathered about it all sorts of vague meanings. For myself, I would call the efforts a man makes to build up his own character, to emioble his character, ' spiritual.' " May 14, 1903. He thinks that some of the reviewers of his The Founder of Christendom have missed the point of that book. " I have tried simply," was his earnest remark, " to free Christianity from its dogmatic elements." 92 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS May 14, 1903. Lord Acton's name came up yesterday. He called him " a Liberal Catholic." " He always seemed to me to be buried beneath the weight of his own eru- dition." June 7, 1903. " I have been reading Green," ^ said the Professor to me the other day. " He has no narrative power. It is a string of facts interspersed with disquisitions. He was an antiquarian rather than a historian." I asked him the other day if he had seen an interest- ing httle article on Denmark in the current number of the New York Independent. To an answer in the negative he at once added, " Two things have never ceased to puzzle me : the origin of evil ; and the impor- tation of Danish butter into England." I laughingly told him that the article in question would at all events solve the second problem for him. Jane 1903. " WilUson (author of the Life of Sir Wilfrid Laurier) continues to accuse me of holding unpopular opinions and therefore of wielding no influence," he remarked recently; " but how is a man to wield any influence if he swims with the stream ? — and a pretty muddy stream it is generally." He repeatedly talks of Wyndham's Irish Bill. " It is a mistake, I think," he says, " to eliminate the Irish landlords. The Irish want and look up to their leaders — no people more so. To eliminate their leaders is to throw them into the hands either of the priest or of the money-lender. The Irish priesthood are as a class good. They are moral ; that is beyond question. But they are grasping — not for themselves, but for their Church ; and of course they keep their flock in a narrow ignorance. And why the English taxpayer should be called upon to pay that the Irish tenant may buy land I do not see." 1 John Richard Green's History of the English People. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 93 :j • August 5, 1903. The Professor is evidently very anxious to push the sale of his The Founder of Christendom. More than once lately he has said to me that if the dogmatic and miraculous or supernatural elements of Christianity must be given up— have been given up — there is no reason why we should not fall back upon the spiritual character of its Founder. " Jesus was a Gahlean peasant," he is fond of reiterating; " with the hmita- tions of a Gahlean peasant. Judea was the field of his mission, not Jerusalem. No one, I think, has yet sufficiently led people away from the dogmatic theology of Jerusalem to the spiritual teaching of Gahlee." " Was not Paul," I asked, " largely responsible for the dogmatic increment in the rehgion of Jesus? " From this he partly dissented. " Paul was a zealot, an enthusiast, an ecstatic. Dogma does not owe its source altogether to Paul. Dogma owes its source, indirectly, to the Gnostics. The later Christians in their controversies with the Gnostics attempted to reduce to formulas and definitions the simple teachings of Jesus. That, I thiok, was the chief source of dogma. Another source, perhaps, was Alexandrian theosophy." I have more than once tried to get the Professor to say what he thought were the views of Jesus concern- ing himself. It was not easy to get an exphcit answer, but what I gathered was this: — • Jesus was a Gahlean peasant, of that we must never lose sight. As such he had the views of a peasant. He knew nothing of the outside world. If he saw Tyre and Sidon, it was with the eyes of a peasant. He had no hterature. That he could read, we know; but his reading probably was hmited to the Books of the Law. Of hterature, of art, of commerce he knew nothing. His disciples, too, the majority of them, were peasants also. Of Jesus very probably these peasant disciples came to have an exalted opinion: that he was come from God, that he was sent to re- habihtate the Jewish nation then groaning imder the Roman yoke, that he was to restore the glory of Israel — a worldly glory no doubt. How far these opinions 94 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS may have influenced Jesus in his own opinion of himself it is impossible to say. Peasant-like he may have come to accept them. But no doubt it was at his disciples' soHcitations that he went to Jerusalem, there to beard hierarchical ceremoniahsm in its own stronghold. August 1903. A long talk to-day with the Professor about Glad- stone again — a propos of the announcement of Morley's Life. " He was not a statesman. He was not a states- man. His actions were prompted by impulse. He craved power — though that may have been right and proper in its way, for no doubt he meant to use his power properly and rightly. But his pohcy was never the result of calm forethought and forecast. He shattered the Liberal party, and it has never recovered from the blow. That is in(;??'5putable [and the dis was very emphatic]. True, he was a marvellous man. His powers of acquisition and of exposition were immense. No details were too numerous or compHcated for him. Villari told me that he heard Gladstone make a speech in Itahan once and there were in it only two words to which exception might be taken, and that only on the ground that they were words more suitable for poetry than for prose. His Homeric lucubrations were trash, pure trash. No doubt if Palmerston had attempted Homeric lucubrations they would have been trash too. But the point is that Palmerston didn't." I told him Morley's Life was to be in three volumes of six hundred pages each. The Professor shook his head. " Too long, too long. Who will read them? However, I suppose they will serve for material for future historians. Gladstone's disciples will buy them, I suppose, and so will the politicians for the forthcoming campaign [on Mr Chamberlain's Imperial tariff pohcy]. There will be lots of quotations to be had from them on Free Trade and so forth." " What is there of Gladstone's," he went on, " that will hve? His speeches have no hterary merit. I CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 95 cannot think of a single sentence of his that will hve. He was too prolix. He had spoilt his style by over- much practice in debating societies. The proUxity was not noticeable when you were hstening to the man. His personahty and the unmistakable generosity of his sentiments had a great effect. But literary grace they had not." August 5, 1903. Leo XIII. died last week. The New York Sim printed one of his Latin poems. " Humph! " said the Professor, reading the first line, " the Pope's infalh- bihty doesn't extend to his prosody. That won't scan." " They won't elect a foreign Pope," he said. " I suspect the machinery at the centre of the Catholic Church is a very delicate machinery indeed. Only those at the centre understand it." When he heard of the unsuccessful nature of the first two or three ballots he smiled. " If Christ's Vicar upon earth is appointed by a superhuman mentor," he remarked half under his breath but with a rather malicious twinkle in his bayonet-blue eye, " I take it he will not despise the methods of The Machiue." August 6, 1903. " Don't you think it was a sign of weakness," said the Professor to me to-day leaiimg back in his chair and speaking apparently a propos of nothing; " don't you think it was a sign of weakness — but for that matter Carlyle always exaggerated, and exaggeration is always a sign of weakness — a sign of weakness in Carlyle his leaving all this business about his relations with his wife to be made pubhc? It showed such vanity too, as if the world wanted to know. He was a great man in many ways. His French Revolution is a memorable book, and astonishingly pictmresque. He first intro- duced the comic element into history too. But, dear me, no one could be in his company for five minutes 96 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS without ..." But here the old gentleman seemed gradually to relapse again into the silent rumination from which he had temporarily emerged. When I asked him to-day i£ he would not insert in his Preface to the second edition of The Founder of Christendom his views of the origin of dogma, he de- murred, saying he could not treat it in small space, and, besides, would have to go into the question of Paul ! But he at once added, " Though I hold that Paul was primarily an ecstatic." August 7, 1903. Volume I. of the Cambridge Modern History has just reached the Professor. " I really don't see that this goes very far towards setting the world in a blaze," was his first remark to me this morning, as he fingered the book. " It looks very dry, very dry. Who is going to read it? And what an awkward size ! I don't thmk any book should be larger than a demy 8vo. I really don't see the object of this series. But I suppose it is the latest develop- ment of the modern ' scientific ' [and there was a curious, perhaps ironical, emphasis on that adjective] method of writing history. I can't see the object of it. " I haven't read much of it yet, but I think I detect a tendency to ' white-washing ' — a modern tendency. There are not many people left to ' white-wash ' now. Domitian and Commodus I should think were about the only ones left. Tiberius has been done: he was easy, I take it Eccehno is still in the market — and Heho- gabalus." " King John has been completely done, I fancy," I interjected. " Well, in his case I fancy they tried rather to prove that he was a very significant individual, the greatest of the Angevin Kings, and so forth. They have actually attempted the ' white-washing ' of Alexander Borgia, though; Alexander Borgia, of whose infamy there is documentary evidence in the writings of his own Chamberlain. They will try it on Alexander CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 97 Borgia's son Cesare next, who amongst other things murdered his own brother. All the scoundrels of the French Terrorists have been ' white- washed.' Domitian and Commodus, they are about the only people left! " " I see Lord Acton, the editor, contributes nothing himself to the Cambridge History," said I. " No. He was a man of vast learning, but he wrote hardly an3d:.hing. I suppose he took a greater mass of historical erudition into the grave with him than any man of his generation." And the faintest suspicion of a smile, as if at the futiUty of it all, lurked for a moment about the comers of his mouth. August 10, 1903. A letter from a celebrated Dean to-day set the Professor talking about the Church of England. "What are we to think of a Church," he said, " spht up into two parties, one of which has no more behef than I have, while the other beheves Christ was God and preaches and inculcates the doctrine of the Atone- ment? And what must be the effect upon the nation of such a Church? It is sapping the nation's regard for truth. Disestablishment would not cause such a social wrench as is commonly supposed," he added. " It would cause more in the South of England than in the North, but even in the South the clergy have not now the same hold upon the people that they had. It is to the Methodist Chapel that the country folk now cKng. In the North the Church never had much hold upon the people. It is in the large towns and cities that the clergy are to-day most influential." " I see a woman is offering herself for election to the Senate in Austraha," he remarked this morning. " They had much better keep out of pohtics. They vote according to their fancies. I remember when we were trying to elect a good Mayor once for Toronto. Manning was our candidate, and a better, shrewder, more practical man could not be. W. H. Howland was the rival candidate — a visionary. The women raised the cry of ' Christ or Barabbas ' and elected Christ 7 98 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS and the first thing he did was to improve the Don ^ at immense cost. Not a barge has ever gone up the Don. Then he instituted a crusade against the bars and brothels, with the result that we had the most drunken Christmas ever known in Toronto; and whereas vice was once circumscribed and kept under surveillance, it became disseminated in innumerable boarding- houses." Augusi 22, 1903. An article in the August Contemporary by the Rev. Mr Verschoyle pointed out that the Dean of Ripon (Freemantle) was inclined to explain the Incarnation on the theory of parthenogenesis. I pointed it out to the Professor. " I don't see," he said at once, " how the doctrine of parthenogenesis removes the difficulty. The difiicult thing to beheve is that the Being who fills eternity and infinity became an embryo. Whether that embryo was the result of the parthenogenetic cravings of a Jewish maid to be the mother of the Messiah or not, seems to me to matter httle." " The coming General Election in England," I said one day, "should be an interesting one" — Mr Chamberlain's fiscal scheme was on the tapis. " It should," said the Professor. " I know what the Prime Minister will do, he will shilly-shally with the question, will make no definite statement himself, and will base his claims to a return to power on the results of ' a thorough discussion of the problem.' — A thorough discussion of the problem! I should hke to know what results you could have when the sort of discussion the problem will receive during an election campaign is a discussion carried on by means of brick-bats and rotten eggs. The Premier is a feeble creature, very feeble; the feeblest Prime Minister England ever had; Perceval was weak, but in a different way; so was Portland; Liverpool too was a mediocrity — but no, none was so feeble." ' A little river running througli wliat was at this time the suburbs of Toronto. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 99 Dec. 20, 1903. Several interesting scraps of conversation with the Professor lately which I must jot down before they evaporate from my memory altogether. I coaxed him the other day to contribute something to the Christmas 'Varsity, suggesting that he might send one or two of his translations of Greek Epigrams which he is gradually accumulating. He assented, but insisted on translating some fresh ones instead of dipping into his store. — He always handles the Classics most lovingly. Almost I have thought I detected in the timbre of his voice and in the character of his enunciation some- thing tender — as if he cherished past emotions; and always he reads or translates aloud with a slow and musical utterance. He has kept up his Classics. When he was about seventy-five years old I remember his telling me that he thought he could pass as good an examination in them then as he did when he was twenty-two — and when he was twenty-two he took a " first " at Oxford. To the end of his hfe he read the Classics, and he read them in an arm-chair before the fire as if they were his native tongue. He had occasion once, I remember, to consult the text of Marcus Aurelius. I could not find one in our hbrary, and the only text I could get was a very old crabbed one, with abominable thetas and sigmas. " Oh, that wiU do capitally," he said, and read aloud as fluently as if it were English. The Greek Epigrams he loves, and often do I see Wellesley's Anthology'^ taken out of its place in the shelf. The Classics, too, always tempt him to talk — even to me. (Much would I give to hear him expand in the companionship of a classical scholar.) " Many of these Epigrams are epitaphs," said I, throwing a tiny fly. ' Anlhologia Polyglotia, a selection of versions in various languages, chiefly from the Greek Anthology, by Henry Wellesley, D.D., Principal of New Inn Hall, Oxford. London, John Murray! Albemarle Street; Oxford, J. H. Parker, mdcccxlix. 100 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS He assented — and rose. " They give us true glimpses into Greek life," he remarked. " They touch hfe very closely, much more closely than all this Hebrew hterature that we have in the Bible. I must confess that I was never touched by the Old Prophets — Jeremiah and Isaiah or that Ezekiel. The Minor Prophets perhaps come nearer life. There is something almost evangehcal in them — Hosea, for instance, and Nehemiah; but the mass of Hebrew hterature is utterly alien to us. I once thought of taking up Hebrew — began it, in fact. But I thought it would be a waste of labour. The Bible has been excellently translated. The changes in the Revised Version are few, minute and immaterial. There would not be much gained by knowing the exact Hebrew vocabulary. And it is a difificult language, very diffi- cult. I gave up the idea." And then in a sing-song voice he read of Aretemias and Epicydes, Rhodoclea and Euphron. His attitude towards Canada was exemplified in a strange way lately. Two young Englishmen called upon him searching for information as to Canada's feehngs on Mr Chamberlain's tariff proposals. He at once led them off on to Canada's helpless phght; pro- duced his map of Canada (the one prefixed to his Canada and the Canadian Question) wherein the country is depicted as a thin strip of habitable land on the frontiers of the United States (the map is about thirty years old); compared her population with that of the United States; animadverted upon the impossibihty of defending her frontier; declared that anybody who listened to the views of Canadian " Jingos " hstened to monomaniacs . . . and so forth, and so forth. Something brought up the subject of Miracles yes- terday. " Do you see," he said suddenly, " that old fellow Leo left a huge fortune behind him, a lot of money hidden away behind his books! The crafty old fox." I, " How did he get it, I wonder." CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 101 He. "From people who walked up Pilate's Stair- case with bare knees — Pilate's Staircase! Of course, Pilate's house had no stairs to begin with; and the house of Loretto that came from the Holy Land in three hops; and the sacred fountains that spurted from the ground on the spot where St Peter's head made three jumps; and the liquefaction of the blood of St Januarius." /. " The Church of course stands by these miracles to-day, does she not? " He. "Stand by them! Of course she does. Why, even Newman after ids conversion distinctly stated that he accepted them. I don't understand that hquefaction of the blood of St Januarius. I suppose it does hquefy. I was never at the ceremony. One explanation is that it is a sort of jelly which becomes soft under the heat of the hand." I. "I don't suppose many are able to see it hquefy. Isn't it a very small quantity in a glass phial? " I re- marked. He. "Yes! a httle glass tube, I think. Probably only those close by see it, but of course they at once set up a howl." " This domestic servant question is getting very serious," he said to me yesterday, a propos of nothing. Work was over, and he was tired, lolhng in his arm- chair close in front of his fire, his legs crossed, his hands meditatively clasped. " And I don't think the young ladies of the present day are going about the best way to fit themselves for wifehood and housework. What frivolous hves they lead? Always on the go! Never stiU! " /. " Women adapt themselves very easily to new conditions," I hazarded; " give them a husband and children, they soon settle down." He. " It may be. It may be. But I do not know what is to be the solution of this servant problem. If you can't get servants, what are you to do? The Chinese seem to me so alien. You cannot attach them to you. Even the negro is not quite so alien." 102 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS I. " The native servant in India becomes quite faithfully attached, and when he grows old he puts his sons and daughters into your service." He. " Quite so. Yes, occupations there are here- ditary. Old and faithful service is a thing of the past now. We certainly are very fortunate in our own household. They all feel that they are part of the household. They form a httle society of their own. They know that we should never leave them in the lurch. And they are always kindly treated. But I take it there are not many such households here." /. " I take it, too, that much depends upon the masters and mistresses." He. "Ah! yes. Perhaps they are going out of date too." December 1903. I put my copies of Crozier's Civilization and Progress and History of Intellectual Development before him one day last week. The next morning (the way the old gentleman gets at the core of a book in next to no time is astonishing!), the next morning before ten (he had not touched the three volumes when I left him at 1 p.m.) he said, " I have been looking at your Crozier. It seems to me nothing more than the ordinarily-ac- cepted view of history from the evolutionary stand- point, couched in very unnecessary and cumbersome philosophical language. I do not wish to depreciate the man ; he is evidently a sound thinker and his read- ing of history has been deep and wide. But I do not see that he sheds any new hght." Dec. 28, 1903. The Professor was highly disgusted at the North American Bevieiv cutting his " Gladstone " article in two. " There are not many men now Hving," he said to me to-day, " who knew Gladstone as well as I did. Morley shirks things. He shirks that Irish business. I am convinced that if Gladstone had had about him CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 103 the men he had in his younger days, the Duke of New- castle, Cardwell, Sidney Herbert, and others, I am convinced that he would not, that he could not, have gone into that Home Rule business. They kept him straight. In spite of his own powers he was much given to extraneous influence — though he would not have admitted this for a moment. He was extra- ordinarily open to infusion. I am also convinced that it was Morley who infused Home Rule into his mind." We spoke of the possibihty of war between Russia and Japan. " These yellow races seemed to be getting a leader at last. What may be the outcome of Japan's emer- gence into civihzation, who shall say. There are swarming milhons in China who, I suppose, could be taught to use a rifle, and who certainly are amenable to mihtary discipline. The yellow races will overrun Australasia one of these days. Great Britain will not be able to keep Australasia." " I wonder what were the true motives that prompted the Anglo-Japanese treaty," I volunteered, throwing out a feeler. " Oh, opposition to Russia. It is most extraordin- ary this Enghsh opposition to Russia. I saw its growth. At one time Russia was most friendly to us, most friendly. Before the Crimean War the remembrance of the aid England gave in rescuing Europe from Napoleon was still fresh. Besides, the Czar was most friendly to England, though for reasons that some people might have disputed, viz., that England was the most conservative power in Europe. I know this about the Czar, for I had it from Murchison — Murchison the geologist. He was also a soldier, and accordingly the Czar hked him. He went over to Russia to ex- amine the mining possibihties in the Ural Mountains and became very friendly with the Czar, and he assured me that the Czar's utterances respecting England were friendly in the extreme. We need never have got into that Crimean trouble. But Palmerston wouldn't get out of it, and Napoleon would not get out of it, and Stratford de Redchffe wouldn't get out 114 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS " And what was the ' idea,' sir, if I may ask? " said I on his return to the hbrary. " Well, I beUeve it was the founding of a newspaper with a magic name." " And the name? " "Ah! that I regret to say I did not quite catch, but I beheve it was to be The A. B.C. of something or other," whereat of course I laughed aloud. March 24, 1904. Lord Acton's Letters, which Goldwin Smith has just read, interested him much. " Why did Gladstone make him a Peer? " I asked. " He did not take any very active part in pohtics, did he? " " By no means. He sat in the House six or seven years but rarely spoke. Because of his admiration for Gladstone, I suppose " — and then he read me his esti- mate of Gladstone as contained in a letter to Gladstone's daughter, and added, "The wonder is, not that Glad- stone made him a Peer, but that he did not make him a Duke." The book set him talking about the Jesuits. " I know of no Order," he said. " so dehberately immoral. It demands of a member absolute renuncia- tion of his own conscience. The novice is bidden to regard himseK simply as a stick in the hands of his superiors. It has wrought incalculable mischief. Germany, I see, is readmitting them. Why, I don't know. I would rather ... I would rather . . . well. Anarchism has done some harm here and there, but not a scintilla of the harm that the Jesuit has done. It was the Jesuit that brought on the Thirty Years' War. It was the Jesuit that revoked the Edict of Nantes. It was Jesuit intrigue that caused the Franco- Prussian war. Intrigue has been the Jesuit's pohcy always and everywhere." " I see they are accusing us," he said to me the other day (he often links me with him in his work, but " us " / CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 115 here meant "Protestants" I fancy), "I see they are accusing us of ignorance as to the meaning of ' Papal InfaUibility.' " " Well," I rephed, " there is some technical inter- pretation, is there not, limiting its apphcation to matters of faith and doctrine when a papal announcement is made ex cathedra ? " " Technical interpretation ! Let them get the upper hand and you wiU see what interpretation they will put upon it! " April 1, 1904. " They still keep on saying, I see," said my Chief to-day, " that the British Government was bent on intervention in the American Civil War, and was only prevented by the Queen's veto." /. " Who are the ' they '? " I asked. He. " Oh, more than one American paper. Here is the Springfield Republican at it, and the Sun, the New York Sun." I. " You ought to know, sir, surely. You were in close touch with the members of the Government, weren't youl " He. " Yes, of course. I hved on the most intimate terms with many of them. They never had any in- tention to intervene ..." /. " By force of arms, of course, you mean." He. " Yes. Intervention meant that they would back up their protest by force. Mediation I dare say they did offer; but that is quite a different thing from intervention. They never had any intention to inter- vene, and if they had, it is absurd to think that, if the Grovernment of the country decided that it was in the best interests of the State that it should come to the rescue of the South, it is absurd to think that they would have allowed themselves to be thwarted by an irresponsible influence. No Government is carried on in that way. If the Sovereign is not governed by the advice of his Minister the Minister resigns. It is merely one more example of the halo of myth that has gathered 116 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS about the memory of the late Queen. The fact was that Napoleon, for his own ends, proposed joint inter- vention with England, but England would not listen and did not listen to his jiroposals. Napoleon was a political cracksman: he was looking about to see if he could find your strong-box while his feet were under your mahogany." April 1904. I put a batch of English newspapers, just arrived, at his elbow in an interval of work the other day. He took them up and talked. " The Speaker is poor. I think they would do much better if they would cater for the Colonies, put in a resume of news, make it a medium of news for the Colonies as well as being a poUtical periodical. " The Times has fallen from its high estate. Going into that Encyclopedia business was a fatal mistake. A more fatal one still was its connection with the South African chque. A great journal ought to have known better than to have lent itself to such a thing. I have always said that the country owes the Times a very deep debt of gratitude for the disinterested course it took in the Irish question. That Parnell investigation must have cost it a very large sum of money. But it has fallen from its throne. " The fact is the Times has no longer the monopoly of talent. Its editorials used to be good, very good; written by men who knew, and always written with a certain dignity of style. Now the provincial papers compete very successfully with the London journals. The telegraph puts them in close touch with London and puts them on a par with London writers. The editorials in the Manchester Guardian are excellent, excellent." April 1904. The American papers have been full of the Service Pensions Bill lately. " What a spectacle," said the Professor, " is this of the President, the advocate of a CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 117 ' strenuous life,' weakly succumbing to the Grand Army of the Repubhc for the sake of a few votes ! " /. " Surely if he had taken an independent stand he would have found backing. The New York Sun would have backed him." He. " The people would have backed him. In fact it is very probable that no small portion of the Grand Army would have backed him. It is not to be supposed that they one and all are committed to this bribery — for it is nothing but a bribe. The leaders no doubt are committed, but this by no means proves that there is no independence in the rank and file." April 16, 1904. " I hear they are ■«Titing furious letters about my review of Lord Acton's Letters," said the Professor to me the other day. " I cannot comprehend Acton's attitude towards the Church." " Don't you think it probable," I asked, " that his fealty was to the Church rather than to its head, the Pope? " "Ah! that is the position I have always taken. The Roman Cathohc Church is one thing, the Papacy is another. The Papacy dates from Hildebrand. It was Hildebrand who tried to make the Church a Theocracy." April 27, 1904. My old Chief talked with extraordinary animation to-day, notwithstanding his eighty years of age. The doings of the Ontario Legislature during this its session, which was formally brought to an end yesterday, have aroused his keenest ire, especially the Bill guaranteeing $2,000,000 on behalf of the railway connected with the Sault industries. Standing at his desk and looking down at me with his steel-blue eyes he dehvered himself in short, pithy sentences, smacking of earnest concern. " If Democracy goes on Uke this I really don't know what is to become of it. I really see no remedy. 118 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS Things are becoming worse and worse. Everything is sacrificed to Party. Think of it : here is that United States nation paying $145,000,000 a year in pensions for a war which took place thirty-six years ago; and here is a President adding an additional enormous annual sum — some compute it at $12,000,000 — as a bribe for votes. The most extravagant Monarchy would be cheaper than that. Democracy is growing worse and worse, and 'pon my word I see no remedy." We spoke of the candidates for the Presidency — Roosevelt, Hearst, Parker; and I remarked that there seemed to be an extraordinary dearth of leading men. " There is a dearth," said he. " Roosevelt has a vogue as a man ' with a big stick ' advocating ' the strenuous life.' Hearst . . . Hearst . . . the very fact that his candidature is admitted to be dangerous is ominous in the extreme. Of Parker I know nothing. He has sense enough to keep silence. Their one strong man is Cleveland, and Cleveland, by a stupid tradition against a third term, is shelved. Cleveland is strong and sound. The tradition against a third term is absiu'd. A third term is perfectly constitutional. Washington refused it, not on constitutional grounds, but because he was weary." " So you think Democracy has retrograded? " " Yes. If Hearst's candidature is significant of anything, surely it points to the fact that wealth is growing bold; do you not think so? Wealth gets hold of the Press. What remedy there is I do not see. Truckhng for votes . . . Party . . . the Machine . . . Faction . . . the Caucus ..." These were the words I heard as he slipped on his goloshes and strolled, with bent shoulders, out of the library on his way to pay his usual matutinal visit to the stables. This decrial of Democracy by a " Liberal of the old school," as he is fond of describing himseK, was signifi- cant. But perhaps his warmth outran his judgment to-day. Yet he spoke with intense earnestness. His earnestness is remarkable. And his interest in poUtics — past as well as present — is intense. He CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 119 will discuss Burke's theoretical attitude towards party and his practical adhesion to the Fox-North coahtion as if it were a matter now to-day affecting Uving men and women. To mention Governor Eyre's exoneration is to rouse him to impassioned disapproval. Name the Crimean War and he enters into a heated argument on its folly. A distant reference to the Indian Mutiny brings on you a splendid diatribe on those who " thirsted for blood " when it was quelled. On the South African War he out-Steads Stead. His intellectual vitahty is immense. For example: — The Secretary of the Associated Charities of Toronto came to see him last week and said that someone had suggested that they should take up the question of the housing of the poor. At once he proposed a meeting to consider that subject and told the Secretary to call one. Only a few months ago, too, he consented to act as Chairman — and did act as Chairman — of a Citizens' committee formed for the purpose of improving the election of members of the Board of Education. All this at eighty years of age. Nothing affrights him, nothing deters him. A more un-self-seeking man I never met, nor a more determined, nor a more un- daunted. He puts men, his juniors by half a century, to shame. May 3, 1904. At 10.15 a.m. to-day the Professor had to go off to a funeral as pall-bearer. He came into the hbrary just before starting dressed in his good clothes and with his black silk hat on, but with his overcoat so awry that the frock-coat's collar showed for some six inches above it behind! I adjusted it and was profusely thanked. He did not return till half-past twelve. " You must be tired, sir," I remarked. A gesture, a gesture in which weariness seemed to strive with a conviction of the futihty of all things, was the answer. Then he broke out, as he struggled out of his coat. " The folly of it all! We went to the house, and there we had a long Presbyterian service Burmoimted 120 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS by a long Presbyterian sermon. Then we went to the church, and there we had another long Presbyterian service surmounted by another long Presbyterian sermon — full of inflated platitudes in honour of the corpse. The folly of it all. Oh, dear me." I commiserated with him. " Some day, I hope," I ventured to interject, "that we shall do these things with simple dignity." " Perhaps we shall. I shall at all events take pretty good care that they don't play these tomfooleries over my poor old corpse." He sat down at his desk and took up his pen to correct proofs; but evidently his mind was still dwell- ing on what he had seen, for I heard him mutter : " Over a mere mass of clay; over a mere mass of clay." The proofs corrected, he attempted no other work, but threw himself into his arm-chair and talked. " I have read these reviews of Morley's Glad- stone (in the Quarterly of October 1903, and in the Edinburgh of January 1904); they are very flat, very poor; a mere resume of the occmrences during his life. They don't seem to have been written by men with any intimate knowledge of Gladstone. I take it I am one of very few men hving who knew Gladstone in- timately and was brought much in contact with him. There is Morley himself, of course, and Harcourt; but they are hardly independent critics." " What a great pity it is that the editor of the North American made so little of your article as to split it in two." ' " Yes; I can't understand it." Then he turned the subject, taking up the Uttle weekly paper called India. He. " I see they are doing away with competitive examinations for natives in the Indian Civil Service." /. " Indeed. I have always understood that those natives passed those examinations by extraordinary methods: learning translations by heart out of cribs, and so forth." ' December 1903 and January 1904. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 121 He. " Yes, I dare say they were up to all sorts of dodges, all sorts of dodges. ... I remember very well when the competitive system was introduced ..." /. "In England, you mean; for the Indian Civil Service? " He. " Yes. There were two things against it — I know about these things; I had a lot of relatives in India. In fact I once thought of going in for the Civil Service myself. I know about these things ; I had talks with men who knew. — There are two things against it : First, a competitive examination is no test of the practi- cal value of a man; and, second, you are very hkely to get a lower class, a class that lacks manners and re- finement, and I am told that in India manners and re- finement go a very long way. This is why the mission- aries fail. They have no manners or refinement. When the appointments were made by choice it was from the upper classes — the directors were men of wealth, men of standing. There is a third thing against ' competition-wallahs ' as they called them; there was always great esprit-de-corjjs among the Indian Civd servants, and the introduction of competition- wallahs did not tend to increase that, rather the reverse. Still, my mind is open. I never took a decided stand against examinations. It was Mill and his school who advo- cated it. Lawrence, it is said, when somebody com- plained of his subordinate competition-wallahs, wrote to the complainant and offered to exchange ..." " To exchange men chosen by the directorate for men who had passed examinations? " I asked. " Yes ; but it may have been a saying." " I have thought a good deal about India," he con- tinued, stiU lolhng in his chair before the burnt-out fire, leaning back tired, his legs crossed, his hands gently clasped, and speaking half to me, half to himself. He knew, I fancy, my own interest in India; he knew also, probably, my strong Imperiahstic attachment to India. Not otherwise can I explain the extreme suavity of the remarks which followed. " I have never directly advocated the giving up of India. Its influence upon Enghsh pohtics it is difficult 122 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS to forecast, very difficult. Mill and his school thought it would be deleterious." "^Deleterious in what way? " " Well, they thought it would unduly enhance the ImperiaUstic spirit. In Dizzy's hands certainly India had that effect. Dizzy's imagination was thoroughly Oriental. I don't know, I don't know; I have never expressed myself definitely upon the point." Again he changed the subject. " I shouldn't be at all surprised," he went on, " if this Russo-Japanese war resulted in a stalemate. What can Japan do? She cannot possibly penetrate the heart of Russia. To attack Russia is like sticking a pin into a bolster. And what can Russia do? With a single hne of railway, with her forces and her pro- visions thousands of miles from the seat of war, what can she do? " /. " Surely Japan could occupy Manchuria, en- trench herself at Harbin or Mukden, and sit still, strongly fortified and amply provisioned by sea, for five years." He. "Exactly." /. " China seems to be leaning towards Japan — or at all events leaning away from Russia — by to-day's news." He. "Ah! There is a very serious danger there. There is a real Yellow Peril. Japan may organize China. There is in China in reahty no central power. They show no objections whatsoever to a change of dynasty. If the Japanese were to instal themselves at Peldn and set up a central power, I venture to think all China would be at Japan's beck and call." /. " The races are closely enough aUied, are they not, to preclude any idea of racial antagonism? " He. " Certainly. There is nothing of that sort to divide them. Both are inoculated with Buddhism." May 1904. When he received the invitation to act as paU-bearer at the funeral I have just mentioned, the Professor CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 123 stalked into the library, saying, " At all events I am thankful I shaU not have to go to that terrible exhibition the . . . what is it called? . . . the Mount Pleasant Cemetery, is it? M is to be buried at Guelph." /. " An Anglo-Saxon cemetery certainly depicts Anglo-Saxon taste at its worst. But the French are even worse, are they not? " He. " Oh, I should think so. Did you never see Pere la Chaise? " /. "No." He. " Or Genoa? " /. "No." He. " Oh, at Genoa you will see disconsolate statuesque bereaved ones weeping marble tears over the departed. They think a great deal of the Genoa cemetery. It is one of the first things they take you to." /. " I wish I had gone to Pere la Chaise when in Paris. The French seem to me to lose their wonderfully artistic taste when they try to be serious, as the French imply that the Anglo-Saxon does when he takes his pleasures seriously." And the Professor laughed. It is not easy to get this grim Oxford don of the nineteenth century to laugh. Yet I succeeded the other day. He was asked to write a section on Canadian hterature for some Encyclopaedia or other. " Just think of the research I should have to make," he re- marked to me — with a curiously subtle and ironical intonation on the word " research." But he did laugh downright audibly — in fact he laughed so much that he could not dictate — the other day. It was over Froude's narration of a debate in the Irish Parhament in which Grattan was vihfying Flood. I must reproduce the passage here; it is too good to lose: — " I wiU suppose," he, Grattan, said — affecting at the outset to put a hypothetical case, but speedily dropping the effort and speaking directly at his an- 12J, GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS tagonist — " I will suppose a public character, a man not now in this House, but who formerly might have been. I will suppose it was his constant practice to abuse any man who differed from him, and to betray every man who trusted him. I will begin from his cradle, and divide his life into three stages. In the first he was intemperate, in the second corrupt, in the third seditious. Suppose him a great egotist, his honour equal to his oath, and I will stop him and say (here looking full at Flood), Sir, your talents are not go great as your hfe is infamous. You were silent for years, and you were silent for money. When affairs of consequence to the nation were debating, you might be seen passing by these doors hke a guilty spirit wait- ing for the moment of putting the question that you might hop in and give your venal vote; or at times, with a vulgar brogue, aping the manners and affecting the infirmities of Lord Chatham, or hke a kettle- drummer lathering yourself into popularity to catch the vulgar. Or you might be seen hovering over the dome like an ill-omened bird of night, with sepulchral note, a cadaverous aspect, and broken beak, ready to stoop and poiuice upon your prey. You can be trusted by no man. The people cannot trust you. The ministers cannot trust you. You deal out the most impartial treachery to both. You tell the nation it is ruined by other men, while it is sold by you. You fled from the embargo; you fled from the sugar bill. I therefore tell you, in the face of the comrtry, before aU the world, and to your beard, you are not an honest man." ^ Only twice or thrice has spontaneous laughter actually interrupted our work during the last twelve years. Goldwin Smith's own description of King John, I remember, in his The Ujiited Kingdom, over- powered us both — me of the abihty to correct the proofs; him of the abihty to read them aloud. And this speech of Grattan he simply could not dictate. ' The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century, by James Anthony Froude, M.A., vol. ii. pp. 377-378. New York, Scribner, 1874. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 125 " The House must have been convulsed with laughter," I suggested. " Not at all. I can readily understand how Grattan's speech was received. It was probably hstened to in dead silence — they didn't want to miss the fun. But when Grattan sat down ... I suspect there was a row, an Irish row." " Cadaverous aspect "... " broken beak "... " birds of prey "... I heard him sajdng to himself in the intervals of a curious laughter that consisted chiefly of spasmodic heavings of the chest. It is good to hear him laugh. It is rare. For he is very grim, say what you will — in spite of his keen, his extremely keen sense of humour. Humour, as a matter of fact, permeates all his thought. It is always just below the surface and emerges over and over again. For example, he was talking about the Royal Commission appointed to in- vestigate the divergences in the Anghcan Church (April 1904). " They have an interesting job before them," he said. " In EMzabeth's reign they would have insisted upon unity of conviction and brotherly love in' the Church by a few hangings and burnings. They have an interesting job." May 5, 1904. To-day the Professor rode his anti-Semitic hobby, but rode it with a snafHe. "I have heard from So-and-So," he said; "hear what he says." What So-and-So said was that the Jews were year by year gaining a greater hold upon the newspaper press and influencing pubhc opinion through those channels. Not even the Times, he averred, was ex- empt. The Professor thoroughly endorsed this view in all its details. " I have always said this," he began. " My friend Laister, who had excellent opportunities for knowing, told me the same thing. The Jews have even got hold of Christian reUgious periodicals and manipulated 126 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS them to their own ends — primarily for pecuniary reasons, no doubt, but they never lose sight of ulterior objects. These Jews hang together. There is a tacit understanding amongst them. A real danger lurks beneath their efforts. I don't Mke to say too much on this subject. I don't Uke to appear to be ventilating a craze; but that it is a fact I am convinced. . . . Milner they say is a German. I wonder ... I shouldn't be surprised . . . there may be Jewish blood in Milner 's veins," and we pulled down several books to shed hght on Lord Miner's pedigree, to no avail. "It is a real danger," he went on, after a pause; " the Jews have one code of ethics for themselves, another for the Gentile. They never forgot the Leviti- cal injunction which permits them to sell carrion to the stranger but not to each other." May 1904. " How very good Johnson's Dictionary is," he re- marked when turning up a word. It was pleasant to see him choose Johnson out of a row of English diction- aries. " His quotations are admirable, as admirable as they are numerous." A loose use of the term " veteran " he cannot away with. (It was the word " veteran " he was looking up.) " People who were ' under arms ' for a few weeks, and who never fired a rifle . . . they are no more ' veterans ' than I am. In 1848 I, I suppose in common with thousands of other people in England, did not know when I might not be ' called out ' and summoned to Portsmouth. (That Napoleon III. tried to ape his so-called uncle. He brought about the estrange- ment between England and Russia.) Many of these ' veterans ' did no more active service than a few driUs. Why, I might as well claim a hundred acres of land as a ' veteran ' ! " May 1904. An instructive example of the Professor's mode of composition occurred yesterday. After having (1) CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 127 written a certain sentence in which occurred the word " dwellers " with his own hand; (2) dictated it to me; (3) read over my manuscript; (4) had it typewritten; and (5) carefully examined the t3^ewritten copy, he asked me whether I thought " dwellers " was all right. I felt very much inclined to say, " If you so use it, it makes it right." But I didn't. " Let us see how it is used in the Bible," I said, and pulled down Cruden. Meanwhile he had stalked round to another part of the hbrary and was consulting the Century Dictionary. " Let us try dear old Johnson," said I, and took down Vol. I. Neither the Century nor Johnson seemed to satisfy him, and he changed " dwellers " to " people." The care he exercises in the use of words is extreme — extreme; though he very rarely indeed refers to Roget's Thesaurus. And I notice that he detests a periphrasis. He would rather spend five or ten minutes in the search for a single verbal substitute for a single word than turn the sentence in another way. Sim- phcity and terseness seem to be his aim ; and never wiU he employ an out-of-the-way word, a foreign word, an uncommon word, a pedantic or purely " learned " word if he can possibly help it. This I have noticed times without number. In fact, I was mightily surprised lately at his use two or three times within as many weeks of the word " infecundity " — " infecimdity of American women," e.g., when speaking of the cis-Atlantic low birth-rate, and so forth. It may have been mere fancy, but I thought it was due to the fact that one day — on the day he first used the term, I think — on his asking me what the noonday post had brought I remarked half jocularly that the post had been remarkably infecund of late. It is a question so often put to me that I detest answering it in stereotyped phraseology (one has to be a httle particular when talking to a man like Goldwin Smith, whose mind is alert as a lynx and sharp as a needle and never misses the minutest allusion). Accordingly I say that the post has been " sterile," 128 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS or " barren," or " impotent," or (if there are only circulars and newspapers) " still-born," or (as iii this case) " infecund." It is great fun — and it is instructive — to watch these httle things. I wonder if many octogenarian writers take this care in their style. The astonishing thing to me is the extraordinary simpHcity of the pro- duct! The Chief will think out an article, a httle short article for a newspaper; will then write it out in his own hand at eight o'clock in the morning; will dictate it to me at 9.15; will carefully, most carefully, go over my MS., correctmg, altering, addmg, and excising; will demand proofs and revises to be sent to him (by a special messenger often — at ten cents per special messenger) ; will then go down to the newspaper office and see another revise; will correct this; and, if he does not demand yet another revise, it is simply because he rehes upon my seeing to it that his ultimate revision is faithfully carried out by the printers in the composing room ; and not until I come downstairs and report that " everything is all right " does he slowly rise and totter out of the office. This at eighty! What would I not give to have seen him at work at thirty ! Nor does he rely upon his own brains. Over and over again he keeps a manuscript back till So-and-So and So-and-So shall have seen it and adjudicated upon it. Only the other day I rushed all over the town and telephoned right and left to get So-and-So and So-and- So to see a MS. — a tiny insignificant MS. — before it was desjDatched to the printers. And he verifies everything he possibly can. Though of course he cannot, here, consult the Record Office or " plunge into the deeps of the archives of Simancas." And the acuteness of his observation is miraculous. Nothing escapes him. His mmd is like a bird's eye: it can detect a minute insect on a twig; and it can survey the unmeasurable landscape. It is an extra- ordinary mind. No wonder it has made its impress on the world. It has often been said that Goldwin Smith was a CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 129 master of style. He himself held peculiar views on style. "Style! " he said to me once, after glancing at Mr Frederic Harrison's article on that topic in the Nineteenth Century of June 1898, "style! They talk a great deal about style, but really I hardly know what they mean. I miderstand ' manner.' Carlyle has a manner, Ruskin has a manner, Jeremy Taylor has a manner. But what is 'style '1 " An explanation of this incredulity as to the existence of that thing men call " style " would lead us far afield indeed. But I think I see what he means, for we more than once discussed the matter. " So-and-So," I remarked to him one day, " tells me he would know your writings anywhere, even if unsigned." " Humph! And how, pray? " " From your style." "Style! I have no style. I merely wait till the mud settles." That gives the clue to all the Professor wrote. He never aimed at " a style " (and I should say he strenu- ously avoided " mannerism "). I never knew him dehberately to seek, or to avoid, an alliteration- — as Ruskin assuredly constantly does. I never knew him to try to arrange effectively and sonorously the sequence of his vowel-sounds^as Milton assuredly constantly does. Unconsciously, I think, he adopted a certain rhjrthm or music in a sequence of words, and he took care to avoid a repetition of the same word; but be- yond this he made no attempt at style. He has few purple passages. He has no " strains of higher mood." Clarity of thought, and simphcity and dignity of ex- pression — these, I think, were his sole aim. For effec- tiveness, for pungency and point, he reUed upon apt- ness of allusion, or piquancy of suggestion, or subtlety of phrase. Of phrase-making he was the master. His works teem with phrases. Open any of his books at random almost anywhere ■ — when he was writing at his best, I mean — and you will find pungent, pointed phrases on every page. Thus, I open The 9 130 GOLD WIN SmTH: LIFE AND OPINIONS Bystander (vol. i.) at page 315; immediately my eye alights on: — " We were wrong in saying that Lord Beaconsfield's career would leave no trace. It will leave a trace . . . in the altered tone of . . . public hfe." And on this : — " Lord Beaconsfield has had the sinister advantage of originality; he has operated in an assembly where legerdemain was easy." I turn over the pages of his Essays on Questions of the Day, and on page 216, in the argument against Woman Suffrage, I find strings of phrases: — " Woman, if she becomes a man, will be a weaker man. . . . She cannot expect to have both privilege and equality. To don the other sex she must doff her own. . . . Chivalry depends on the acknowledged need of protection. . . . Man would not be ... in- clined to treat with tenderness . . . the being who was jostling with him in aU the walks of life. . . . The attractions of women . . . depend upon their being women. Mrs Mill ^ . . . remained a woman. If she had put on her wig and gown to go into court ... or had stood against her husband ^ for Westminster, we should have seen the great experiment really tried." All these on one page. And his talk was equally full of these Httle dainty- winged, sharply-pointed, sometimes poison-tipped, arrow-arguments. Oxford must have seen flights upon flights of them in the 'fifties and 'sixties. One Oxford one he himself told me of. It was his definition of the distinction between a Unitarian and Universalist : " One thinks he is too good for God to damn ; the other thinks God is too good to damn him." He tried to sum up whole systems, whole philo- ' Wife of John Stuart Mill, the strong woman suffragist. " As member of ParUament, CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 131 Sophies, sciences and theologies, in single sentences; and the sentences made you think — and laugh, even if they did not sum up whole systems. Yes; he was a master of the phrase. Yet some- times I think the phrase mastered him. He was so addicted to it that that addiction led him to say things that were too piquant, too pungent — things that pricked. He often said things rather flippant. And this love of flippant phrases led him — hterary man that he was — to burnish and pohsh and sharpen till they were hke hypodermic needles. Thus, in 1894, his friend Lord Rosebery had not only, by happy fortune, won the Derby, but had accepted the Prime Ministership of England. Goldwin Smith was in England at the time, but re- turned to his home in Canada soon after. At once, of course, the newspaper reporters " interviewed " him — and note, that if he did not write out the interview himseK he always demanded a proof. Well, on May the 1 8th he spoke of Lord Rosebery thus : — " Lord Rosebery is regarded as a thorough oppor- tunist, and he almost avows himself to be one. . . . Lord Rosebery 's prominence on the turf also distin- guishes him rather sharply from the defender of the Mosaic cosmogony and the author of The Church in its relation to the State. ... If the Nonconformist conscience can stomach . . . the handing over of Ire- land to the Roman Cathohc priesthood, it can surely stomach the entering of Lord Rosebery's horse for the Derby." This appeared in the Toronto Globe on the morning of May the 19th. Meantime the reporter of the Evening Telegram had come up; and this is what the Evening Telegram published that afternoon: — " Lord Rosebery revolves like a political teetotum, spiiming with singular liveliness and grace. . . . The nonchalance and levity of this speech. . . . Next day he was squeezed by the Irish ..." and so on. 132 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS and so on ; the whole interview is entertaining to the highest degree. His mind, the mental mechanism by which he manu- factured these brilliant, translucent crystals of thought — acute-angled, apiculate- — might be compared to the powerful but delicate apparatus in use in modem laboratories devoted to the investigation of physics, by which vast volumes of gases are hquefied or brought to the condition of actual sohds. By means of immense pressure and intense cold, cubic yards of oxygen or hydrogen, or carbon dioxide or common air, are reduced to the compass of a phial or to a pinch of ghstening powder. So he. By the force of pure reason and the frigity of unemotionalism, he could reduce the most treasured theories and the most precious behefs to minute and crystalhne propositions ; propositions clear, cold and unexceptionable; propositions which, it was impossible to deny, contained in them the whole bulk of those theories and behefs — as subjected to that power- ful and delicate mental apparatus. These brilhant crystals of thought were of the very essence of his style. For without doubt a " style " this writer had, his own opinions on style to the contrary. " How I wish I could write such a style as yours ! " exclaims Lord Chief- Justice Coleridge. 1 If any young man, aspiring worker in the ranks of literature, is curious to know the very ways and means by which this style was achieved, I can perhaps best explain it by giving him an outline of the manner in which Goldwin Smith actually wrote. Goldwin Smith wrote everything out in his own hand himself first. It was written slowly, carefully, with many pauses, many erasures, many emendations, and in a tiny, highly-abbreviated and quite illegible chirography. The pages were torn from the pad any- how, and very rarely was his pagination correct: the number of times he lost his place was incomputable by him or anyone else. The time we wasted in putting in regular order scattered sheets of paper was de- plorable. ' Op. cil. supra, ii. 320. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 133 When he was tired of original composition, or had come to a break, or had exhausted the particular point of which he was treating, the writer would gather up his sheets and betake himself to his arm-chair. Then would commence the real labour of putting on paper exactly what he wanted to say. He dictated to me. But what he dictated consisted reaUy of an infinite number of emendations of the autographically-written manuscript in his own hand — carefully though that itself was composed. Now, perhaps the youthful writer thinks that by this time the neck of the work is broken; that all that is now necessary is to transform this highly-emended manuscript into a neat typoscript for the book, pamph- let, leading article, or whatever it may be, and to send it to the printer. If he does so think, all I can say is that he is very much mistaken indeed. This emended manuscript is merely the first rough draft of the book, pamphlet, leading article, or whatever it may be. The course of procedure now is as follows : — AU the pages of this my manuscript beiag put care- fully in order, its author sits up straight at his desk again and takes it in hand. Now it receives the most severe, the most scrupulous, the most meticulous revision. Every word, every syllable, is reconsidered, and innumerable are the excisions, additions, emenda- tions — for which I have allowed plenty of room between both words and lines. As each page is finished it is handed over to me — blindly, for the author's eyes are fixed on the text, and I have to reach out and get hold of each page as he absent-mindedly removes it from his desk and hands it me-wards — I sit at a table close to him at his left. My duty is to make legible enough for a typist every, the minutest, mark made in the author's minute and all-but-illegible script. This done, this doubly-emended manuscript is sent off to be typewritten. And very impatient, indeed, is the author till it comes back; and most pre- cise are his orders as to how it is to be typewritten. Well, the typewritten copy comes back — and how often have I had to urge our stenographer to bestir 134 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS herself! When it comes back the author takes one copy, I another, and we both sit up straight, ready for a real, hard, definite and thorough revision. The author reads out loud. I foUow. More emendation, excision, addition, alteration, correction. Every comma is weighed in the balance. This done, if the " copy " — so printers call it — is fairly " clean " it is handed over to me. ... To be sent o£E? Not at all. " That need not go till Monday — or Thursday — or Saturday," as the case may be; " something may turn up. Besides, I should hke to keep it in my mind for a day or two." Style! Yes, this is how style is begotten. However, at last the thing gets sent off, registered, and accompanied by a letter, and a request for proofs m galley-form. How he insisted upon galley-form! You see, in page-form, if you make any alterations in the text, if you add a hne, or take out a line, all the suc- ceeding pages are thrown out of gear; and — there is very much to pay, for " alterations from copy " are charged for by the hour. The galley-proofs arrive — in dupUcate of course. Author takes one copy, I the other. Again he reads aloud. I follow. More emendations, excisions, addi- tions, alterations, corrections. Another proof is ordered — in galley-form. Yet another, sometimes. Then permission is given to put into page-form. With great hesitation is permission given to stereotype. " Do you mean to say I cannot add a sentence — or take out a word or two? — that it will throw the pages out? Why can't they keep the type standing? At the Oxford Clarendon Press — I was a Delegate, you know — at the Clarendon Press they must have kept tons of type standing ..." and so on and so on were his reiterated objurgations on stereotyped plates. And I have actually known Goldwin Smith to order a second and complete set of stereotyped proofs to be sent him, from Preface to Finis, ere he would permit the book to go to press ! Furthermore, I have known him, after a book had been issued from the press, and was selUng readily, to write to his pubhshers and say that CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 135 he would like to recast the whole of it. One of his books he did recast, and the recasting cost him a pretty penny. One point in the preparation of the Professor's manuscripts is interesting and significant, and this is his insistence on his amanuensis or his stenographer always commencing a fresh paragraph on a fresh page. He adopted this custom himself in his own first rough draft; he imposed it on me; I had to give our steno- grapher strict injunctions to the same effect. This trick almost gives a clue to the great man's method of composition. When he once took a subject in hand his brain seethed with it. Day and night he turned it over and over in his mind, jotting down httle notes anywhere, everywhere. Nothing of this internal ebulhtion was allowed to appear on the surface. On the surface he was calm, composed, severe, austere. Perhaps only I knew that beneath that impassive exterior was working at high pressure a most powerful, a most complex, a most delicate intellectual engine. Even to me the fact was only divulged by two httle facts : first, his incessant additions ; second, his im- patience to see the finished product, in order that he might view his hterary production from start to finish — totus, teres, atque rotundus — in typewritten and legible shape. He carried the whole conception in his head, and he carried every detail of it, perfectly clearly, in his head. And clever iiideed was the way in which the fresh ideas that occurred to him were worked into the com- position as originally mapped out. This was the reason for the order to commence a fresh paragraph on a fresh page. The additions, interpolations, emendations, cor- rections, excisions, were multitudinous. Few of his readers would guess, probably, that the Enghsh prose which read so smoothly, that the arguments which followed so logically, that the narrative which ran so uninterruptedly, was the result of constant, persistent, unintermittent and laborious thought; yet thought restrained by judgment and discretion; thought which soared far beyond the hmits of the comprehension of U.S. NOTES 259 of a class of servants. A step in advance of their position in their own country. Vote of the Irish with the Democratic party. Hatred of the Negro. The priests go with the Ohgarcliical party against the Repubhcans on the usual groimd of antipathy to real freedom. The Democratic party also buy them with concessions. Monday, Sept. 5. To Mr Bancroft's house at New- port. Railway. Orderly behaviour of the people. No smoking or spitting. Great amount of travelling. Tuesday, Sept. 6. With llr Bancroft to the Cen- tenary of Brown University at Providence. Oration dehvered by President (Sears) in the Baptist Church. Dinner, cold meat and fruits withoiit wme. Speeches — Secretary Chase quahfying what he had before said against England. The Puritans founders of Universities as well as of Schools. Talked with a clergyman by the way. The influence of rehgion general. Did not reach some of the masses in New York. The Irish reached by the Catholic priests. The Germans not reached. ilr Bancroft an old Democrat rallying to the Ad- ministration. His strong attachment to the institutions of the country. His doubts about the elective judiciary. It could be altered if it worked ill. The individual mind had been studied before. In America we might study the action of mind in masses. Individuahty of character not destroyed, according to Mr B., by the ascendency of pubhc opinion. Determination of Mr Bancroft and those about him to get rid of Slavery, as the root of all the mischief. The course of American poHtics. Ohgarchical party. Foimd itself accidentally in power by the death of Harrison and the accession of Vice-President Tyler. The parties in America, the Repubhcans on the one hand, the Southern Ohgarchs with the Irish mob and the party of the rich at the North on the other. Thus the evils spring not from Repubhcanism, but from Ohgarchy combined with the element which is the basis of Im- periahsm. 262 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS sincerely designed to raise the people — not like ours, partly to raise, partly to make them submissive. No Communism in America. No Sansculottes except the Irish in New York. Money by itseK has less power in America than in England. It will not gain a man admission into the highest society. Wealth in a great many instances nobly used. Money given lavishly for charitable objects. A subscription for a new room at Mr Osbom's club failed. A subscription for a charitable object mounted to 4000 dollars at once. Lavish subscriptions to the Sanitary Fund. Names of subscribers not pubUshed. Bankruptcy in New York not disgraceful — but high dividends paid — on the average 75 per cent. Bank- ruptcy with a dividend of sixpence iu the pound would be held very disgraceful. Sydney Smith's daughter has her money in Pennsylvanian bonds. Smith's letter did good. Prospects of America as a corn-producing country. Exportation hmited by the cost of ocean carriage. Labour will at a certain point be turned in other directions. Excellence of the agricultm'al element in American society. The New England farmer quiet and contented. The Western more " go-ahead." The poverty of the soil m Canada and the difficulty of tilling it compared with Illinois. The greater part of the emigrants come on from Canada to America. Difficulty of estabUshing a great commmiity in Canada, apart from the rich land and other sources of wealth on the Continent, to which population will naturally flow. Illinois has given 170,000 men, a fourth of its work- ing population, to the army. The consequent scarcity of laboiu? has led to inventions for economizing it. New hoeing machine doing four men's work by the hands of one. Trollope's account of American children Kving on " meat and pickles." These stories and others apply only to hotel hfe — not to the hfe of American families. The boys, however, are generally mannish — Begin U.S. NOTES 263 to think themselves men long before they are out of their teens. Shave as early as possible to make their beards grow. Went to call on Mr W. Beecher. A 'powerful man — His great influence as a preacher. Large sums given him by his congregation. One broker always set aside a large proportion of his gains for him. His house, a farm in a beautiful spot. His son at home wounded. His wilhngness, if he cannot get the immediate eman- cipation of all the slaves, which he thinks the best thing, to take the Union with prospective emancipation as the second best. An American friend of Mr Osborn struck by England as a very thinly peopled country. Absence of the numerous farmhouses seen in America. The recruits going to the war rude and troublesome on the railroads, breaking windows of carriages, etc. On returning, their aspect and behaviour quite changed , (Probable effect of the war in familiarizing the country with the idea of authority and discipline.) Anecdote of Grant, after his defeat at Belmont. He allowed the blame and danger of dismissal to fall on himseK rather than expose the fault of his five subordin- ates, saying that the country could better spare him than them. He said, when he saw the carnage of his men, that nothing but the cause could warrant it. His indomitable determination. Professor Mahon of West Point. His political enthusiasm on the occasion of the present contest had broken through the reserve which, as professor in a neutral institution, he had before maintamed. He averred himseK strongly anti-Enghsh — but seemed pleased to have the case explained. Irish riots dreaded at Garrisons, a large body of Irish labourers being there. Stopped by Governor through the B.C. ecclesiastics. Extravagance of the American women in dress. 136 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS the reader, 1 but thought which was sedulously, carefully brought down to the level of his comprehension; thought which transcended verbal expression and yet was rigidly, austerely, self-sacrificingly, yoked to language understanded of the people. I am quite sure that I have seen the Great Man actually sacrifice a highly transcendental, a splendidly-suggestive phrase for one which conveyed a clearer thought. Clarity of thought seems to have been Gold win Smith's one and only aim. He reached it; though I sometimes think that in reaching it he displayed at once his weakness and his power. He is weak, in that he does not lead his readers up to higher heights. He is strong, in that he shows his readers the real point at issue and explains that point in a sentence. He was not a poet, though he wrote poetry, and translated into English poetry Greek and Latin poets. His poetry belongs to the School of Pope — as might have been expected. It was exact, correct, accurate. I sometimes think that this Goldwin Smith his extreme desire for clarity of thought was, at bottom, his greatest bane. Man does not hve by thought alone. Man hves by imagination, fancy, faith. No man hving can possibly explain in clear thought why he goes to his office at nine; why he works hard till five; why he tries hard to keep up a respectable appearance and a presentable family. No man hving can in clear thought explain why he tries, poor soul, to obey the laws of the realm, or to Kve up to the Decalogue. The ordinary man hves by imagination, emotion, feehng, fancy, faith. He is extremely glad and grateful, of course, if some erudite Professor will explain for him what Sociahsm really is, what Paper Money, what Higher Criticism. But the explanations of an erudite Professor do not alter very much his ordinary course of hfe. They may give him clearer views on economic questions, on pohtical questions, on questions of Bibhcal criticism; I doubt much whether they give him clearer views of Life as a whole, of Life as it has to 1 The Weekly Sun, for example, was, supposedly, a farmer's paper. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 137 be lived, with its sorrows and aspirations, its anguishes, its temptations, its desperate difficulties, its hopes, its fears. — But this is digression. All this his hterary work, of course, was highly interesting, and we both threw ourselves into it with zest. His own ardour in his own composition com- municated itself to me; and for hour upon hour daily we thus worked together, week upon week, month upon month, year upon year, for nigh upon eighteen years. No wonder a good deal was accomphshed. Many may think that I mistake when I speak of Goldwin Smith's " ardour " when engaged in original composition. His style is so simple, unaffected, un- emotional, dignified; he so eschews anything sensa- tional or bizarre; he is always so sober, steadfast and demure, that the idea of his having any ardour at all when composing seems out of the question. But no ; it is those who so think that mistake, not I. True, he always had himself under control. But under that self-control was the enthusiasm of the artist. The in- tellectual and emotional concentration which he brought to bear on his work was intense. Let me give an ex- ample of this. Sometimes a point had to be cleared up before any farther progress could be made — a fact verified, or an allusion noted, or a qualification inserted, or what-not. Iimumerable books were seized upon, brought down and consulted. Incalculable pages were turned over — both by him and me. Indexes, books of reference, commentaries, histories, biographies . . . in a short time the biUiard-table (which occupied the centre of the hbrary) was httered with these, each lying open at the particular page containing the matter bear- ing upon the point, and any one — or two — or three — or four, five, six, seven — of which might have to be quoted, carefully and hterally quoted. At last he was satisfied. At last he emended the sentence. At last he composed it in its final form. And how did he compose it? He composed it walking roimd and round that biUiard-table, shutting up every book he came across with a slap, as if to say, "There, that is done." Yes, done; but with 138 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS what woful results to me! How many times I have had to go through that Utter of authorities, find the particular one (or two, three, four, five) that was hit upon, and then find the precise page and passage re- quired, I do not know. As for the composer — he never knew; he was too ardently absorbed in composition. That lovable man, the late W. P. Garrison, for forty years editor of the New York Nation, once asked me whether Goldwm Smith's reviews were written currente calamo : " For," said he, "I notice a great difference between his style and that of many other of my con- tributors." When I explained to him how they were written, he said, " Ah! " And Goldwin Smith never tired of taldng trouble. I rather think that this sort of " trouble " was a pleasure to him. On the hottest days of summer and on the coldest days in winter, during all the years he wrote for the Toronto Weekly Sun — and he wrote for it up to within a few months of his death — every Tuesday afternoon he used to get into his carriage and drive down to the office to read proofs — m spite of the fact, mind you, that a first revision — sometimes two revises — of everything he had written had been sent up to him to his house that morning. "'Literature' comes high!" (and the intonation of the word " Literature " nearly made me laugh out loud) was the remark once made to me, with a grim smile, by the busmess manager of The Weekly Sun, referring, of course, to the expenses of correction. The Professor's punctihousness was extreme. I remember one curious instance of this. He was once not very well, and was reading and writing and dictat- ing in bed in the mornings. The bed was strewed with newspapers and with sheets of paper when I entered about 9.15 a.m. He then dictated a paragraph for his usual three columns of " Comments on Current Events " for the Weekly Sun ; read and corrected my manuscript, and, on the Tuesday morning as usual, read and passed the first revise of the same; the afternoon revision he, that day, left to me, and I reported by telephone from the Sun office that all M^as right. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 139 The next morning at 9.15 I found him reading his " Comments on Current Events " (Goldwin Smith always carefully perused everything he wrote the moment it appeared in print). — Let me say here that always, in the first rough draft, the punctuation was, of course, left to me; he dictated fast; I pointed as well as I could; and we both consulted over commas and semicolons in the first revise. Well, in that particular paragraph I spoke of, I remember that there was a sentence over the punctuation of which I had hesitated. There was a break, and I thought at least twice to myseh, " Should there be a semicolon or a period here? " — I forget which I put, but at all events he passed it both in the manuscript and in the proof. " Haultain," he said, the next morning, " you have caused me to utter a platitude. Look at this sentence. There is a semicolon [or a full-stop] here where there should have been a full-stop [or semicolon]. Please correct it, will you, and send corrected copies to . . . " and here followed a string of names of people. His punctuation, by the way, was simplicity itself. Like the London Times he never used a colon ; he never used a bracket; dashes were his abhorrence: "Why do they put in a dash? " often he has ejaculated. " I hate a dash. Won't a comma do? " All his hterary nuances were achieved through the simple instrument- ahty of commas, semicolons and periods. It was characteristic of the man. I wish I had thought of asking him what he thought of Carlyle's pimctuation ... or of Laurence Sterne's! Sterne's must have made him gape ! Which reminds me that his choice of words was as simple as was his punctuation. Of two words, one common and popular, the other a httle out-of-the-way, he always chose the common and popular. A highly scientific nomenclature he detested. How often he has shaken his head with a smile, when, both of us cudgel- hng our brains for a word, I made this, that or the other polysyllabic suggestion! Perhaps of all our writers, Goldwin Smith alone has preserved intact the 140 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS tradition of the old English masters of prose, has pre- served the smoothness, the simplicity, the dignity of Donne, Hall, Hooker, Bacon, Hales, Chillingworth, Jeremy Taylor, Dryden, Tillotson, South, Addison, Burke, Hume, Gibbon. Once upon a time, long ago, when I was a very young man, I had the temerity to write and ask the Seer of The Grange what authors he would recommend for the formation of a good prose style. His answer was kindness and politeness itself. He recommended Hume's Essays, upon the perusal of which, so he in- timated, his own form was based. If so, he certainly improved upon his model. Compare, for example, David Hume's protraiture of Robert Walpole [Essays, Moral, Political and Literary, ii. 396) with Goldwin Smith's portraiture of WaUenstein [Lectures and Essays, pp. 55, 56). In his lifetime Goldwin Smith produced a mass of literary work incomputable by man. That he was able to produce so much was due, not to long hours of labour, but to the extremely methodical manner in which he worked. He breakfasted at nine. But long before breakfast he had read all the newspapers, marked them, and probably had jotted down notes on scraps of paper, preparatory to what he intended to write. Indeed, it is extremely probable that he had now and then risen during the night, hghted a candle, and jotted down notes. He jotted down notes at all hours of day and night. He had paper and pen and ink in the draw- ing-room; he had paper and pen and ink in his bed- room; he had paper and pencils by his bedside; he carried a pocket-book with paper and pencil. He had pencils everywhere. " Oh, dear," said his wife to me over and over again, " where do the pencils go to? I buy so many." And always he read with pencil in hand, with the which, on the fly-leaves at the end, the reader used to make tiny notes — just single words, with the page upon which the topic by that word was treated, thus, " Pari. Reform 134." ' (These jottings of his were of great use to me! I often found what he ' I take this from his edition of Burl^e's worlis. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 141 wanted very quickly by means of them.) However, to go on. I shall not, I hope, be betraying secrets if I describe a day such as Mr Goldwin Smith and I were wont to spend together. Soon after nine the Professor entered his library. He came in loaded with books, newspapers, letters and manuscript notes written by him since the previous afternoon. The correspondence was knocked off first. And this was a business not much to his liking. A little, paltry, pifHing, conventional letter was his abhorrence. And how he used to boggle over it! A paragraph for a book was to him a pleasure ; but a note. . . "Ugh!" he used to say often, after ineffectual attempts, " this is like being drowned in a puddle." The correspondence finished, my Chief exerted himself: he woke up; he walked about; his eye brightened; he talked — or dictated — or wrote. But always he wanted me at his elbow. And always he wanted sympathy and interest — those two things that Samuel Taylor Coleridge asked of his audience. At 1.30 the gong sounded for luncheon. " You had better come in to lunch." His luncheon lasted about seven minutes: a little pudding and a cup of tea. I tried to swaUow some " corned beef " — the standing dish on the sideboard. At 1.50 we were in the Hbrary again. Dicta- tion — proofs — articles — books — letters to newspapers — interviews — arguments — authorities — points — occu- pied us till four or five. Then we knocked off. Then one of two things happened : either he went for a drive (and I went to golf), or friends were invited to tennis. Tennis on the front lawn of The Grange was great fun. The Professor got into flannels; I ran home (at this time quite close: through a back door) and did ditto. We generally played two aside, and I always played with him, and— he hked to win. I must have gyrated round him Kke the moon round the earth. I once rushed at a ball served to him ! How we all four laughed! Yes, that tennis was great fun; and I think 142 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS the old gentleman enjoyed it as much as the youngest of us. The tennis over, there were tea and bread-and- butter, or perhaps claret-cup in the drawing-room or in the verandah. That ended the day. Unless I was wanted at dinner. I tried to get out of this, because after dinner I had my own work to do, or there was much of the Professor's work to be mopped up — an index to be prepared; stray notes collected; authorities looked up — lots of httle odds and ends of which this erudite man-of-letters took no note. After dinner the Professor never worked. He played whist or cribbage, or he lounged in an arm-chair with a book. Never even was the gas lighted in the hbrary after dinner — unless somebody played bUhards; or unless, after a man's dinner-party (and the Professor was very fond of a man's dinner-party) we all sat round the fire and talked — or, rather, tried to get the Oxford Professor to talk. The Oxford Professor's talk was splendid — splendid — always splendid. Even I never tired of his talk, although I had heard almost all of it before. Old Oxford days — eminent men he had known — the " Ox- ford Movement " — current pohtics — the rehgious situa- tion — Socialism — England now and then — American poKtical questions — municipal problems — the status of woman, pohtically and socially . . . not even this Ust is any clue whatever to the numberless questions discussed — or rather monologically descanted upon. The fire burned brightly; the chimney-piece con- sisted of tiles representing Shakespearian scenes; above was a mantelpiece in wood, in which was carved the Ciceronian motto — Magna est Veritas, quae eacile se per se IPSA Defendat — chosen by himself. We sat in a semicircle, or here and there on sofas and arm-chairs ; but the Great Man never really unhent. I do not quite know why it was, CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 143 but always he retained an inexpugnable reserve. Lady St Helier (when she was Lady Jeune) noticed this even when he was a young man. " I imaguae," she says, writing in 1908, " that Mr Goldwin Smith of to-day is not very unlike Mr Goldwin Smith of those long years ago, although his opinion may, perhaps, be somewhat modified; the old fire, the old rebelhous discontent against abuses and privi- leges, still remain. Quite apart from his abihty and intellectual pre-eminence, he was a remarkable man in many ways, thovigh stern, hard and uncompromising on almost every subject in which he was interested. . . . It was very difficult to say there was a soft side to his nature, and yet there was, for it all centred in his de- votion to his wife. He was only known to a small circle of people in London, and his early pohtical opinions were not such as induced those who did know him to embark on such a hazardous enterprise." ' Professor York Powell, one of Goldwin Smith's successors in the Chair of Modern History at Oxford, called him " the Paul Louis Courier of our times and tongue." - This very attitude of mind militated against both his success and his influence, for it prevented him from working in co-operation with others (since nobody could agree with him in everything), and therefore he could not bring his ideas to fruition. He was a lonely man, was Goldwin Smith: lonely in his domestic circle, lonely in his social relations, lonely in his poHtical convictions, lonely in his ideals. As he sat there in his arm-chair before the fire after dinner, you felt — actually felt — an insulating atmosphere between him and you. And this, I take it, and I make bold to say it, was the one fount and origin of his failure in hie. He tried to think and act alone. His fu'st and great object always was, as I have said, in his own phrase, to " let the mud settle." Clarity ' Memories of Fifty Years, p. 289. 2 Life of Frederick York Powell, by Oliver Elton, vol. i. p. 189. Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, 1906. 144 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AKD OPINIONS of thought was his first and foremost aim. Fortun- ately for himself, he was gifted with a preternaturally penetrating intellect, an intellect which could pierce through clouds of rhetoric and seize upon the one little central bit of fact or theory over which rival writers or talkers were beating the air. Numberless instances spring to my mind of this his faculty of seeing through layers upon layers of misty argument and la3diig hold of the one small sohd fact beneath. Thus, when the whole economic world was looking on and wondering whether New Zealand had really solved the problem of strikes by the institution of Arbitration Courts which should fix the rate of wages, he quietly asked, " Can any Court force an employer to pay what he can't afford to pay, or force an employ^ to accept a wage lower than he can obtain elsewhere? " So with the whole question of Paper Money and the right and abihty of the State to manufacture dollar bills ad libitum which once so agitated the western continent of America. " People do not see," he said, " that a dollar bill is not money. It is a mere promise to pay. When it changes hands credit passes at the bank of issue from the giver to the receiver." So with the whole question of Sociahsm. " SociaHsts," over and over again he has said to me, " tell us that ' the State ' ohould be the sole owner, manufacturer, landlord and what-not. What is ' the State '? Is it not the people themselves ? ' The State ' is not a person who can put his hand into his pocket and make everybody rich." And so with the whole question of modern Bibhcal Higher Criticism. " Liberal theologians," he says in his Preface to Guesses at the Middle of Existence, " have given up the authenticity and authority of Genesis. With these they must apparently give up the Fall, the Redemption and the Incarnation." Also, it is weU to remember that always the Pro- fessor could take time to allow the mud to settle. With ample means, and with every facihty for com- position, he knew not what it meant to have to write against time, or to have to write for money. He had leisure in which to read all round the subject, and CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 145 leisure in which, in Bacon's words, to weigh and con- sider. And read he did! When he had not a pen in his hand he had a book — or a newspaper. I have often envied him his lot. A quiet house in a spacious plot, with trees and lawns, shrubs and flowers; and, behind, a most desirable kitchen garden; a butler and footman ; two gardeners and a coachman ; a secretary at his elbow; a sequestered library — nay two, an inner room and an outer, both walled from floor to ceihng with books — books, and more books; books which overflowed into cupboards and corners and hall-ways and improvised shelves. Surely an ideal spot for a thinker, a thinker sitting in a comfortable arm-chau' before a fire; behind him and about some ten or fifteen thousand volumes covering half a dozen walls; and to his left, as he looked up from the fire and gazed out of the great French windows, through which streamed, uncurtained, the beams of the summer sun, the nodding leaves of the creeper and the swaying boughs of the great elms that adorned his lawn. Here, for the last thirty-five years of his Mfe, he wrote in peace and quiet; seeing no one till his day's work was over, save only those persons whom he summoned to aid him with his work; cut off from the world, cut off even from the rest of the household, for the hbrary was an addition to The Grange rather than part of the edifice proper, and few intruded thither without qualms or hesitation, — even the mistress of the house I have seen approach with a pretty apology on her hps. However, this very leisure which he enjoyed, and this very isolation which he courted, affected not only the manner of his work, but its matter also. Both gave him time and opportunity for thought ; but they robbed him of opportunity to see how practical men of affairs dealt with practical problems. Not that he avoided practical problems. On the contrary, he courted them and thought out solutions of them. Here lay perhaps his greatest weakness. At heart he was a politician and a journalist, not a historian; and per- haps it was just this endeavour to solve the practical and pressing pohtical and economical problems of the 10 146 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS hour from his deep arm-chair and his book-walled study that drew from Disraeh that not wholly unmerited description, " a wild man of the cloister." A comic paper in Toronto once summed up Goldwin Smith's tenets thus: — The Condensed " Bystander "^ for February {Or any Other Month.) Partjdsm is what is ruining this country. The Grit and Tory machines are always truckling to Rome. The N.P.^ is a fraud. What Canada wants is Com- mercial Union. Gladstone is a bold bad man who is intriguing with the Irish to overthrow the British Empire. Beaconsfield was a contemptible trickster and adventm'er. He couldn't help it because he was a Jew. Jews are no good, anyhow. Irish and French Canadians are also a bad lot. Their principal aim in life is to drink whisky, raise big families, re-estabhsh the Spanish Inquisition, and sell their votes to the highest bidder. Women ought not to have votes because they can't fight. s A social revolution is impending. Theories of con- fiscation are in the air. Henry George would hke to start the guillotine and cut off the heads of all landlords and capitalists. Proliibition is an impossibihty, and if you were to stop hquor-drinking it would demorahze the people. All Prohibitionists are either fools or rascals — some of them are both. On the whole the country is in a very bad way be- cause the people wiU not be guided by the Bystander. ' A monthly magazine, the whole of which Goldwin Smith him- self wrote. = National Policy ; that is, the protective tariff that Canada adopted in 1879. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 147 Certainly I have known him to give vent to utter- ances some of them wild indeed, and — smacking of the cloister. He was once quietly penning some vaticina- tions upon some murderous strikes which had recently occurred somewhere — Cripple Creek, or Chicago, or Philadelphia, or Glace Bay. Presently he raised his head, adjusted his Kttle skull-cap, poised his pen, and remarked to me, as he gazed pensively through the window over his peaceful lawn at the gently-swaying boughs of his elms, " Why cannot people be satisfied with what they have got? " His own securities at that date represented, I suppose, a capital of about $800,000— say £160,000. Another surely of his wild but cloistral theories was that one should fight drunkenness, not by Pro- hibition or Local Option, but by " the introduction of light and wholesome, in place of heady and unwhole- some, beverages " (see The Bystander, vol. i. p. 293). To me, I confess, the idea of inducing a Canadian navvy or a Yankee farmer to sip claret or sauteme when the question " What's yours? " is put to him over a reeking bar in a suburb or a slum, is . . . well, is both wild and cloistral. But from Goldwin Smith talks with me and my impressions of them I have wandered too far afield. May 29, 1904. Some more interesting scraps of conversation with my Chief recently. He was writing a little paper on Cobden for the New York Evening Post and the name of John Bright naturally came up. Bright's defection from Glad- stone on the Home Rule question, he has always told me, was the severest blow Gladstone ever had, " I think I know exactly how and when Bright was converted. I was asked to dinner by Lord Selbome one day. Bright was the only other guest, and when Lady Selbome left the table, Selbome and Bright im- mediately set to work to thrash out the subject. I am pretty sure that Bright's mind was made up on that evening." 150 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS a terrible mistake a few years previously in trying to keep the Great Western Railway away from Oxford. It was a very silly piece of business, as everybody after- wards admitted. And just because everybody ad- mitted this the town was extremely averse from fight- ing the Great Western in this its new enterprise, which was to build its workshops or sheds or yards or some- thing at Oxford. But this would have been the ruin of Oxford — as you can imagme; it would have per- fectly transformed the old academic town. I wrote to the London papers to this effect, and, strange to say, received from a Director of the Railway, who himself was opposed to the scheme, a letter saying that if I would fight outside he would fight inside against it. Accordingly I fought. It was the biggest fight of my hfe. I believe I was protected by the police, cer- tainly my house was — with httle avail." This is about all he would tell me. Evidently he took the most prominent part in that struggle and suffered by it. I gathered this from his extreme re- ticence about it. No doubt old Oxford men remember all about it. His suggestion as to the sketches was good : namely, that the Union should have a big album in which they should be inserted. June 1904. The Chief's sense of humour — even at eighty years of age — is unfailing and dehghtful. Many a laugh I have. Something in the newspaper the other day set him chuckling, and he recalled for my diversion — and his own — some humorous analogies. The incident, I think, was this: — Some eminent singer was asked by a practical joker to sing a " Siamese " song to the tune of " God Save the King," the practical joker supplying the words. The singer assented, and what he sang was : — " O what a fool I am ! " spelled, I suppose, " O wata ful iam." CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 151 " So-and-So," he said, mentioning a composer of note, " wanted to be quite accurate in an opera intro- ducing the entrance of an oriental potentate — Japanese, or Chinese, or East-Indian, I forget which— and asked a citizen of the said potentate's nation to provide him with the proper words and music. The said citizen did so, and the air with all sorts of orchestral embellish- ments was duly inserted. But the poor composer afterwards learned that the words and air were those of one of the most ribald and obscene popular songs im- aginable! " The Chief laughed over this consumedly. " Clough fell once into the same trap," he said. " Do you know Clough 's poem, ' The Bothie of Tober- na-VuoUch ' ? Well, in the first edition this was called ' The Bothie of Toper-na-Fuosich.' Clough, too, wanted to be accurate, and he asked a Scotchman for the proper GaeUc word that should be used. The Scotchman told him ' Toper-na-Fuosich.' But Clough found out afterwards that this had in reahty the most obscene of meanings."' The Professor gave me its Latin equivalent in two well-known words. Amidst the tears of laughter which roUed down my cheeks I asked whether Clough was not a personage upon whom it would not have been difficult to play such a trick. " Oh, yes; the very person. Clough's face seemed to invite tricks. He used to go about with a vague sort of yearning expression which seemed to ask to be taken in." This led to another story — told amid more laughter. ' ' You know the Queen used to persist in going yearly, if not many times a year, to Frogmore, the mausoleum of Prince Albert and other deceased royalties, and taking all the Court with her. Well, one day, so the story goes, on the occasion of one of these pilgrimages the whole Court found pinned on the mausoleum a piece of paper with the following doggerel : — " 'Tis the voice of Prince Albert, I heard him complain, ' Here they come to this damned mausoleum again I ' '' ' I think this is told in the DicUonary oj National Biography, but my Chiel evidently knew it at first hand. 152 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS June 1904. To-day I found on the Chief's table a vokime of Masson's Life of Milton. " This," said the Professor, " if only Massey ..." " Masson." " Yes, Masson of course — well, if Masson had only left out the Life of Milton, which he has saiidwiched in, this really would be the very best history of the time. It is much better than Gardiner. Gardiner's History consists merely of researches with a running com- mentary. Gardiner has no narrative power. Gardiner does not enter into the spirit of the time. Carlyle enters too much, far too much, mto the spirit of the time, and you get a perverted image. A strmg of researches is not history. If history were a purely physical or scientific affair it might be; but history is human." June 1904. The Professor was turning over the pages of White- lock's Memorials yesterday and reading again Crom- well's " Instrument of Government." " If Gladstone, when he averred that the American Constitution was the sagest production of the human mind," he said, " had only read this, I think he would have changed his mmd. But I don't suppose he ever read it." ' " Do you think the framers of the American Con- stitution were at all influenced by it ? "I asked. " I don't suppose they were aware of its existence," was his reply. Certainly I think the Professor regards that Instru- ment of Government to be the sagest production of the human mind. He is never tired of alluding to it. He thinks it the most remarkable assimilation of the principles of " authority " and " stabihty " coupled with the system of " election " yet contrived. (See his forthcoming article on Cromwell in the Atlantic Monthly. — To come out in September.) Cromwell he extols without stint. He defends the CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 153 massacre of the garrison of Drogheda; he defends the execution of the King. The first, on the ground that a garrison that refused to surrender and that stood a storm, ipsis factis, could not expect quarter. The second, on the ground of " fell necessity," strengthened by the argument that when Charles looked to the Scotch for aid while negotiating, he forfeited aU claim to leniency. Even the mihtary rule of Cromwell he condones, asserting that mihtary rule was necessary for the carrymg out of the " settlement." Even he goes so far as to uphold Cromwell in his retention of the command of the army (the point on which Charles would not give way); arguing in the same way that this was necessary for the " settlement." June 1904. Sometimes, I must confess, the Professor can be very bitter. The poison of asps is under his tongue. He dictated to me the other day a httle article on " Church Parades " — Montreal had recently had a big one, so had Toronto, and the Chief's anti-mihtarism (as he would call it) was aroused. When he had quite done, and I was quietly blotting my paper, knowing what hostihty his remarks would arouse, I said: — " But are you aware, sir, how extremely popular these Church Parades are? All Toronto turns out to see ours. And really it is a very fine sight." "A fine sight! I dare say. But mere show, mere show, mere mock-mihtary show. What can these ' soldiers ' do ? They ran at Ridgeway, they hesitated at Batoche. I know all about it. I talked with Middleton about it. Middleton told me the eggs didn't at all like being broken. There was an extra- ordinary pause in that North-West RebeUion Expedi- tion when Melgund suddenly left the front. I believe he intended to ask for regulars." However, the Professor " killed " the article in question and wrote another more moderate in tone. 154. GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS June 1904. The Professor is somewhat disturbed in his mind as to the fate of his paper, the Weekly Sun, when he shall have gone. " I am trying to arrange that our pohoy shall be carried on intact," he said to me lately. " The people who got hold of the Week, a paper which owed its exist- ence to me, behaved badly, very badly. The s got hold of it and turned it right round. They were cads. The paper owed its hfe to me. Cads they were." June 11, 1904. " What a turmoil this Presidential Election seems to create in the States," I remarked to my Chief this morning. I saw that he was disinclined to work. " And it occurs every four years, does it not? Surely even a General Election in England does not upset matters so much." He. " A General Election in England! I should think not! Not a tithe of the turmoil." I. " There seems to be no man head-and-shoulders above all others that the nation could quietly agree to elect as its head." He. " There is not. The only single instance of a man being head-and-shoulders above everybody else, and being elected accordingly, was the case of that rascal Jackson and his rabble. Even Lincoln got in by a fluke; and the country was amazed at his election. The country thought afterwards that it could not have made a better choice; but I have my doubts, I have my doubts. Lincoln from first to last treated that Civil War as a rebeUion — though, mind you, he never treated the southern belUgerents actually as rebels. It was a war, a civil war; it was not a rebelhon. The South, by its traditions, habits, customs, mamiers, social structure — everything, was virtually another nationahty. Lincoln would not or could not see this. His one idea was ' the Union,' and his one aim was to preserve ' the Union ' intact. It was not a union, it CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 155 was a compact, a compact between separate sovereign States, States that I venture to say, at the time of the compact, would have hesitated long before they agreed to surrender their sovereignty." /. " I take it, this sovereignty of the individual States was a dehcate matter." He. "A very dehcate matter indeed. You have seen how extremely, how deUberately vague The Federalist is upon that point.' It was so dehcate that no one dared speak definitely on the subject. " There never should have been war. If the South had said, in very moderate terms and with due regard to the sensitiveness of the North, ' We have had con- tinual petty bickerings; our institutions, our general pohtical spirit, is entirely diverse from yomrs, let us go, not in a hostile spirit, but as a friendly nation, contigu- ous to and in perfect amity with yours,' I venture to think things could have been satisfactorily arranged. Details such as compensation to the North for expendi- ture on armaments or equipments could of course have been arranged. As a matter of fact, it was the North that was the breaker of the compact. Slavery had been recognized. It was in existence at the time of the compact. Jefferson himself was a slave-owner. Yet the North dehberately refused to recognize the Fugitive Slave Law. What brought on the contest was the haughty, aristocratic spirit of the South, led by Jefferson Davis, which would not brook dictation — this and the equally imcompromising spirit shown by the North. It was all a mistake, a great mistake, a great mistake " — and the old gentleman brooded over it as if it had been a personal quarrel then and there existing between members of his own family. The intensity of his feelings on matters purely pohtical and constitutional amazes me. He will get over as quickly as he can httle details of every-day hfe — his letters, his engagements, his appointments for the day, this meeting or that, So-and-So's luncheon and Somebody-Else's dinner — and then set to work on the ■ See Goldwin Smith's Preface to The Federalist in the edition published by the Colonial Press, New York. 156 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS discussion of political problems dead these hundreds of years, as if, dear me, they were in need of his immedi- ate and undistracted attention, were dependent on his decision. At this moment he is deahng with Cromwell, and he is deahng with Cromwell as if the rehabilitation of Cromwell's character and the refutation of the de- tractors of Cromwell's character were the one thing the modern world — the modern world, rent by the Russo-Japanese war, the United States Presidential election, the conflict between capital and labour (the Colorado riots are just now filhng columns in the news- papers) — as if the modern world were awaiting, open- mouthed and with its hands to its ears, for his verdict. June 22, 1904. Just come away from a curious Uttle conversation with the old Professor. Work was over, and he threw himself, rather tu-ed, into his arm-chair, picking up Truth as he did so. " I wonder when the St Louis Convention meets," he said presently. /. "I am not sure, but the Chicago Convention meets to-day." He. " Yes, that won't be a long business. Of course they will nominate Roosevelt. Yet many things may happen between this and November. A wave of in- dustrial depression might do cmious things." /. " There seems to be a most extraordinary dearth of eminent men among those seventy milhons." He. " There is; but there cannot but be in dema- gogism. The really eminent man keeps out of it all." /. " But there seems nobody to discern the emi- nent man." He. " Well, the eminent man doesn't go about shaking hands with stokers and engineers, or bribing this, that, or the other interest with public money. It takes a great upheaval to throw up the emment man. But this upheaval they will have one day; they can't go on hke this long. And what throes the coimtry has to go through to elect its head! Let me see, this is CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 157 June, and the election is in November, isn't it? Six months of terrible fuss. Yes, they will be hard at it all the time now. They can't go on hke this long." /. "Do the Conventions choose their places of meeting? " He. " Oh, dear, yes ; and they choose very shrewdly. They choose where there will be a local Hurrah for their own man. Lincoln was elected solely through the local Hurrah." /. "At Chicago? " He. " At Chicago — that was his State — and they were aghast at his election; I know that. He was a good man, undoubtedly, but it was by an accident that he got in. He was known merely as a peasant who had had remarkable success on the stump, and had had, too, a notable controversy with one Douglass." June 1904. A single remark of the Chief's this morning was a pregnant one. A correspondent, writing to the New York Sun on " The Mystery of Evil " {a propos of the General Slocum disaster), said that the sole explanation was to be found " in the Fall, in the original degradation of Man." " Humph! " said the Professor, " why did not the Potter make his clay so that it should not crack? " June 1904. He was immensely amused at a httle rehgious tract the other day to the end of which the author had ap- pended the word Maranatha! — in small capitals and with a note of exclamation. " I suppose he thinks ' Maranatha ' is a sort of 'Amen,'" he said. "It reminds me of a preacher who once unctuously punctuated every passage in a sermon with the word ' Selah,' which, of course, is merely an injunction to the singers." 158 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS " Some sort of musical technical term like ' Da Capo,' is it not? " " Yes.— 'Maranatha! ' "— he repeated the word, which seemed to amuse him immensely. June 1904. I asked him the other day if he had followed the Palma Trophy controversy. " Not very closely. It was about the rifle-barrels used, was it not? Those people across the border are devilish keen in their contests. Even their inter- collegiate sports are stiffish things. I feared trouble when they sent their first crew to Henley. Do you know the inscription over the gateway at Harvard? — Pro Christo et Ecdesia. Harvard was a reUgious in- stitution originally, I believe — Unitarian, I think. Well, the story goes that some visitors, ignorant of Latin, asked the old janitor what it meant. " ' Well, gents,' he said, ' I can't read it no more than you ; but from what I hears the young gentlemen say, I takes it to mean " Damn Yale." ' That at least is the story." Jane 1904. Somebody wrote to the Chief the other day asking him to write something on the " Possibility that beneath all of [sic] the fraud and delusion which passes under the names of witchcraft, ghosts, hauntings, spirituahsm, Christian Science and other healing by suggestion, etc., there may be strugghng into recognition the vast truths of a subjective mind in each of us which at times comes above the threshold of consciousness, and that this mind possesses the Rudiments of such faculties as telepathy, clairvoyance, clairaudience, prescience. ..." " What am I to say to this? " he asked as he handed me the letter and leant back in his chair, his hands passively folded. " Well, sir, that is an idea that is coming very much CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 159 into vogue just now. Maeterlinck and William James both ..." " Well, all I can say from my own experience is that I see nothing in it whatsoever but coincidence. Did I ever tell you about my experience? I suffered from fainting fits occasionally when young. One day at home I was out riding or walking, I forget which, when one of these spells came on. I was out in the fields, and after lying out for a short time recovered conscious- ness and got home all right. Now, what happened? Our old nurse, almost at the very time — perhaps at the very time — I was lying in the fields sent a telegram to say she had heard I was dead, and asking if it was true. Now, if I had never recovered consciousness, but had been brought home on a hurdle, everybody would have said that it was proof positive of Telepathy; the tele- gram would have been produced and so on. Whereas the secret of it all was very simple. A man of my name — a common enough name — had died suddenly at Oxford; and my old nurse, somehow hearing of it, had telegraphed to know if it was me. A mere coin- cidence. All these things are mere coincidences." And then he dictated a brief note to this effect. June 1904. An extraordinarily interesting topic was just ten- tatively touched on the day before yesterday upon which I must probe the old gentleman more deeply some day. The talk is often very scrappy between us : I am blottmg the last letter he has dictated, and he meanwhile has taken up a paper and is immersed in some article or letter; and he ejaculates " haK embody- ings of thought " (as Coleridge called them) the while I am correcting clerical errors and filhng up hiatils left vacant m the hurry of dictation— he goes horribly fast generally. Well, the talk was something like this : — He crumples up a paper. He. " They seem to think that science solves the riddle." 160 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS I. " The riddle of the Universe? " More crumpling. He. " All I contend for is this : does science explain all the phsenomena of consciousness? " /. " No; science merely says, given so-and-so, this is the way in which so-and-so develops." He. "Ah! that is all very well. But . . .but . . ." Silence, expectancy (on my part). More orumpUng. /. "I see, sir; you think the scientific gentlemen do think they can explain everything. But surely even Herbert Spencer posited an ' Unknowable ' under- Ijang all phsenomena? " He. "No doubt; no doubt; yet Spencer thought he had explained everything, had explained how the L^nknowable worked. And followers of Spencer think they have solved the riddle." /. " I suppose the extreme Materiahsts — Haeckel, for instance, do posit a primitive ' stuff ' — whether mind ' stuff ' or matter ' stuff ' I don't quite know ..." He. " ' Stuff ' won't explain for us the riddle of the Universe." And a pensive yet grim smile overspread his grim features. With what sort of eyes does he look out on the Cosmos? — I do not know. He seems to beheve in the objectivity, in the reality, of Space and Time; in the essential existence of the bodily individual; in the actual existence of an external material world; in the freedom of the Will; in the absolute nature of right and wrong; in the inexplicabihty of the problem of the origin of evil; in the extraneous operation of Cause; in the positive persistence of physical forces; in the possibihty, at all events, of a future hfe — though of what character he is careful not definitely to say. . . . Well, he is eighty years of age. A man does not trouble himseff to formulate an Ontology at eighty. His Ontology, I take it, is haff a century old. He threw over Orthodoxy in the penumbra of Science. Philosophy he scoffs at as throwing no hght whatsoever on the Riddle. And with recent Science he has not quite kept abreast. With modern Mysticism he has CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 161 nothing whatever in common — he spurns it, as his remarks on Telepathy showed. Yet his views on Christianity have lately been very interesting. Never before did I see him lay such stress on the character of Christ. In letters to theNew York Sun, and in conversation, he has put stress on the value to humanity of the " character " — he does not always add " of Christ " — he just says " the character." June 1904. A curious httle thing happened yesterday. The Professor had written, dictated, corrected, and seen proof of, a httle article on the news that Earl Grey had declined the Governor-Generalship of Canada. He pointed out how a man of originahty and energy would be wasted in the Canadian Gubernatorial Chair; how, since the Marquess of Lome had dismissed Lieutenant- Governor Letelher of Quebec, no Governor - General had done anything that could not equally weU have been done by a clerk. And he added something to this effect : — " There is nothing that the Governor-General can do, and if he does do anything it would be generally better left undone; the stimulation of dissipation and display, and the creation of a counterpart to the shoddy fashionables of New York." In the revise he began to see how stinging it was, and toned it down. Without doubt the Professor has all his hfe had one fixed idea: a rooted detestation of everything mon- archical, aristocratic, imperial and military. His letters to the Daily News (afterwards pubhshed with the title of The Empire), his Three English States- men — aU his writings, in fact, go to prove this. And in his old age his fixed idea has become more and more rooted, and has thrown out other roots, so that now there is hardly a topic he touches on but receives sap from these sources and is treated and commented upon in accordance with that fixed idea. Two men, and, so far as I can see, only two men in 11 162 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS the entire history of England, he lauds without qualifica- tion: Cromwell in the realm of politics; Scott in the realm of hterature. To these I ought perhaps to add Peel, for whom evidently the Professor had a deep affection. Over and over again I have tried to get him to say even a word or two on some of England's great men. But to no purpose. June 1904. We were talking of the Scottish nation one day. /. " They are rather a bumptious nation, are they not? " He. " They are bumptious, very bumptious. They try to force their Burns down our throats. Now Burns was certamly not in the first rank of poets. He stands high, very high, in the second rank. I admire him, I think, at his proper worth. He had the gift of song, and was a man of sensibihty; but like many another man of sensibihty — Byron, for example — his sensi- bihty did not save him from being a blackguard; and I am not going to have Burns rammed down my throat — Burns with his infamous treatment of women and his depraved habits — merely because he was a Scotch poet. I should hke to read the Scotch a lesson some day. As a matter of fact it was England made Scotland. Scot- land was divided into Highlanders and Lowlanders. The Highlanders were constantly marauding on the Lowlanders, and were regarded by the Lowlanders as thieves and robbers. Only when England stepped in and conquered the Highlanders was there unity in Scotland. Cromwell pacified Scotland, and the Act of Union did the rest. I could tell them curious things." Jam 25, 1904. The New York Sun which reached us yesterday had a leading article on the Origin of Evil — " The Great Mystery " I think it was headed. It was prompted by the numerous letters it had received on the subject CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 163 d propos of the terrible General Slocum disaster (by the burning of which vessel nearly a thousand persons — chiefly women and Uttle children — perished by fire or water). After quoting a number of discordant views, it summed up by saying that one of two alter- natives must be accepted: either to accept the dog- matic theologians' theory of the origin of evil, or admit, that mankind is under some inexorable law, which law he must endeavour to find out, otherwise he will be crushed by it. I pointed out the passage to the Pro- fessor, curious as to what he might say. He read the passage out loud and demurred at once. "What knowledge of any law," he blurted out, " would have saved the inhabitants of Saint Vincent from being crushed by Mount Pel^e ? Law, law ; law presupposes a law-giver. Mere sequences of phe- nomena are not law. Science has no right to the use of the word ' law.' A law is the work of a legislator." /. " The New York Sun hardly resolves the problem for us. Surely it is impossible to solve the riddle of the origin of evil." He. "It is impossible." Then he became very thoughtful. He put the paper down, leant back, pushed his spectacles over his eye-brows (they tumbled down two or three times), clasped his hands, stroked one thumb with the other, gazed into the empty grate, crossed his legs, and rhythmically moved one foot up and down — it was the foot that had the golosh on, I remember — he had forgotten to take one off (he always puts goloshes on when he goes out to visit the stables about 10 a.m. — he had just returned). Presently he shook himself together, and we resumed work. June 27, 1904. The above httle piece of talk may throw Ught on a letter to the New York Sun and a " Bystander " para- graph for the (Toronto) Weekly Sun which he dictated to-day. I insert the letter here: — " The heartrending catastrophe of the General 164 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS Slocum, like the devastating eruption of Mount Pel^e, has set us speculating about the ways of Providence and the constitution of the universe. Materiahsm in its extreme form bids us renounce our traditions and accept Nature as our deity and conformity to her laws as our real hope. But what law of Nature, it is naturally asked, had all those innocents broken? Were they not strictly conforming to the law of Nature in being under the care of their mothers? What law of Nature had been broken by those who perished in the eruption of Mount Pelee? Nature, if she is anji;hing more than an abstract name for an aggregate of physical forces, is bhnd. There can be no law without a law-giver and a judge. Conscience, if it is not an illusion, is a law with a judge. Mere sequences, however general, and however deeply we may be concerned in observing them, are not, properly speaking, a law, nor can they, Hke the authority of God or conscience, claim our moral veneration." June 27, 1904. I had told the footman on Saturday to take up two books to The Grange (which had been sent to the Pro- fessor but had been left at the Weekly Sun ofSce) and with them one of mine. " I don't understand about these books," were the words with which I was greeted this morning on enter- ing the hbrary. I hastened to explain, and apologized that he should have been troubled with the book belonging to me (Josiah Royce's The Spirit of Modern Philosophy'^). He. " Well, as it happens, I have been reading yours. Useless, quite useless, it seems to me. Very well written. Rather rhetorical perhaps. But what is the use of all this Metaphysics? Nothing has been gained, nothing whatsoever. System succeeds system, and we are to-day where we were when Plato wrote the Timceus." I. " Yes, I feel partly inchned to agree with you. ' Boston: Houghton, Mimin, 1899. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 165 I suppose nothing can be gained because no woC aru is possible." He. "Precisely." /. " The major premiss in every system of phil- osophy, I take it, is a proposition incapable of proof." He. " Of course. Metaphysics cannot advance, can- not prove anything, cannot arrive at any conclusion. Science advances: it corrects this error and adds this or that datum. Metaphysics is no nearer a con- clusion than when the Timceus was written." June 1904. Something led the Professor to speak of Lord Ran- dolph Churchill to-day. " I never could understand," he said, " how that man got his pohtical status. I met him once at dinner at the Jeunes. We had a long talk after dinner, and nothing would persuade me to regard that man as great. He had a knack of saying smart things — as when he called Gladstone ' the old man in a hurry.' And his effrontery was tremendous. He was the only man who was not afraid of Gladstone. Gladstone's rebukes had no effect whatever on his thick skin, and he rephed with- out the remotest diffidence. Of course Gladstone's enemies dehghted in this, and I really think that he owed his position to his effrontery But he carried his effrontery too far. He thought he could lead the House — he, with a party of but three behind him. Salisbury's weakness did put him at the head of the House for a short time; and then he began to think that he could oust Sahsbury. He was mistaken; Salisbury's party was reinstated after his (Churchill's) resignation and Goschen was made Chancellor of the Exchequer. I never could see anything great in that man." June 1904 He gave vent to some rather bitter remarks on Canadian pubho men to-day, a propos of the doings of 166 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS the secretary of an association of which he is the honorary president, of whose disinterestedness he was beginning to have suspicions. " You cannot rely upon them. They will not stand by you. There is a lot of roguery beneath the surface. The first Canadian I had to deal with robbed me and robbed my relatives, and when he died got an enormous funeral and a pubhc eulogy. I made up my mind never to have anything to do with them after my experience on the Council of Instruction. Look at that Middleton affair too. For a poUtical purpose an old soldier is accused of theft — theft; the theft of some furs, a bilhard-table, and a horse; and that man B , I am told, spent a whole day in the ParKamentary library working up legal precedents by which to con- vict him — all to curry favour with the French. It is lamentable, lamentable." June 1904. He was talking this mornmg of Daubeny, Professor of Chemistry and Botany at Oxford in his day. " A very funny Pickwickian httle man, but very amiable. Very absent-minded. I remember once during the Communion Service in Chapel — he was at the back — in one of the raised seats — in the stalls; he missed the steps when on his way solemnly to the com- munion rails, and found himself on the brink of a small precipice. This he tried to jump, but his hood caught in one of the finials. ..." Here laughter stopped further narration. " Yes, he was very absent-minded. Once in a chemistry lecture — I was told this — he was experiment- ing with some stuff which had to be constantly stirred, otherwise it would explode and blow the whole roof off. He gravely stirred and stirred, and emphasized the fact that the stirring must not be stopped — by stopping ! " More laughter. " Another time — I think it must have been soon after chloroform or ether or some anaesthetic had been discovered — he was showing its effects on — I think it CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 167 was a hen and a . . . and a . . . rat or mouse or ... . Well, Dubs — we always called him Dubs — was going on expatiating on how harmless, how painless, the pro- cess of ansesthetisation was, and how it resulted in a temporary loss of consciousness, not death, without I suppose looking at his caged and chloroformed animals, when someone in the audience said, ' Pardon me, Dr Daubeny, but the hen is tramphng the mouse to death and seems herself to be dying ! ' " June 1904. He opened The Times (Weekly Edition) when it arrived at noon to-day: " Is it possible," he blurted out as his eye caught, I suppose, some item of " Ecclesiastic Intelhgence," " that there are people still discussing the Athanasian Creed in this age? " July 12, 1904. ' ' Well, I tliink Austraha is doomed . " So e j aculated the vaticinator to me to-day. (He had just finished the dictation of a letter i on a subject upon which we disagree in toto : the useless- ness, wastefuhiess, and folly of keeping up British Empire in India.) /. " What leads you to thmk so? Japanese " (I was about to say " predominance in the Pacific? " for he has harped on this) — He. " Yes, that and the way things are going there. Their birthrate is on the decrease; immigration is at a low ebb; and their legislation is running outrageous lengths: their exclusion laws against so-called foreign labour for example. They exclude the Lascars; the Lascars are naturahzed British subjects; Lascars have been employed on British ships ever since I can remem- ber at all events; their enforced arbitration too • and their woman's vote: at the last election more than a milhon women voted. They are rushing into the wildest schemes. They wiU come to grief. Japan will put ' To the New York Evening Post. 168 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS an end to their exclusion laws. That will be the be- ginning of the end. I think Austraha is doomed." Juli/ 1904. He sent off yesterday a very significant letter on " Is Christianity Dead or Dying? " to the New York Sun. The gradual change in his attitude towards Christianity is extremely interesting. He goes so far now as to say that Christianity was the most powerful influence for good in the history of the world ; that its two cardinal doctrines are the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man; that it is quite possible that there was, through the Gahlean peasant Jesus, a moral " revelation," as, so he thinks, what we know of the great facts of Nature may be called a scientific revelation through " the action of high scientific intellects." But the whole letter is worth preserving. I insert it here. Is Cheistianity Dead or Dying? To the Editor of The Sun. Sir: When it is said that Christianity since the middle of the eighteenth century has been dead or dying, we must ask what is meant by Christianity. If what is meant is behef in the supernatural in- spiration of the Bible, in miracles, in the creeds, Christianity unquestionably is dead or dying in critical minds. The miracles, we see, were a halo which gathered round the head of the Foimder superior to other such halos in that they are miracles of mercy, not of power. But the doctrine which is the vital essence of Christianity, behef in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, seems not yet to be dead or certainly dying. During the first half of the eighteenth century spiritual hfe was at a low ebb, the main cause being the tyranny or torpor of estabhshed Churches. That was the day of Voltaire. But toward the end of the century CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 169 there was a great revival. In England there was out- side the Establishment the Methodist movement under Wesley; inside the Estabhshment there was the evan- gehcal movement, which had Christians of eminence at its head. From the reUgious zeal thus awakened, besides a moral and social reform, sprang great rehgious enterprises, missionary and philanthropic. The move- ment for the abohtion of slavery and those for the re- demption of suffering classes in England were Christian in spirit and were led by Lord Shaftesbury and other religious men. The Reformation itself was a revival, and a revival not only from torpor and seeming death but from de- pravation apparently the most fatal, from the Papacy of the Borgias and the reign of the Inquisition. Has polytheism. Buddhism or Islam ever shown its inherent vitahty by a similar revival? The preaching of the Founder of Christendom, who taught the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, imdeniably was the great awakening of spiritual life in the world. A world without spiritual hfe, or rehgion as the embodiment of that hfe, and regulated by social science solely in temporal interests, is perfectly conceivable. But the rehgion which should take the place of vital Christianity is not. Renan says of the words addressed to the woman of Samaria that they are the essence of rehgion, and that if there are intelhgent beings in other planets and they are rehgious, this and none other their rehgion must be. It seems doubtful whether even the Positivist has reaUy reasoned himself out of the pale of Christianity. He holds to the brotherhood of man. The fatherhood of God he renounces. Yet he must apparently beheve in something which takes the place of the fatherhood of God in consecrating human brotherhood, though his conception may not be anthropomorphic or identical with that of the simple Gahlean. The revelations of the physical world come to us through the action of high scientific intellects. Was it not possible that a revelation of the moral world should come to us through a character of unique excellence, 170 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS benevolence and beauty, preserved in its simplicity and purity by the pastoral isolation of Galilee? The Positivist points triumphantly to the self- devotion of the Japanese sacrificing themselves for their country though they have no rehgion. Is the diagnosis quite correct? When the Japanese rips himseH up rather than surrender, what is his motive? Is it self-sacrifice hke that of the Christian martyr or an intense manifestation of the tribal instinct which passes from the animal to the human herd? In self-sacrifice for the good of humanity such as that of the Christian martyr there would seem to be an element of another kind. We wish to be thoroughly loyal to science and to accept heartily all demonstrated truths. We know that this is our only salvation. Nor if the truth is un- welcome will we try to disguise it by caUing annihilation " eternal sleep," and the bhnd havoc of the earthquake and the volcano " nature's law." But we wish to have all the phenomena fairly considered, as well those which evolution has not yet explained as those which it un- doubtedly has. If this world is all, it must be owned that to a great many of us at all events it is a very im- perfect world. GoLDWiN Smith. Toronto, Wth July. P. 8. — An article in the North American Review on " The Immortality of the Soul " ' has, it seems, saddened some of its readers. The admissions made in it sad- dened its writer. But it would sadden him and all of us still more to rest in untruth. He has shown that he refuses to beheve that all ends here. New York Sun, Sunday, lUh July 1904. The postscript on the immortality of the soul is the most definite thing he has yet said on that subject. Not hke this did he express himself ten years ago. Nor perhaps, so subtly is that the " behef " that " all " does ' By Gokhvin Smith. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 171 not " end here " expressed in the article referred to, would the superficial reader gather that it had definitely been there enunciated. If I remember rightly, the way he " showed " his refusal to beheve that all ends here •was not nearly so definite. Here is an interesting and characteristic Httle docu- ment which I insert in this place — of its date I am un- aware. ' ' ^' ii^-^-'^ i-^ 'S t-2L.-^ il-t^ 4-<^^ ^ JiJt' CLe^ * < A^^-^ , /t. /Jt^^^C JmU] 1904. Something led him to speak the other day of John Stuart Mill's TAe Subjection of Women. " A most pernicious book, a most pernicious book. It did in- calculable harm ; is stiU doing harm. It advocated the theory that women were downtrodden and tjTannized over. It introduced discord into households. The fact is that Mill was very curiously brought up. Under the rigid education of his father, his emotions did not mature tiU late in fife. When he did fall in love it was with a Mrs Taylor. He conducted himself most extra- ordinarily with Mrs Taylor, went about everywhere with her; used to go and stay with her when her hus- band was away, and aU that sort of thing. And he per- sisted in saying that Taylor hked it. Whereas I happen to know that Taylor didn't hke it at aU. He would have been a great fool if he had. If Taylor had said ' I will trouble you to have the goodness to go,' Mill would have had to go and there would have been a different story to teU. Mrs Taylor was quite an ordi- 172 GOLD WIN SMITH. LIFE AND OPINIONS nary sort of woman, but Mill had a most exalted opinion of her — he married her after her husband's death. I believe she had the knack of imbibing Mill's ideas and then of enunciating them to him afterwards in her own words. But she was quite an ordinary sort of woman. It was our friendship for Mill and for his LiberaUsm that led John Bright and myself to sign his petition for Woman Suffrage. But we soon bolted when we saw whither he was leading, and I think the same facts in- fluenced both Bright and me in our change, namely, that we found that the best women of our acquaintance were against it." " Did you ever meet Mrs Taylor? " I asked, " No, I never met her; but of course Mill I knew very weU." July 1904. " The ' pamphlet ' seems to have gone quite out of date," he remarked one day as a Kttle letter of his appeared in a New York paper. " If I had said that in a pamphlet or in a book, not a hundred copies would have been sold; whereas, as it is, I suppose it has come under the eyes of thousands. People won't buy or read serious books nowadays, it seems. The newspaper has taken the place of the book. The newspaper con- tains all that the people want in this age. It was not so formerly. If I had to write for a living I should write for the newspaper — I fancy I could make a good income in London. It does not pay to write boolis." I think he was nearer the truth than he knew. To me the Professor's true metier seems to be that of the journaKst — not that of the historian — great as his reputation as an historian is. Enormous as is his historical perspective, acute as is his knowledge of historical events, I doubt whether in the long run his place in the niche of the Temple of Fame will be that of an historian. He is a joumaUst, one of the most wonderful that the world ever produced. He is an astonishing journahst. And, if one comes to think of it, he has stuck to journahsm all his Ufe. He first made his mark by Ms letters to the CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 173 Daily News. He was on the staff of the Saturday Review. He has written myriads of letters to the press. When he came to Canada he wrote for the Liberal, the Leader, the Globe, the Mail, the Telegram, the Canudian Monthly, the Week, the Canadian Magazine, and in- numerable others. Then he had a monthly periodical of his own, the whole of the contents of which came from his pen, The Bystander. Finding this too arduous, he took over and kept up the Weekly Sun, to the front page of which he contributed weekly two columns and a half of " Comments on Current Events by The Bystander." AU his historical knowledge he has pressed into the service of journalism. His style is that of a journalist, that of a consummate and scholarly journalist; crisp, pithy, smart, allusive, condensed, sparkhng, pungent, pointed, and always quite simple and popular. He iff a Saturday Reviewer who has outhved his day. A History of England by a Saturday Reviewer in the 'fifties might have made a sensation; in the 'nineties it missed the applause for which perhaps the writer looked. With his astonishing intellect the Professor could have done anything; and with his charm of style, his power of lucid, terse and fascinating expression, he could have made an}rthing that he wrote popular. And had he devoted himself to any one definite subject as Hallam did — as Froude did, as Macaulay did, as Gardiner did, as Masson did, as Carlyle did, as Freeman did — he would have been an authority on that subject — easily an authority. But he did not. Certainly he is an authority on the Cromwelhan period. But here again what he produced was not a great work, it was a " toy-book " (so a London bookseller once complained of his pubhcations), his Three English Statesmen, namely, consisting really of three splendid essays. They are history in the best sense of that word (though they are history written with a strong bias), and no one who studies the Cromwelhan period can afford to leave them umead, and probably they will be read for many years to come. So will his Lectures on the Study of History, dehvered when Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford. So no doubt will his Irish History and Irish 174 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS Character, which is in reahty a complete and fascinat- ing — and I take it correct — conspectus of the entire course of the comphcated relationships between England and Ireland from the earhest time down to (if we add to it his essay on Ireland in the Essays on Questions of the Day, his recent contribution to the New York Evening Post, and his articles on Gladstone in the North American Revieiv [of December 1903 and January 1904]) our own day. But perhaps these are not " toy-books." Perhaps readers will resort to them for accurate but condensed narratives and generalizations of the periods and topics with which they deal. More than one eminent modem historian has acknowledged his indebtedness to this, that or the other of the Professor's pubhcations. There certainly is not in existence such a conspectus of the Cromwellian epoch as the Three English States- men, or such a conspectus of Irish History as the Irish History and Irish Character. Nor, I take it, is there such a conspectus of the pohtical and social questions of the hour as is contained in Essays on Questions of the Day. And the Professor is sound, though the Tory will not agree with his views of the Great RebeUion, nor the Irish Nationalist with his (earlier) solution of Home Rule, nor the Sociahst with his treatment of Henry George, nor the woman-suffragist with his exposition of le mouvement feministe, nor the High Churchman with his disestabhshmentarianism, nor the Imperialist with his views on " The Empire," nor the philo-Israehte with his diatribes on Semitism, nor the Prohibitionist with his opinions on stringent hquor legislation. No, they are not altogether " toy-books." They are small and inexpensive, but they contain an enor- mous amount of common sense compressed into small space. The Professor said a significant thing to me one day, showing his appreciation of his own powers. " Haultain, he said, " I have sometimes thought that a history of the world in a single octavo volume would be one of the most saleable books I could Avrite." " Do write it," I said at once. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 175 " Ah, I am too old, too old. But I think such a book, if properly done, would take." And he could have done it — a few years ago — and with ease. His powers of acquisition are enormous. I never saw anybody, not only get at the kernel of a writer's theories so quickly, but master the contents — nay, the tone and spirit — of a big work so rapidly as can my Chief. No amount of voluminousness frightens him. He went through Freeman's four volumes on Sicily in no time. Though I must confess the Cam- bridge Modern History bothered him a bit : he did not seem to take to that, and frequently he asked me what I thought of it. Poor me! In desperation I hazarded the opinion that it was colourless ! After all, Goldwin Smith has filled his niche in the Temple of Fame. He has been a Bystander. With an intellect as powerful as acute; with leisure, means, opportunities, and advantages unlimited; with social influences unequalled (The Grange could have wielded any social influence it Uked); with a presence that always commanded attention, and an address that always pleased; with a dignity that always received its meed of respect, and a geniality that always charmed ; with a hospitality absolutely unbounded; with an interest in humane and charitable enterprises wide and generous, this Bystander nevertheless always stood aloof. There was something in him that kept you at arm's length. Often I have met him in the street (long before I joined him). He has stopped me, entered into conversation, made inquiries; and yet, despite the graciousness, always there was something. . . . not repellent, merely cold, unsympathetic, not warm. His words charmed you, his manner attracted you ; but . . . what shall I say? ... it was Uke meeting a splendid iceberg which you knew couldn't do you any harm, because it had nothing to do with you, wasn't in your way, and certainly wasn't going to run you down — you could go round it so easily. It wasn't Uke warming your hands at a fire. I am not siu:e that a benevolent volcano would not have been preferable to that iceberg — for the iceberg, despite its giganticalness, was bene- 176 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS volent; you knew it wasn't going to overturn and sub- merge you ; it was polite, very polite — and perhaps its coldness was unavoidable. To a stray little piece of flotsam and jetsam, of course, a big iceberg, sailing through the ocean of hfe, may be a very majestical, but is a very unwarming, affair. Nor to this day has this coldness quite thawed. He is a very big man, is the Professor, and he knows it. But this iceberg has an enormous amount of latent heat. The annual sum he subscribes to the charities of Toronto is large, very large. And I have actually heard his voice break with emotion as he recounted some more than extraordinarily horrible incident of poverty or accident or warfare. And yet, at a charities meeting, the iceberg-hke manner in which he will hand a cheque to the treasurer is enough to make one misconstrue him. Of course he never goes " slumming." He would not know what on earth to do in the slums — and naturally. He came to see me once when I was sick. He sat absolutely silent, and evidently highly dis- trait, in a chair about two yards from the foot of my bed, and asked banal questions about how I was and when I should be about again. Really, I had to try to put him at his ease by talking about his own affairs and about how soon I should be able to be about again to look after them. His sympathy with suffering is intense. To hear him speak of " the 16,000 wounded Dervishes 'agoniz- ing ' ' without water ' on the field of Omdurman " would move you. He is an active member of the Hu- mane Society; will not allow his horses' tails to be cut, nor permit a bearing-rein; keeps a tap running in his front lawn for thirsty birds; goes to his stables daily and regales his horses on sugar and carrots and turnips, and prides himself on the famiharity with which the cats of the household estabhshment treat him. These cats really ought to have a proper describer. How many generations of them I have seen I really do not know. They are all mouse-coloured. They sneak into the library, smell about the books, cupboards and CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 177 steam-pipes, and generally end by jumping up on either the Professor's lap or mine, purring abominably and disturbing audibly, rubbing their noses against our moving pens, walking over the newly-inked paper, stick- ing up their tails into our nostrils, and generally making nuisances of themselves. They sit on the Professor's arm-chair; they try to sit on his arms, they try to sit in his lap, they push themselves between his face and his book; and they keep up a most noisy purr. They are a nuisance — though I welcome (and I fear encourage) them; they are so ... I was going to say human; well, they like warmth, and stroking, and scratching, and petting, and companionship, and corporeal near- ness to vital folk. Often have I written with a cat surreptitiously sitting on my paper watching the point of my pen, with which, too, often enough, I have had to warn it to keep its distance. I have seen the dear old Professor take a hard-bottomed chair rather than disturb a cat which had usurped his soft, comfortable, armed one. Even the manner of Goldwin Smith's shaking hands — a thing he rarely does — is characteristic. Though " shaking " hands is a misnomer; he does not shake a hand, much less does he grasp it ; he puts out four fingers half the length of his forearm from the body and hang- ing down at about an angle of 45 degrees from the horizon, and — well, you do the rest. This coldness in his personal deahngs with individual folk, and the warmth of his sympathies with humanity in general, are at once an enigma and a clue. The stranger sees in this cold, tall, reserved, and austere ex-Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford a human embodiment, dressed in black and with grim face and expression, of pure intellect carried to the utmost, with a necessary abatement of heartfelt personal human sympathy. The friend recognizes the symptoms of a hfe of seclusion, a hfe hved apart, amongst books in a hbrary, but an intellect which has busied itself unceasingly and disinterestedly on behalf of all things humanitarian; a warm affection for mankind in the bulk, hidden behind a shy demeanour before mankind 12 178 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS in the personal unit. — I notice that the Professor's friends are those of a hke pohtical stripe with him- self — which perhaps is natural; I say "perhaps," for whether a very large-hearted philanthropy, such as that exhibited by John Howard, Ehzabeth Fry, or Florence Nightingale, would be deterred by intellectual differences, I doubt. But there is another side to Goldwin Smith's character, one upon which it would be a pleasure to dwell and to dilate. And yet .... I wonder whether a great man's secretary ought to speak so freely about his chief. Yes, on sober reflection, I think he may, provided he nothing extenuates, nor sets down aught in maUce. If I divulge no secrets, if I pubhsh nothing furtively, if I put on paper only what I know or believe to be the truth, then it seems to me that any Httle light I can throw upon a great man's character is almost a duty owing by me to that great man. How a great man influences his world; how he came to hold the views he held; what those views were as exhibited in his every-day conversa- tion — these, surely, are legitimate subjects of public interest. My conscience is clear. I was speaking of a side of Goldwin Smith's character upon which it was a pleasure to dwell. This is his relationships with his domestic entourage. The Grange was a dehghtful habitation. To enter its portal was to enter a household of quiet, culture and refinement. Pictures, statuary, old EngUsh furniture, greeted your eye on every hand. In the hall and in the drawing-room were copies of paintings beloved of The Grange's master. The four walls of the dining-room were covered with copies of portraits of Cromwellian heroes — also, and naturally very much beloved of the master — that of Cromwell himself held the place of honour over the mantelpiece. To the gentle httle lady of the house, his wife, the grim Professor was always impeccably kind, considerate and affectionate. Did she enter the library in the morning, when work was agoing, that work was stopped and a chair was drawn up before the fire. His work, my Chief kept to himself. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 179 and much ado sometimes had I to parry questions about his work. By the servants the Chief was adored. The butler — a most lovable and inteUigent old EngUshman — had been in the house for more than half a century. Chin (this was his name) was as great a man in his way as was his master in another. Had Chin's devotion, uprightness, conscientiousness, tact and intelhgence been, for this half century, expended on another — say, on a political or public — plane, he would have been as famed as is he whom he served. All visitors to The Grange retained an affectionate admiration of Chin. As for myself, it may seem an incredible assertion, nevertheless I assert it— disbeheve it who may : during the whole eighteen years that I sat at Goldwin Smith's elbow, never once did even a shade of irritation or of exasperation cross his brow. That is simple fact. On certain topics we differed as the poles. And he knew it. But, as I say, never did he show against me personally anger or irritation. When I think of how very young and ignorant I was as compared with him, I love my old Chief for this his extreme, his exemplary long-suffer- ing. Here I stay my hand. What to write, what not to write — how diificult it is to determine ! Well, so far as I know, I have tried to write the truth. No doubt some critics will say I have divulged too much ; perhaps others will say I have divulged too little. Well, a writer can put down on paper only what is in his heart. Of a surety my Warehouse was written with no thought of any critic. July 20, 1904. Rather a hot talk with the Professor over " I'affaire Dundonald " this morning. " Ah! " he said as I entered, " as I surmised, the British Government has censured and recalled Dim- donald." I did not wait or care to contradict him ; it is useless, but as a matter of fact I do not think there was any 180 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS censure; and as to the " recall," it was a request that the Earl should return to England; the Government cannot control the actions of an officer on half-pay as to where he shall hve and whither he shall go. How- ever, this as an aside. Footnote added on 21st July: " Lord Dundonald is not at all displeased with the communication which he has received from the Imperial authorities. He has not been ordered to return to England. He has not been enjoined to silence while he is in this country. He is an officer on the active list of the British army on half -pay, and the War Office has no power to dictate to him what he shall and shall not do in his capacity as a citizen of Canada or a citizen of England. This was admitted by Arnold-Forster in his official announcement in the Imperial Parhament. " What the Imperial authorities did do was to make certain representations to Lord Dundonald suggesting his early return to England and a discontinuance of pubhc speeches. The communication is friendly in tone and cannot be construed to be an order or a repri- mand. How Lord Dundonald will respect it remains to be seen." — Extract from the Toronto World of 21st July 1904. Then followed a long tirade :— the dual system in Canadian military matters, with a British officer in military command and a Canadian Minister at the political head, was unworkable ; the one was an emissary of the British Government. . . . /. " I cannot agree with you," I blurted out. " Lord Dundonald while here was the General Officer Commanding the Canadian MiUtia. He had nothing to do with the British Government, and his duties, the functions he had to perform, and his interests were en- tirely in connection mth Canadian mihtary affairs." He. " Oh well, oh well; it is a mere matter of words; emissary or not, as you will, these British officers com- CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 181 manding cannot cut themselves loose from their prochvities and tendencies." /. " But an ' emissary ' he was not." He. " Oh well. At all events the system is unwork- able. The military head wants his say in regard to patronage, and of course the pohtical head wants his." /. " Again I cannot agree, sir. Surely of all things the mihtary system should be free from this patronage business." He. " You cannot free it. It is hopeless. At all events the British Government has acted as I thought it would." /. "The British Government probably does not know what sort of men Dundonald has had to deal with." He. " That is very hkely." /. " The incident seems to have divided the whole country into two hostile camps." He. " Well, with parties such as they are here, a bone thro'wn between them would divide the country into two hostile camps." It was an amicable ending, deftly brought about. Yet presently he went on — when my heat had cooled down: — "One thing Dundonald has done: he has made evident and brought to the front once again this extra- ordinary Scotch would-be domination so rife in Canada." (He referred, I suppose, among other things, to the Scottish ovation to Dundonald at Glengarry on Dominion Day and the iuvitation extended to him by the Caledonian Society of Montreal.) July 1904. " Swinburne," I remarked later in the day, d propos of an article on " Poetry and History," which my Chief was writing for the October number of the American Historical Quarterly, " is bringing out a complete edition of his works in six volumes." He. "Ah! Swinburne. Swinburne is a ranting, raving creature. Not without the gift of melodious 182 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS phrase, though. He belongs to the revolutionary school. So did Elizabeth Barrett Browning. I never could see much in that woman; never could see much. Swinburne, you know, at one time wrote things that were not quite decent." /. " What was it precisely that they were in revolt against? " He. " Well, it is hard to say. They took a tremen- dous interest in Italy's struggles, for one thing." /. " Swinburne and Mazzini were great friends, were they not? " He. " I never heard Mazzini mention Swinburne. Swinburne was a ranting, raving creature. Very different from Mazzini. I knew Mazzini. Mazzini was a philosophical man of action. Very different from Swinburne . . . very ..." and he mumbled things I could not catch. His estimates of great men generally — at all events of the men whom I was always brought up to regard as great — always seemed to me a httle lacking. But perhaps this was because he had actually known the men, whereas to me they were the idols of my boy- hood. I remember asking him about Darwin once — it was when I suddenly heard that he had actually gone and spent a day at that great man's house. " Darwin, Darwin," he said, leaning back with that quiet, pensive movement so common to him; " I don't remember much about my visit. I think Darwin was just then inter- ested in some experiments with worms. ..." /. " Oh, yes; he wrote .... He. " — with worms. I think he took me out to see a field or something." I could not get anything more out of him. And so with his appreciations of many men of his time. Longfellow's poetry he always described as "barley water," " and," he used to add, " if you can point me to any poem anj^where which is worse than Longfellow's ' The Divine Tragedy,' I should hke to have a look at it." " Shelley, Shelley," he once said to me, when I had rashly mentioned the name with enthusiasm, " if CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 183 Shelley were aKve now, he would be put in a mad- house." He rarely alluded to Dickens, rarely to Thackeray; although the Christmas stories of the former always evoked his warmest praise. Of Carlyle he used to say that much of his prose consisted of weird, hysterical, almost irrational objurgations against all that was; and that his conversation was, if possible, even worse than his prose. He never forgave Tennyson his allusions to the Crimean War in " Maud " — as may be seen from his review of this poem in the first number of the Saturday Review. He had read Tennyson, I fancy ; though I do not think he has read much of Browning. At a little dinner of the Round Table Club, I remember once, a Browning enthusiast (the Professor's guest, so that they sat together) waited long for an opportunity to sound his host on the subject of his pet poet. At last it came. After many hums! and haws! I beUeve the great man had to admit that he did not read Browning. (By this time the whole Club was hstening intently and quietly.) After another pass or two, deftly parried, the guest diffidently hazarded the query as to what poets his eminent host did peruse. " Oh, just the ordinary poets." "The . . . the . . . ordinary poets? And they are . . . .? " " Oh, just Homer and Virgil and . . ." At that moment he must have looked up. At all events the very visible (though not quite audible) merriment of the Club brought that little dialogue to a close. January 5, 1905. Numerous and interesting little talks with the Pro- fessor I have been prevented from recording. I try to recall a few now. A municipal bye-law exempting aU houses valued at less than |700 from taxation was recently put to the vote of the people here — not merely the ratepayers {i.e., property-owners) — and passed by a large majority. 184 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS It has to be ratified by the Legislature before it becomes operative. This has, naturally, roused the anger of the Pro- fessor. He. " I hear that its promoters lay great stress on the large majority by which it was passed." /. " But surely it was a money bye-law, and therefore only ratepayers should have been allowed to vote. A money bye-law, I take it, is not hmited to expenditure of money only." He. " Of course not; it refers to the disposition of money. Of course it was illegal." /. " Then the argument from the numbers who voted for it is invahd." He. " Certainly; but I am afraid the invahdity of an argument is no security agamst its weight with the demagogues. Nevertheless, the Single Tax people are dehghted. They are nothing but Socialists, and Sociahsts of a very dangerous kind. They possess a rooted antipathy to a class, the land-owiiing class; whereas the Socialists pure and simple merely try to regenerate the whole world." /. "I confess I cannot imderstand antipathy to owners of land ; I thought it was generally accepted that to own a piece of land gave one a sort of stake in the country; that a large proprietary was rather a boon than a bane to society." He. "Undoubtedly. But these people seem to have a grudge against city owners who leave their land un- occupied. Often enough it is a capital thing for a city to have unoccuiDied spaces." /. " I suppose Henry George has to answer for much of this sentiment. Do not you think he wrought much mischief? " He. " His book was one of the most malign ever written." January 1905. " Another book on the American Constitution! " he ejaculated the other day on reading a review somewhere. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 185 " What the writers always forget is that the American Constitution was not the outcome of sober political fore- thought, and therefore a model, but was the birth of unique and most dehcate circumstances. A number of weak httle States intensely jealous of each other had to combine against a common foe. They combined, but the framers of their Constitution shirked the question of sovereignty. Accordingly the Constitution is a com- promise, not a pattern. Yet Canada and Austraha go and copy it! " I. " There is no distinct fixmg of sovereignty at all in the American Constitution, is there? " He. " They say it resides ' in the people '; though ' the people ' means the people of the several States, and how you are to locate that sort of sovereignty I fail to see." January 1905. Something brought up the name of Gladstone the other day — probably the Professor's My Memory of Gladstone. The old gentleman was stalking round the bilhard-table, his hands clasped behind him, with a shght stoop, thinking. " Fancy that man," he suddenly began, stopping short and facing me, " fancy that man writing that stuff, that nonsense — the Homeric legends, you know, and beheving in the longevity of the patriarchs! " " Yet he had a most acute mind, surely! " " Acute and powerful. A powerful mind. Strange, most strange. It was like a huge and intricate machine burying itself in the ground." " He broke loose at the last," he went on. " When that quartet — the Duke of Newcastle, Sidney Herbert, Graham, and Cardwell — were gone there was nobody to restrain him. He probably did not know that they did restrain him. No doubt they did it with tact — they were wise men. But when they were gone the brakes were off. Selbome lost his influence. I think Gladstone never forgave Selborne's decision about his acceptance of office under the Crown — the incident, you remember, that led to the sudden dissolution of 1886? " 186 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS January 1905. The Professor forbade my telephoning to a member of the editorial staff of the Toronto Evening News to- day for a piece of information which I knew I could get in that quarter. His newly-born hostility to the News has an interesting history. When the Ontario Farmers' Association met here last autumn (September 1904, I think), he made — or rather read — a speech before it in which he advocated concerted pohtical action by the farmers on behalf of their own interests. The next afternoon, or the day after that, the News commented editorially on his utterance, animadverting on his support of sectional influences and gently hinting that his own influence was weak and had often been on the losing side. It was a temperate article, considerate in tone and just in its estimate — so at least many thought. Besides, such was the veneration and estimation in which the Sage of The Grange was known and held by one and all of the staff of the News, that the article could not have been malicious. And yet " mahcious " was the very term by which the old gentleman characterized it; asserting that the paper had defamed his character and held his whole career up to pubhc obloquy. In vain I tried to disabuse his mind of any such intent being possible. Unfortunately, shortly afterwards, the same paper republished from the British Weekly, though with con- ciliatory and even with deprecatory remarks, a rather severe criticism of the Professor's Gladstone, with a side- glance on his hterary productions generally. This repubUcation he put down to the mahgnant influence of the owner of the Netvs — whom he supposed to be opposed to his free-trade views ; the review he held was prompted by " injured orthodoxy," and its pubhcation in the Toronto newspaper to the antagonism of the, presumably, protectionist, monopohst and capitahst owner of that newspaper. Nothing would pacify him; nothing would remove his firm belief that it was a deUberate attempt to defame his character and beUttle his career. "'Not written any real books!'" he would say to me, " surely The United States and The CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 187 United Kingdom are books! Besides, it is not the function of a teacher to write books. ' Always on the losing side ! ' Did Bright and Cobden, men of my own school, achieve nothing? " And forthwith be began to gird, by means of the deftest rapier thrusts — thrusts so adroitly dehvered that only the keenest observer could descry them — to gird, in his own paper, the Weekly Sun, at all " monopolist journals " in general; forgetting that he was laying himself open to a direct and im- mediate tu quoque from the News, which knew well enough that the Sun existed only because he supported it — a tu quoque which, to the honour and generosity of the News, be it said, was never employed; a generosity the more laudable inasmuch as, in subsequent remarks, the Professor himself assured the assembled farmers that he had made provision for the carrying on of their organ — namely, the Weekly (formerly the Farmers') Sun — after his death on the same pohtical lines as those upon which it worked to-day, an assurance that was greeted with loud cheers. His sensitiveness to criticism is extreme. The innocent News subsequently sent up reporter after reporter to The Sage, begging for his opinion on this, that, or the other current event — thus evidently holding out an olive branch to one from whom indeed an oMve branch might have been expected. But all in vain. It was certainly the paper and not the Professor which, on this occasion, behaved with simple dignity. The dear old Professor is a Don, was a Don, and re- mains a Don. He began hfe in an Enghsh village; went to a private school ; thence to Eton ; from Eton he went to Oxford, where he was held in high repute; then came very high-class joumaUsm in London — joumaUsm that did not mean rubbing shoulders with youthful reporters, but a joumahsm that meant the quietest reading and the most scholarly writing. True, he travelled on circuit, but hedged about with all the divinity that belongs to an erudite Marshal attached to a dignified Judge. With " the world," the fighting, struggling, competing world, made up of strenuous and zealous youth, middle-aged knaves, and older sharpers. 190 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS is not to be gainsaid. But what ■vvould you have? A bloody and weltering anarchy. And the outcome of that would be — What? Well, people forget the army, the gigantic army — a milHon of men probably. The army would be dislocated from the State and would follow a leader of its own — and that leader might, for aught we know, be a truculent Cossack." Januarij 9, 1905. Dr Lyman Abbott has recently been preaching the doctrine of " a great and ever-present force " as a substi- tute for an " absentee God." The Professor at once wrote to the New York Sun about it. A sentence which he subsequently excised from his letter is interesting. I append on the next page a facsimile of the rough draft of one of the pages. The pencilled sentence is this : " Through these [hypotheses], it is to be feared, we shall never arrive at practical truth, rescue the world from its present perplexities, or find a basis for rehgion." January 11, 1905. My Chief grows more loquacious as he grows older — now he is in his eighty-second year ! — and if his conversa- tion is less pungent, it is freer. He is often content to lean back and talk instead of writing — though the pen is still his ruhng passion. Still, often enough he lays the pen down and talks freely. " I see somebody has written a Life of Chamherlain in four big volumes, at seven and six per volume," I said. " Ha! I suspect he is just a little too late for his market." Pause. The pen was put down, and its holder leant back in his revolving, tilting desk-chair. Folding his thin fingers and gazing out of the window into'^the snow-clad lawn°(which^he didn't see, I suspect), he began : — " Chamberlain was the first EngUsh- American politician. He introduced the caucus. Look what he CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 191 did in Birmingham. He drove all the Conservatives out of office — Ostrogorski will tell you that. That is to say, a large mass of reputable citizens were driven out of office. And what he did in Birmingham he tried to do all over England. His scheme was to domi- '^;y^^^»%;;^'^r^>j=^-'^^^^75::Q^ ^^ "^ ■*<^ nate the country by means of the caucus ; and all the several caucuses were to be under the sovereign rule of Mr Chamberlain. Democracy is well and good; but a Democracy consisting of municipal caucuses all owing allegiance to a Mr Chamberlain as their head — that was not what the Liberal party in England quite 192 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS bargained for. Chamberlain's early Radicalism was extreme. He said in so many words that property would be compelled to pay a ransom for its ownership ; that if the Enghsh squirearchy could not eat bread they should eat grass. The Enghsh squirearchy never forgot that. From this he has turned over to Toryism, to Imperiahsm. He slid out of RadicaUsm." " I think, sir, that the Life shows a rational and harmonious evolution and development in Chamber- lain's views." " I daresay it does; but as a matter of fact it was as complete a somersault as if a man played now on Noir, and now on Rouge, at Monte Carlo — " and he smiled a grim smile. " The absurdity of the thing is extreme; from ultra-Socialistic democracy to high Toryism and Imperiahsm! " And he took up his pen and subsided. Later on: "By the way," said the Chief, "there came a letter from Knollys the other day conveying a kind message from the King. His (the King's) good nature is unquestionable. I have always said this. It has got him out of endless trouble. Nine or ten times over it has got him out of trouble." January 12, 190.5. " The [January] Contemporary [Review] has arrived, said the Professor to me this morning. " There is a man in it trying to prove that God is married! " This was his Avay of referring to an article on " The Dual Nature of the Deity " by Mr George Barlow. " Mrs Barlow must be an amiable woman," he went on. " But perhaps there isn't a Mrs Barlow. In that case I suppose Mr Barlow is drawing upon his ideal of love, or family affection, or whatever he has in his mind. Well, when he can prove his hypothesis I will accept it." January 13, 1905. Never during the fifteen or sixteen years that I have known the old Professor have I seen him really angry but once, and that was this morning. He was on his pet CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 193 subject of the Boer War once again, and once again, for about the six himdredth time, reiterating his argu- ments against it, harping of course especially on the subject of the Suzerainty — " a word marked for deletion in the Convention of 1884 by the Colonial Secretary with his own hand," and so on and so on. /. " On his own authority was it not? " I ventured. The storm burst at once. He. " What better authority would you have? " I. " That of the Cabinet." He. "Pooh! The document was printed, duly signed, and allowed to go. Besides, hsten," and he proceeded to quote from his In the Court of History, how the " Jameson Raiders " were tried under the Foreign Enhstment Act; what the Lord Chief -Justice said, what Lord Sahsbury said, what Mr BaKour said. /. " But surely it is stUl a moot question." He. "A moot question! Look at the Annual Register." I. " That is hardly authoritative." He. " Oh, certain arguments were trumped up." /. "I am afraid, sir, you will not convert us who are supporters of that war. After all, this was an academic point." He. "Academic? The question of Suzerainty ' academic ' ? Ugh ! Nothing has disgraced the country so much since the burning of Joan of Arc," and he struck his desk with his fist; nor did he calm down for some time as a dark frown on his heavy brow and his lowered eyebrows showed. January 22, 1905. I jot down, before I forget them, a few notes of talks I had with the Professor during the last two or three days. The late Lady Dilke's name came up. " Yes, I knew her very intimately. I was usually her partner at croquet." " That was when you were Regius Professor? " " Yes. She was a hvely and a very ambitious young woman — the daughter of a Captain Strong of IfHey. 13 194 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS Of course she married Pattison purely from literary ambition. As to love or sentiment, he was as incapable of these as . . . as . . . this desk. The pair were hit off to the hfe in Middlemarch." " Did you ever hear either of them mention that book? " " No, never. A most ill-assorted pair. There was no mistaking her liking for young men — though she never flirted, never; nor was there ever a whisper of the slightest sort about her conduct. After Pattison's death she married Dilke, as of course you know. I rather think there was an element of ambition there too. She made one mistake in that affair. You remember the alleged scandals about Dilke, the trial and all that, well, she was in India when the thing began. At first it was not very bad, and she cabled or wrote to Dilke to announce their engagement. Afterwards, however, more things came out. It ruined Dilke socially and politically — at least it would have ruined him pohtically but for a curious incident. He stood for the Forest of Dean, so the constituency was called then ; it may have been changed since then, and the Forest of Dean would in all probabihty have rejected him if . . . what was that person's name? . . . Lady . . . Lady Henry Somerset and W. T. Stead had not gone down to give their moral backing to the righteous indignation of the constituency. The consec[uence was that Dilke was elected! " January 1905. " When the [Toronto Evening] Neivs venomously abuses me for not having written any books, it ought to remember that I served on three Commissions : that to inquire into the state of Oxford, the Commission of resettlement, and the Education Commission. They took up a great deal of time and necessitated a great deal of labour. They were a serious impediment to study. And I had the bulk of the work to do. Of one I was the Secretary — I got £600 for that ; of another I virtually did the work of the Secretary ; of the third I CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 195 was the junior member — and one complete part of the report of this third Commission was thrown entirely upon my shoulders. ..." " The report on the Charities Foundations? " " Yes." " Were the members of the Commissions paid? " " Oh, dear, no. I don't remember getting anything for my expenses even. The witnesses, of course, were paid; so were the Secretaries." January 1905. /. " I see that Father Crowley ' was excommuni- cated." He. " But he stiU calls himself a Catholic Priest." /. "Yes; he declares the excommunication in vahd." He. "I rather think the Cathohc priesthood is losing its power. The whole institution is doomed, doomed." I. "It is an imconscionably long time a-dying." He. "It may be; but it is doomed. How much longer can it in these scientific and enhghtened days carry the burden of miracles and relics — the blood of St Januarius, the Holy Coat of Treves, the House of Loretto which came in three boimds from the Holy Land to Italy, Pilate's staircase (when Pilate had no stair- case), the Holy Fountains which sprang wherever St Peter's head bounced after it was cut off ? Its organiza- tion and ritual may attract a few aesthetic souls and a few weak minds may find in it a refuge from doubt ; but it is doomed." /. "I confess I find its ritual attractive. It is historical, traditional, symbohcal ; and this the ritual of the Church of England is not." He. " No doubt." /. " Was it this that attracted Newman, think you, sir? " He. "Ah! no; not exactly. In the early ... let me see, they were called Tracts, I think. ..." 1 Of Chicago. The excommunication was in 1903 or 1904, I think. 196 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS /. " ' Tracts for the Times.' " He. "In the ear her ' Tracts for the Times ' you will find that what Newman sought was some extra- pohtical authority for a Church. He found it in Apostohc Succession." January 25, 1905. This is the day of the Ontario Provincial elections. " Well, the great problem will be settled in a few hours now," said the Professor as I entered his library this morning. " We have had the last 'roorback' — I was on the look-out for them ; I knew they would come — but apparently it was a failiure. What a game it is ! I don't suppose there are ten men in Canada who will vote for principle. If that man II comes in again with a small majority, there is no saying to what lengths he will go. Demagogic government goes from bad to worse. Of that I am convinced." /. " And there will be no remedy, for the party rules by a caucus." He. " Yes, and the caucus is as despotic as the most autocratic of rulers. Well, mankind, on this continent at all events, have ehminated the chances that always hang over a hereditary ruler, but for those chances they have substituted the chances that hang over an elective one." /. " But will not the struggle endure so long as man- kind remain . . . remain mankind; so long as greed and avarice and . . .? " He. " Oh, I don't know. Why shouldn't we settle down to something permanent? Government will have to be stable. ..." At this interesting point he relapsed into silence. January 1905. Again to-day he spoke of Russia. " These people," he said, referrmg probably to several articles in the papers unquahfiedly supporting the revolutionary party, " these people forget that the mass of Russia's population know nothing of the work- ing of popular institutions, and are utterly destitute CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 197 of political intelligence. I really don't see why these political convulsions need be so violent. Unfortunately the Tsar is advised by insolent Grand Dukes and irre- sponsible women. Women ought to be caged during a pohtical convulsion. Marie Antoinette ought to have been caged. There was no need for all those terrible scenes in the French Revolution. The financial prob- lem was not insoluble. If the power of the nobihty had been curtailed, the hst of pensioners severely cut down, a certain amoimt of pohtical power conferred upon a representative assembly. . . . But, as Talley- rand said, vanity, vanity was the ruhng spirit. " Everything depends upon the army in Russia. So it did in France. The turn of affairs came with the disaffection of the Garde Fran9aise. If the Russian army gathers about some mihtary chief . . . and who or what sort of man he may be . . . who knows what may happen? All Europe may be embroiled. Germany, with her Posen so near the Pohsh frontier, will not stand a weltering anarchy on her borders. The army chief might enter upon a wholesale Sclavonic movement. Who knows what is in store for Europe? " January 27, 1905. " There is a good article on Louise Michel in the Spectator which has just arrived, sir." "Humph! I can't abide these female anarchists. They incite to suffering, knowing they are themselves immune." " But the article throws a new Ught on her character." "Humph!" February 3, 1905. We received the other day from Walter Dunne, a publisher of New York, the prospectus — a most gorgeous affair — of a projected complete edition of Lord Beacons- field's works, to be launched by an Introduction by Edmund Gosse, and with a key to all the characters in the novels which had undergone supervision, if it had not exactly received the imprimatur of Lord Rowton. 198 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS In the list of novels, of course, the Professor's name appeared as being that of one of the characters in Lothair. The Chief has been much concerned about this, and has asked once or twice what it were best for him to do. I recommended absolute silence. " No, that won't do. It would do when and where my character and career are known. But people get hold of these Ues and repeat them and make use of them. ..." " That man's (Beaconsfield's) mendacity was un- limited. There will be no difficulty whatever in proving the lie. The only question is, where and when shall I doit? " " What do you say to a letter to the Athenceum and to the New York Nation, to appear synchronously? " " Would they have room for a long letter? " " You would not want more than, say, two columns and a half? " " Two columns, perhaps. And I might take the opportunity of naihng that lie that Peel wanted to fight him. He did no such thing. I will think about it." " I had no idea," I said, " that Disraeh had inserted so many living and real personages into his novels as this prospectus seems to show." He. " I doubt if he mserted any others. His powers of imagination were extremely limited. It is outrage- ous that one should be exposed to the whims of any libeller who lilies to publish a novel." /. " Would you hke to leave a sealed explanation among your papers? " He. " No, that wouldn't do either." Then he turned round in his movable desk chair (it is on a pivot), and facing me, spoke as if he intended to utilize me in place of a sealed explanation. " He (Disraeli) accused me of . . . what was it? . . . vanity and ambition, I think, or something like that, and of bemg a social sycophant or parasite or something. He was supposed to have an extraordinary penetration into character. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 199 " The facts of my life were simple in the extreme. I was made Professor of History at Oxford, a post I liked, and I looked forward to settling down at Oxford — I built a house there. But not long afterwards, as I think I once told you, my father was injured in a rail- way accident. The external injuries healed, but always afterwards he suffered from recurring temporary fits of insanity. He was very violent at times, and could not be left. He would not hear of being sent to an asylum, wouldn't hear of it. I was the only person who had any moral influence over him, and I determined to resign my Professorship and attend to him. So I did, and I was at home with him for about a year and a half. Everybody knew at all events something of this. Cer- tainly Disraeh must have heard of the accident. Well, after being at home for about eighteen months — my father was of course being regularly attended by the doctors in the place — I was told that he was so much improved that I might leave him for a time. I did so. I had to go North on some business, but was almost im- mediately recalled by a telegram summoning me back at once. When I arrived I found he had poisoned iiim- self with prussic acid. He was a doctor, you know, at least he had practised in former days, and of course there were all sorts of drugs accessible to him, and you couldn't prevent his having access to them. " Well, then I looked about me for something to do. I was independent, my Professorship was gone, I couldn't lead an idle life — besides, I wanted a change after this trying time. So I thought of returning to America. I had made many friends there in my previous visit during the war. As it happened, just then I came across Andrew White, who Avas looking for someone for the Chair of History for his new University at Cornell. I accepted at once. I spent two quiet, pleasant years at Cornell, then I came to Canada, where some members of my own family were. There was no ' vanity ' or ' ambition ' about the matter. " The worst of it was, Disraeli pubhshed his libel while I was away, when I was in a foreign countrj'. Had I been in England he would not have dared, he would 200 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS not have dared. If he had, I should have treated the hbel as it should have been treated — with silence, leaving my character in the hands of my friends. But being away, among those who did not know me, an answer was required." He turned his chair and took up his pen. This conversation he had with me to-day, and I have been at pains to record it as nearly verbatim as possible. He was very earnest, very impressive, and, as the diction shows, made no attempt at epigrammatic phrases. It is quite probable that he wiU put what he has told me on paper if not in print. But I feel that he spoke in order that I might remember — in fact this is the second time he has narrated these incidents of his hfe to me. February 6, 1905. " I see the Times is going to print an incomplete novel by Dizzy," said the Professor to me to-day. " A very unwise thing, I should think, for apparently it is to contain a caricature of Gladstone. Upon my word, I don't think there is a single character in that man's novels which was not taken from life; he helped him- self right and left, from his own party and from his opponents. And of course he introduced himself." "Ah, I did not know that; can you mention where? " " Well, he regarded himself as the incarnation of the Jewish ideal. You will find this more than once; in Sidonia, for example." " I see your suggestion that The Revolutionary Efick should be repubhshed has been, by somebody, unwittingly acted on; I saw an announcement of it the other day." " Ah, The Revolutionary Epich, yes. Did I ever tell you about that? Dizzy once was inveighing agamst the revolutionary tendencies and influence of . . . Mazzini, I think, though it may have been Garibaldi, I can't be quite certain now, but Mazzini I think — CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 201 Mazzini, who averred, and I am positive averred truly, that he never in his Ufa went the length of countenancing assassination. . . . WeU, Bright took him up and proceeded to read a passage from The Revolutionary Epick, a passage far more revolutionary than anything in Mazzini or Garibaldi. Dizzy then flatly denied that there was any such passage in the book " — And the Professor emphasized the sentence by smiting his left palm with his right forefinger. " But there happened to be just one copy — the book itseK was worthless and was dead and buried — there happened to be just one copy (which someone found) in the British Museum, and there the passage was " — Again the forefinger. "Meanwhile, what had Dizzy done? He had a second edition pubhshed, and in it the quoted passage was omitted. He forged, he forged a copy for the purpose of backing up his denial." And again he smote his left palm. February 1905. A copy of a newspaper containing an account of Dr Lyman Abbott's address, in which he said he substituted an " ever-present Energy " for a " Personal God," lay on the Professor's desk the other day. Glancing at it he gave vent to a semi-articulate expression of dis- senting amazement. "Energy! Ever-present Energy! He might as well define God as Taste or Touch or Smell." " Surely he is substituting a metaphysical figment for a theological one," I ventured; " what do we know of Force or Energy? " February 1905. " Can you think of a neutral topic for me to write on for this week's Sun ? " asked my Chief of me this morning. " WeU, we discussed on Saturday evening at the Round Table the subject of compulsory voting. What say you to that? " 202 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS ' Humph ! And what was said ? ' ' " The principal spokesman strenuously urged its adoption as a remedy against corruption in elections, holding that if the better class of electors were compelled to vote, elections would gradually be purified. That at all events was one of the arguments." He. " You will never hunt corruption to its lair. Corruption is protean. I don't see how you are to put a stop to it. How can you prevent a man from giving Christmas presents to his constituents— as was done constantly by a member for Oxford ? No questions were asked, and nobody was asked for his vote. But the presents came regularly as long as he was M.P. for Oxford. How are you to prevent a man from subscrib- ing to charities? Suppose I gave a £1000 gold cup for a horse-race in my constituency. I really don't see how you are to put an end to corrupting constituencies." /. " I argued at our meeting that a reserve body of quietist voters who rarely went to the polls but did go on great questions was a very good thing in a com- munity." He. " So it is, so it is. There is a large body of quietists of that kind in England — we always counted on them; chiefly of the Evangehcal type they were, unworldly people who had as little to do with ' the world ' as they conveniently could. But there was always one way of callmg them out — by frightening them. I remember when Dizzy contested Southwark — a verj Radical constituency naturally, I was pretty certain he would be defeated — and so he was, and for this reason: Derby had lately left the Ministry and had declared that the course which the Government was pursuing, was, in his opinion, one fraught with danger to the countrj^ That brought the quietists out. Dizzy polled a large vote, a very large vote, but he was defeated, and the quietists did it. " But as a rule the Evangelicals fight shy of the polluig booth. So do your Prohibitionists — which of course are of the same class. The Prohibitionists make a great clamour, but your licensed victualler votes, votes to a man, and all his clique vote, vote to a man; the CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 203 tavern-keeper, the saloon-keeper, the ostler, the man who has a ' score ' in the tap-room. And it is very easy to have a large clique. Only let it be known that a man may run up a ' score ' and there you are. Oh, yes, we always knew all about the liquor vote. But not everybody knows." February 8, 1905. Lyman Abbott's theistic hypothesis still continues to interest the Professor — evidently he has been reading some newspaper comments on it — one in the New York Public Opinion, I think — for he began yesterday : — " These people are still going on discussing the ' person aUty ' of God. How futile to go on making un verifiable hj^potheses. A ' personal God ' . . . ' personal ' . . . whether or not God is ' personal ' — they might as well discuss whether or not he is pink." /. " Surely they themselves do not quite know what they mean by ' personal.' Probably their idea of personality, if analysed, would amount to corporeahty." He. " No doubt. There must always be something purely anthropomorphic about any human idea of personahty. Futile, perfectly futile. And here is somebody trying to reduce God to a ' force.' A force, I take it, is something with opposition and hmitation; a force is something which is opposed to something, which overcomes some obstacle. You can't have a force in vacuo." I. " Yes, I see. We have no conception of force per se. And you think this notion puts Umitations on the Deity?" He. "Ex hypothesi the Deity is omnipotent and unopposed, yet if he is a force he must be contending with something — must always have been contending with something, must go on for ever contending with something — for ever, mind you, for if he overcame all opposition, the constitution of the universe would be altered — and, besides, he would no longer be ' force.' His success would obhterate him. How long will they go on making unverifiable hypotheses? It is futile." 204 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS March 29, 1905. We were talking again the other day of Lyman Abbott. " He is the occupant of a pulpit with an entail of a certain sort of sensationalism, is he not? " I asked. " Yes, he succeeded Henry Ward Beecher, but he is not as astute as his predecessor. Henry Ward Beecher always spoke as if he had a rehgious philosophy in the background, though what it was he was careful never to divulge; and I take it it would not have amounted to very much had he divulged it; but still he always managed to convey the impression that he had such a thing. His successor has been going about divulging one philosophy of religion after another, his favourite one seemingly bemg that divine morahty is an evolutionary product. Fancy the Deity accommodat- ing his ideas of justice in conformation with the crude notions of a barbarous tribe! He is still going on divulging. He has now divulged to us that God is a personal Force. For myself, I confess I am unable to attach the idea of personality to a force." March 1905. The Professor propounded a rather ingenuous solution of the problem of government in Russia the other day a propos of the assassination by a oomb of the Grand Duke Sergius. " If I were the Tsar," he said, " I should order all the Grand Dukes and their famihes out of Russia — for safety's sake; and then / should rule without them! " April 3, 1905. It seems that after all the Professor intends to publish his own vindication in reply to Disraeh's so-called " hbel." Though, to speak my inmost thought, I am not so very sure that that vindication will not itself carry some subtle signs verificatory of his alleged libeller's perhaps too highly-coloured and certainly too sarcastic animadversions, and may just possibly strike the reader as the offspring CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 205 of a subtle rancour rather than of a mind supremely and dignifiedly conscious of right. Beaconsfield's admirers will explain away all his explanations — some of them not without irony; Beaconsfield's detractors will neither ask for, nor too nearly inquire into, any explanation whatever. Why not let the thing alone? Disraeh's novels will probably be published and repub- Hshed times without number; what chance has even a brilliant confutation against even a brilliant fiction'? The Pubhc will simply delight ia a gladiatorial combat between two great men; and the more both sides lose their tempers, the greater the mirth. Surely the way to allay that mirth is to resort to a dignified silence, to refuse to enter the arena. I wish the Professor would let it alone. But it is useless to argue with him. To be called a " social parasite " at the height of one's social fame ; to attribute to a " restless vanity " one's desertion of the old, for the new, world, is, I suppose, rather gaUing to a great man when such things are said by another and perhaps greater man. He complains that Disraeli called him an anti- imperiahst. Well, for twenty years he has urged the disarticulation of the Empire. He thinks colonies are a source of weakness. He even deplores om^ possession of India, though I do not think he has ever definitely put this latter point in print. He complains that Disraeli called him " a wild man " — " a wild man of the cloister," I beheve the phrase was. To some perhaps this may not appear a wholly inapt phrase by which to characterize an erudite but sedentary man of letters who spends his hfe in com- posing beautifuUy-worded arguments against entail in a nation built up by its landed aristocracy and their tenants, and equally briUiant diatribes against coloniza- tion in a country renowned in history for its aptitude for the peopling of foreign lands. April 21, 1905. The Professor has talked so much about Lord Beaconsfield (a name, by the way, by which he never 206 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS refers to him) lately that I have been tempted to read more by and about that extraordinary man. I seem to see m all Disraeli wrote and said — perhaps even did — a very subtle and ironical humour, a humour perhaps incomprehensible to the ordinary Anglo-Saxon mind. It would not be an easy thesis to maintain, but I confess that I seem to see an audacious but extremely covert sarcasm in all that is commonly criticized as his " Oriental extravagance," his fondness for the bizarre, his predilection for great folk hving in gorgeous palaces, and what not. It is possible surely to imagine a temperament which could view even its own serious convictions and ambitions with a sort of serio-comic irony, with a species of raillery quite foreign to the ordinary smug, self-satisfied, semi-educated and wholly narrow mind. There was in Disraeh's hfe (to use one of his own subtle phrases — in The Young Duke) an "exquisite super- cihousness," a superciliousness so exquisite that it was never discernible. The woof of his most serious speeches has a warp of humour (and often enough, in his younger days at aU events, that warp would bear the sinister meaning which sometimes attaches to the word). He not only said things laughingly (ridentem dicere quid vetat ?) ; he did things laughingly. He was an Augur who smiled, not exactly at the rites he performed, so much as at the lowly ideas of the people by whom such rites so performed were taken seriously. That is to say, he really did seriously invoke the assistance of whatever gods rule over the destinies of men and things ; in other words, he really appealed to justice and reason; but he smiled at the necessity of invoking them by such rites as the Parhamentary procedure and the platform oratory which in that age and among such a populace were considered effectual. Look at his own sarcasm on Parliamentary procedure. At the bottom of his heart probably he beheved with a seriousness deeper than was that of the onlookers; but he felt that such onlookers would not have understood his seriousness even had he explained. So he did not explam — even CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 207 to himseK, but remained to the last not only a smiling Augiu: but a silent Sphinx. Beaconsfield was a political Heine. And Heine, too, was a Jew. I wonder if there are many instances of this Hebraic trait— if Hebraic it is. Perhaps Mr Israel Zangwill comes nearest to it in modern days. I am not sm'prised at my Chief's sustained malevol- ence towards Disraeh, even had he not been lampooned in Lothair. The Oxford Professor can be humor- ously ironical enough in all conscience, but never could he have performed the part of a smiling Augur. The part he played was that of a caustic censor. Yoii always know exactly what he means. His humour is downright, direct. It is no gently-playing lambent flame, it is an electric spark. Thus, Shelley " wants us to be vegetarians and marry our sisters." Long- fellow's poetry is " barley-water," Lowell's " Boston squibs," Browning's " metaphysics in cacophonous verse," Emerson's prose " a cataract of pebbles." Macaulay's style is that of " an auctioneer," and so on and so on. This is hke the cutlass drill of the British Bluejacket. Disraeli's humour is the play of a poniard so dehcate and so rapid as to be actually invisible, and you never know a feint from a thrust. The conjimction of seriousness with humour (and is not this "irony"?) can be very subtle mdeed, so subtle that I take it many an author and many a pohtician would be extremely hard put to it himself to declare positively where was the dividing hne be- tween one and other. They are often so closely united as to form a chemical combination, not merely a mechanical mixture — to use the phrases of science. Surely one can often be both ironical and in earnest at the same time. Of course one can. Beaconsfield's writings and speeches are full of proofs of the fact. When he said he went down to his constituents and " explained to them the history of England," people laughed — not at the humom', and not good-naturedly. When he said that " he had to educate his party," people laughed again; and again not at the humour, and rather ill-naturedly. When he said he was " on 208 GOLD WIN SMITH: LITE AND OPINIONS the side of the angels," people screamed — wholly ill- naturedly, and Punch depicted him with wings. When he described his great rival as " a sophistical rhetorician inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity," the Times laboriously pronounced the phrase to be laboured; not seeing in the very laboriousness of the phrase an " exquisitely superciMous " and subtilely ironical caricature of the phraseology of the rhetorician ; it was the goad of his rival whittled to a point. Only his critics and his opponents insLst on taking Disraeli au pied de la lettre — the very last person in the world who could or should be taken au pied de la lettre. Disraeh was a master of phrase. So is my Chief. But there is this difference between them: Disraeh never in his life became the slave of a phrase ; my Chief very often does. Numberless are the instances I could adduce. Having labelled a party or a pohtician, having ticketed a theory, having put a creed or an aspiration into an epigram — always afterwards that party, pohtician, theory, creed or aspiration is viewed solely in the light of that epigram. Witness hia " Loyalty," " Aristocracy," " Imperialism," his "Jingoism" and " Mihtarism." Witness his theory that party government is an accident of Enghsh history dating from Stuart-Hanoverian times, and his theory that Disraeh was Russo-phobe and Turkophile because he was a Jew and Jews hated Russia and " leaned on " Tmkey. Beaconsfield used his phrases as the Roman Augur did his rites. Some of Beaconsfield 's phrases are as penetrating as they are ghttering — and always they are audacious. Thus: Peel's whole pohtical career was "one great appropriation clause"! Lord Shaftesbury was " Gamahel himseK with the broad phylacteries of faction on his forehead"; Palmerston was " a great Apollo of aspiring understrappers," " the Sporus of pohtics," " a favourite footman on easy terms with his mistress "! Lord John Russell was " busied with the battle of valets " ! And how intensely humor- ous (remembering all the circumstances under which it was uttered) was his characterization of that Hansard, to which Peel so loved to refer; " instead of being the CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 209 Delphi of Downing Street, it is the Dunciad of politics." Even the audacity of the alliteration raises a smile. Women trusted Disraeli. Surely that is not a bad sign. There are elements of character, and, what is more, there are courses of action, discernible by women which are quite unknown to men. Men think the game of hfe must be played, as it were, with dice or with dominoes — sohd cubes or parallelograms; with rigid actions, upon the surfaces of which definite motives are graved and legible. It is women who perceive that there may be stakes and problems in hfe that can be played for or explained only by airy polyhedrons. Well, Dizzy played with compressible spheres. That is to say, the imaginative character of his mind enabled him to see that there were possible courses of action to which duller intellects were altogether blind. Only to him occurred such fourth-dimensional courses as the alliance of democracy with monarchy (of which the Augural rite was the very commonplace Franchise BiU of '67, causti- cally described by Lord Derby as "the dishing of the Whigs "); as the purchase of the Suez Canal shares, the " Key to India "; as the creation of the Queen as Empress, which by a stroke dissipated a cloud on the crown; as the taking over of Cyprus, a concrete coup symbohcal of much ; and as his own personal appearance at the Berlin Congress, whence he returned with the trite yet tahsmanic " Peace with Honomr." But thence also his extraordinary so-called " inconsistencies." Yet his critics always forget that his two great rivals. Peel and Gladstone, were equally inconsistent; all three ended by supporting the party which in early hfe they set out by strenuously opposing. Peel, the Tory, led a party against the Tories. Gladstone, the proUge of the staunchest Conservative peer of the day, ranged himseK with the Liberals; nay, at last with the PamelMtes. Even my good old Chief, staxmch Cob- denite and anti-Home-Ruler as once he was, now favours " retahatory tariffs " and " letting Ireland go " ; and, strenuous defender of the Northern States as once he was, now expresses doubts as to whether, after all. Secession should not have been peacefully allowed. 210 GOLD WIN SMITH; LIFE AND OPINIONS Once, too, he favoured Canadian independence; then he advocated Canadian annexation to the United States; now that the United States have become " Imperialistic " he keeps discreetly silent on the sub- ject of Annexation. After all, Beaconsfield, say what his bitterest foes may, has left an indehble imprint on the life and thought of a great Empire, and that an Anglo-Saxon Empu'e. Could a " political adventurer," a " char- latan," a " hcensed liar " have done that? Some of his methods, it must be admitted, were questionable; his early attempts to get into Parhament; his devices by which to obtain a status; the shifts to which he resorted to gain a hearing. And perhaps his attacks on Peel are a httle difficult to condone. Disraeli was the most imaginative of statesmen — a trait, I think, my Chief entirely lacks. In essence, Disraeli was " literary," with all that that ill-used Avord connotes. No politician, in England at all events, ever so infused so hteraxy or imaginative an element into practical politics as did Benjamin Disraeh. The most sedate and sober of his serious Parhamentary speeches (some of his Parhamentary speeches are high comedy — and meant to be high comedjO smack of, nay, more than smack of, are instinct with, the literary spirit ; and this not only in form but in matter. Inter- esting and most readable volumes could be filled with examples. Take this (on the Oaths Bill, 25th May 1854):— " They (the Jews) are an ancient people, a famous people, an enduring people, and a people who in the end have generally attained their objects. I hope Parhament may endure for ever, and sometimes I think it will; but I cannot help remembering that the Jews have outlived Assjriian kings, Egjq^)tian Pharaohs, Roman Ca?sars, and Arabian Cahphs." Am I quite Avrong m thinking I detect here a super- subtle irony? Does not even the egoistic " I " exhale a whiff of " exquisite superciliousness "? Wherein is CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 211 he serious? Wherein sarcastic? What is his real thought ? Is it the ultimate ascendancy of the Jews ? And — is the Oaths Bill a mere rite which this Augur semi-seriously goes through the ceremony of perform- ing? Who can teU? Could he have told himself, were he asked? Never would he have told. I wonder what my Chief would read into that passage? Methinks I hear his comment: "The Seemite, furtively veiling his Seemitism." Disraeh's opponents never tire of deriding his youth- ful foppishness; his bottle-green coat, his Dick- Swiveller waistcoat, his oiled locks curled over his right brow, his cluster of gold chams, etc. etc. etc. (Anybody can find all this ad nauseam in Mr Alexander Foggo, M.P., Cantab's Life; in that by Thomas Maclmight; and in that by Mr T. P. O'Connor). Well, to me, I confess, knowmg what the man ultimately achieved, all this is merely a sign of the unthinking, or rather unrestrained and inexperienced, audacity of genius. I Hken it to Shelley's atheistic challenge, signed " Q. E. D.," to prim and orthodox Oxford. That a fop can be patient and persevering Disraeli abundantly proved. They say that the laughter with which his maiden speech was received was largely due to his " appearance." Perhaps those who so say Uttle know what and how small they have " writ " themselves down. Disraeh's maiden speech was in reahty extremely clever, extremely pointed, and extremely accurate. That it was exuberantly, fancifully " hterary " is also true; and that the more he was disconcerted (if ever disconcerted he really was) by laughter, the more fanciful it became, is also quite true. But he pruned all that away very soon. Besides, not everybody re- members or knows that Sir Robert Peel encouraged the speaker openly and vigorously — turning roimd to exhort him to continue. When one remembers that Disraeli was, as he himself says, born in a hbrary, and had but recently stepped out of that cradle into the House of Commons (to speak in which, he himself again says, requires practice), surprise at that maiden speech vanishes. He, at all events, had not pertinaciously 212 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS practised public debating at the Oxford Union, as had his great pohtical rival. Disraeli's critics say that his most potent weapon was personal invective ; and, if we remember his earher Parhamentary speeches — say from 1841 to 1846, and if we remember his attacks upon Peel, that asseveration is undeniably true. Well, it was a common enough weapon both in the House and out of it. Who was more personally inveighed against than Benjamin Disraeh? He was goaded to it. And, being goaded to it, and finding in his hand a goad compared with which those of his enemies were bludgeons, he used it — and with effect ; whew ! with what effect ! Personal invective was a common enough weapon. Roebuck slashed with it right and left. Any speaker who was at all deft in its use used it. Dizzy wielded it with a deftness incomparable — hence the objurgations on his " most potent weapon." The fact surely is that, where squires and cotton-spinners could use only clubs, this child of a hbrary, the pupil of " learned men," fought with a flaming sword — which turned every way. But, as a simple matter of fact, personal invective was one of the most insignificant of the arrows in his quiver. He only used it at short range and in minor combats. When great issues were at stake he used large artillery and shot far; the triviahties of personal invective were forgotten. Look at his treatment of the Irish question : — " He hoped the time would come when a party, framed on true principles, would do justice to Ireland, not by satisfying agitators, not by adopting in despair the first c[uack remedy that was offered from either side of the House, but by really penetrating into the mystery of this great mismanagement." — Arms (Ireland) Bill, 9th August 1843. But — but — as someone said (was it not Gladstone liimseK?), Disraeh was too great for his critics. A curious antagonism seems to have sprung up early between these two men — my Chief and Disraeli. " I only tricked him once," said the Professor to me the CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 213 other day, " but then I succeeded. It was during the passage of the Oxford University Bill. It had been terribly amended in the Lower House by the Opposition —led by Disraeli. When it came to the Lords (I was standing on the steps of the throne), the opposition was BO feeble and so plainly perfunctory that it struck me that all the amendments of the Commons might be voted down, and the original Bill carried. I urged fight. The Duke of Newcastle looked askance, and, after a hurried consultation behind the throne, the matter was referred to the leader in the Commons. He demurred. I said ' Ask Gladstone.' Gladstone, I knew, was always ready for a fight, and I argued that it was nearly the end of the session and the Commons' benches would be thinned. Gladstone, as it happened, was sick with — of all things in the world — chicken-pox ; but a messenger was sent to him. He said ' Fight ' — as I knew he would. And fight we did. Dizzy came up from the Lower House and stood on the steps by me, and I had the pleasure of watching his face as, one by one, the amendments were voted down." Tantcene animis celestibus irce ? April 1905. " Quebec [the French Province, of course], sir," I said to my Chief the other day, " is, I fear, bound to be a thorn in the flesh of Canada for many a long day to come " — it was a propos of Sir Wilfrid Laurier's Sepa- rate School Clauses in the Autonomy of the North-West Territories Bfil.' " I see a two-fold object in Laurier's Bill," said the Chief; " the extension of Catholicism, and the ascend- ancy of the French. Both have grown since first^I came Ho Canada; England made a great mistake, "a great mistake. She should have ehminated the French language when she could. And she could have done so with^ease. The nobles had left; all who cared and who could have had a say in the matter were gone. It ■ By which the " North-West Territories " were transformed into the Provinces o£ Alberta and Saskatchewan. 214 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS would have been easy. Then, too, French Canada was isolated. Since then French Canada has woven Hnks — thongh chiefly literary links — with old France. It is too late now." /. " But surely, because at Confederation, in 1867, Quebec happened to be French and Catholic, it is pre- posterous that the remotest confines of a modern Canada should be governed by laws French and CathoHc." He. " Preposterous, of course. But that is party, party striving for votes. We used to think," he went on, " that Orangeism was obsolete or unnecessary. Laurier's Bill seems to show that there is a very good raison d'etre for the Orange Lodges." I smiled a non-committal smile. I hardly hke the idea of narrowing the combat to Orange and Jesuit. April 1905. The old gentleman ages apace. He complains much of dizziness. His memory fails him. He will write out the same thing three times over, then puzzle over which version to choose. His intellect is clear as ever; but there are lapses, and he fails to connect paragraph with paragraph. He ^vrites unceasingly. But he does not preserve all he writes. Much now goes into the waste- paper basket. He is failing. The grand old brain — most potent engine I ever came in contact with — shows signs of wear and tear. April 26, 1905. I got the Professor that curious book called Bo We Believe ? the other day, thinking it would interest him. It did. It is a selection made from about nine thousand letters written to the Daily Telegra'ph (London) from all sorts of people, and he has been carrying it about with him — up to his bedroom and down again to his library — for several days. " The Behevers don't make out any case at all," was his remark yesterday morning. " They say little CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 215 or nothing about the evidences. Here, for example, is the Archbishop of Canterbury; hsten to him." " Randall Davidson, do you mean? " No, no; Temple "; and he read me Dr Temple's letter from beginning to end, adding, as he closed the book with a sirap, " Tom Paine could have signed that! Vv^hat does it amount to? Simply this, tliat if God can work miracles, why then, possibly he may. The veriest sceptic could not deny the power of OmniiDotence to perform miracles. Not a word about evidence, you notice. ... It is impossible . . . impossible . . . impossible," he went on half to himseK; " if the salva- tion of humanity depended on humanity's behef in the Resurrection ... an event supposed to have occurred in a small corner of the world. . . ." How often he relapses into a meditative silence on these topics! Strange, too, how he never gets away from them; never quite entnely lets them go; never frees his mmd of them. In this he is more orthodox than the orthodox themselves. The Encydojjcedia Bihlica, for example, after columns and columns of disquisition on the Resurrection, frankly — that is as frankly as Higher Critics, with verbose and tortuous examination of theories and investigation of evidences, their " pneumatic appearances " and their " subjective delusions," can — frankly gives up all notion of a bodily resmTcction — which any one but a Higher Critic might imagme would end the matter at once and for ever. How does the Encyclopcedia Bihlica square itself ^vith Saint Paul's " If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain " (1 Cor. XV. 14)? Is all Paul's strenuous, if circuitous, reasoning directed towards a " spiritual survival " and a " sub- jective delusion "? April 29, 19US. Curiously enough, a couple of hours after writing tliis— when I entered The Grange library at half -past nine— the old Professor read to me a letter he had just received in which he was told that he was " travelling on the road to Hell." 216 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS " Have you read the article on the Resurrection in the Encyclopcedia Bihlica ? " I asked with a smile. " Oh, yes, and I should think the writer of that article had travelled rather farther along that road than I!" April 30, 1905. The Governor-General is visiting Toronto, and has a long programme of " functions." " An orgy of flunkeyism! " says the Professor, throwing up his head and rubbing his rough, strong chin. " Well, the tree-planting went off all right," I was told by the Chief yesterday morning, " but the papers got it all wrong ; it was not he but she who planted it, and ' it ' was not a ' sapling maple ' but a chestnut." The " he " and " she " were the Governor-General and his wife. April 1905. The Professor's thoughts have been much occupied of late with the subjects discussed in that book. Do We Believe ? I asked him yesterday whether he would care to leave us an accoimt of the progress of his mind from orthodoxy to heterodoxy, sajdng that it would interest many of his readers. He hesitated. " I was quite orthodox when I wrote Does the Bible Sanction American Slavery ? " he went on after a pause. " But, mind you, even then I was careful to argue the point from the orthodox stand. The American slave- owners justified their ownership of slaves on bibhcal grounds; I showed that they were wrong; but I did not go behind the bibhcal grounds ; those I accepted as the basis of argument. I confuted Mansel too from the orthodox standpoint. He wanted to prove that there was an absolute morahty, that of the Divine Being, and a relative and human morality, that of man- kind. Again I accepted the orthodox view and showed how untenable that thesis was," MRS. GOLDWIN SMITH {Photo by B^-yce, Toionto) CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 217 /. " I see. You did not discuss the question of a revealed religion." He. "Exactly." /. " But it is just the path you travelled from the acceptance of revelation to your present attitude to- wards reUgion that would be so iateresting." Again he hesitated. /. " I suppose," I went on, " that the transition was gradual." He. "Yes; I read everything, I read everything. The Oxford Movement I confess I found at first very fascinating. But that was very temporary. I don't think it has left a trace upon my mind, I don't think it has left a trace. I read everything. What is that book . . ." (he "^oirAeAto a, sheM)" Supernatural Religion? Yes, I read that and Comte ; I was one of the first in England who read Comte — attracted to him, of course, from an historical curiosity," and he sauntered over to the theological shelves, where were Strauss and Keim and Kiinen, Martiaeau and Piinjer and Edersheim, Weiss, Pfleiderer, Lightfoot, Cheyne, not to speak of bibhcal dictionaries not a few, and cast his eyes in leisiuely manner over the rows as if they were very, very famihar to him. I fear I shall never get that narrative : it is probably a long and an intricate one. Yet he ad- mitted to me once that he took, if possible, a keener interest in the history of Ethics than in History proper itseK. Goldwin Smith's present attitude towards rehgion — as any one may see who has read his numerous letters to the New York Sun lately (by the way, he has made a proposition to his pubhshers to bring these out in book form) — his present attitude towards rehgion is fairly clear and fairly simple. The ground he takes is narrowed to the smallest possible foot-hold. As an inteUigent reader of his Guesses at the Riddle of Existence once wrote to me, " like Mercury, he stands on tip-toe gazing at the skies." Supernatural rehgion he throws over in toto. The Old Testament is "a miscellany of Hebrew books." The New Testament is a collection of writings from 218 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS documents " of unknown date and uncertain author- ship." But " the character and teachmgs " of " the Founder of Cliristendom " remain to us. Christendom is an historical fact. And to Christendom is chiefly due the moral civilization of the world. To this he adds one single proposition, and to this he pins his faith; it is his one dogma; for all " dogmatic theology," as he terms it, is his abhorrence. This proposition is that conscience is our only guide. Always he insists on " the authority of conscience." And to this one dogma lie appends a pathetic and dimly-expressed hope that to the man who follows the dictates of conscience and lives " a spiritual hfe " (a favourite phrase with him just now) "it will be well in the sum of things." And with still greater pathos and a yet dimmer expression he speaks sometimes of " hopes beyond the grave." Somebody asked him once (in a letter in the New York Su7i, I thinli) v/hat definitely he meant by " con- science." He did not reply. He believes in the freedom of the Will. He thinks man has a power of choice. That though in every action " we know many of the antecedents — heredity and so forth, we do not know all the antecedents; and one of the antecedents is volition." ' That the very facts of reprobation and approbation point to a power of choice. WeU, he declines to beheve that reprobation and approbation are the mere products of a social com- munity. He rejects the Comtists' and the Positivists' theory that conscience is but the voice of the com- munity speaking in the individual. I do not suppose that he would allow that conscience was a mere outcome of evolution. He thinks conscience is ultimate and instinctive, somethmg, I suppose, emanatmg from " the moral Power of the universe — if behind the universe there is a moral Power "; a force at all events whose existence we caimot question and whose source we can- not trace ; implanted in every man ; our only guide ; our only authority. Personally, I do not see that this differs materially ■ Which seems to me to be a petitio principii : the vohliou is precisely the thing in question, is it not? CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 219 from Kant's " categorical imperative." But the Pro- fessor declines altogether to infuse philosophy into ethics. He wiU not find a philosophic basis for ethics. He will not use philosophy as a means by which to build a basis for the authority of conscience. Once, indeed, when I used Kant's phrase to him, he smilingly asked whether I thought that was a doctrine could be preached from the pulpit. The authority of conscience is to Gold win Smith a dogma, an article of faith. He carmot go behind it. He does not attempt to go be- hind it. In the existence of a " soul " as "a separate entity breathed mto the body at birth and severed from it at death," he does not believe. " We now know," he says and repeats, " that the soul and body are one." Accordingly what his " hopes beyond the grave " really point to, whether to an individual existence, and, if so, in what form — on this point he has never anywhere, to my knowledge, expressed himself. " Immortahty," he teUs us, is unthmkable : "the mind reels when trjdng to grasp it." So is " infinity." At best they are negative and meaningless phrases. And this seems to make more cloudy still his nebulous " hopes " of a future. On the problem of the origin and existence of evil he is dumb. Or rather he is dumb so far as any solution of that problem is concerned. The problem itself is continually in his mind. Over and over again he has pointed out to us the waste that there is in Nature, the pain and suffering -ndth which history is filled. But he gives no sign. Often I have watched for some clue to show in what direction his mind is moving. Never was I able to detect one. He does not shut his eyes to it, he does not blink at it, he does not shirk it. But he does not solve it. I think it hes at the bottom of much of his thought. To the Darwinian theory of Evolution he gives a very hesitating, a very tentative, and a very qualified assent. Brought up, as he was, in the days when that theory busied itself chiefly about physiological and morphological evolution, naturally enough he says that 220 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS " Evolution " " does not explain everjrthing," that there are phsenomena outside the scope of its iavestiga- tion. That it may be a true account, so far as it goes, of material development, he is willing to admit; but that that helps us much or at aU he denies. " Granted," he says, " that in the germ-plasm there is, in fosse, a Socrates. That does not explain to me the germ- plasm "• — still hmiting his view to the material aspect of the question. When I tell him that modern evolu- tionists look far beyond a mere " material " evolution, in fact detest the very word " material," connoting as it did in Huxleyan days a gross and ponderable " stuff " endowed with the single property of " motion "; when I hint at an immaterial, a spiritual evolution ... he makes a sort of gesture as who should say, " I don't see much difference." Nor, I suppose, does he. The whole thing is a search for the Ultimate Reahty, and nobody will ever find that — if he did, he himself would be the Ultimately Real. The Professor's science is the science of the mid- Victorian era. His philosophy — but he contemns philosophy — yet, if he had a philosophy, it would be hard to say to what age it belonged. He never quotes a philosopher; he rarely refers to one; and never did I see him take one down from his shelves — unless Bishop Butler can be called a philosopher. He has asked for Locke once or twice. Well, perhaps his philosophy is Lockian ; a behef in an external material world contain- ing objects endowed with " properties "; a behef in an internal subjective world consisting of "ideas"; and a behef that the one world becomes cognizant of the other through the channels of the " senses." German philosophy is almost unrepresented on his shelves; modem philosophy and psychology entirely unrepre- sented; and the leaves of his edition of Max Miiller's Sacred Books of the East are not yet cut — except where I have cut them. I have thought that I have detected of late an air of greater seriousness in the Professor's talks. Once he was inclined to dismiss a serious topic with a witty CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 221 epigram, and often he diverged from a thorny topic by a flippant saying. I was at a funeral at which, too, he was present a few years ago. We had been burying an old man, a friend to us both — my Chief was a pall-bearer. We walked out of the chapel together, after a very sombre service. The only remark the Professor made was a sarcastic one anent the vulgar taste of the nouveaux riches as displayed in the gaudy monuments they erected to their dead— a remark, I am quite sure, quite irrele- vant to his own mood, uttered, probably, just to conceal that mood, and prompted by that habitual shyness and reserve which always cloud his brow. Now he is different. The witty epigram very often still comes; but it does not come so soon, and generally it is pre- luded by a sustained conversation devoted to a serious discussion of the theme. May 10, 1905. Curiously enough, shortly after putting down my own conviction that Beaconsfield was a sort of pohtical Heine, I came across the following appreciation of Gladstone's great rival in Gladstone's biographer — John Morley {Life of W. E. Gladstone, vol. i. p. 588); it says much better than I can what I was strugghng to say, so I quote it here : — "... Disraeli's novels — the spirit of whim in them, the ironic solemnity, the historical paradoxes, the fantastic ghtter of dubious gems, the grace of high comedy, all m imion with a social vision that often pierced deep below the surface." May 1905. We got on to the subject of French Canada again this morning, a propos of a book just received with the title Le Drapeaic National des Canadiens-Franrais. " Look at that," said the Professor. Apparently someone was proposing an exclusively French-Canadian flag for Quebec; a white cross on a blue ground, a fleur-de-hs in each comer, in the centre 222 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS a red cmur sacr4, from which issued devouring flames, surmomited by a red cross, and underneath a hemi- circle of maple leaves. " Humph! " I said, " that is significant: it is not only national but liierarchical." " The French have been growmg noticeably restive," he said. " When I first came they were quiet enough. Then- clergy then were Galhcan, belonging to the old school. So long as they kept their flock in order and were not interfered ■ndth, they didn't trouble themselves much about pohtics. The centre of French and Catholic ecclesiasticism then was the Benedictine Seminary. They actually sang a Te Deum for Trafalgar. France, you see, was republican and atheistic. But thmgs have changed, and the change has been brought about by the intrusion of the Jesuit, and the Jesuit does not care what Constitutions are wrecked so long as the cause of Papal domination is served." May 17, 1905. There has been a good deal of fun lately over the Professor's rationalistic letters to the New York Sun. Last Saturday Dr Langtry ' poured out seven vials on him in a column and a hah of the World (Toronto), to which the Professor replied by a short letter in the following day's edition (a sporting edition chiefly!) which was sandwiched between turf news on the left and the raiding of a " pool-room " on the right. And the Professor has talked. " They can't get over this," he has said more than once; " if they throw over the account of the Fall as given in Genesis as mythical — as they all do now — their whole dogmatic structure falls to the ground; for if there was no Fall of Man, there could be no necessity for a Redemption, an Incarnation, a Virgin Birth, a Crucifixion, or a P^esurrection. I don't see how they can get over that. Then look at their attitude towards the New Testament. This ' Higher Criticism,' what- ever ' Higher Criticism ' may mean (why ' Higher ' ■ A learned rccLor o£ Toronto. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 223 I do not know), is pure conjecture; they are grubbing in the dark. What do they really know about dates or authorship'? A shifting about of dates is useless, is useless. Then as to authorship, the author of the Third Gospel imdoubtedly wrote ua Greek. Of the author of the First we know uothmg, nor of the author of the Second. The author of the Fourth was without doubt an Alexandrme Jew, it is futile to attempt to prove that he was a Palestinian Jew." " Besides," I said to him one day, " does not their whole creed rest on the vicarious suffering of Christ, and is not that a pm'ely Pauline theory? I do not think it was ever distinctly enunciated by Jesus." " Yes, I suppose it is Pauline." " And look at their treatment of miracle," he went on, pursuing, as is his custom, his own line of thought; " they tell us, in one story, of a man possessed of a thousand devils — m another account I beheve there were two men: a discrepancy which does not make for authenticity — a purely Jewish idea. These devils are cast out, enter into a lot of pigs, and the pigs run down a hill into the sea. They ask us to beheve that. And they also ask us to believe in the Resurrection — for both are miracles; you can't accept one and reject the other; you can't use one criterion of credibility for one miracle and another for another." " A miracle, I suppose, sir," I ventui'ed, " may always be considered as avowedly a ground for our credence in the performer." " Of course; otherwise it would be a mere trick. A miracle is supposed to be supernatural evidence, supernatural testimony. But these people forget how quickly a mythical halo of miracle gathers about the head of a martyr. Look at Becket. Miracles swarmed about Ms memory almost the moment he was dead. And Becket 's was not an unenlightened age; it was the age of Anselm, of John of Sahsbury, of Giraldus Cam- brensis. They point to Hamac as a ' Higher ' Critic who substantiates the Gospels and admits miracle. Harnac is as rationahstic as I am. He may shift a date or two a httle farther back, and he may admit that the 224 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFEjAND OPINIONS narrative of a miracle may be useful. Well, I suppose certain fables may be regarded in a way as ' useful.' " May 19, 1905. The theological tourney gathers j ousters. Yester- day's Toronto World contained the following : — Mr Goldwin Smith's Reasoning Editor, World: In Mr Goldwin Smith's recent letter we find the following bit of reasoning: "Moreover, the Fall being a myth, as it is now allowed almost on all hands to be, there is no ground for the Incarnation and the Atonement, a disclosure which in itseK is fatal to the dogmatic and traditional creed of Christendom." By what appears to the reader to be a bit of hterary legerdemain Mr Goldwin Smith thus proves that the world has no need of a Saviour because it has had no Fall. Is it necessary to point out that it is sin which is the ground for the Incarnation and the Atonement? Does Mr Goldwin Smith deny the existence of this universal fact of human experience? If he does not, how can he argue that the need for the Incarnation is in any way affected by any view that may be taken of the entrance of sin into the world? It is man's great need of salvation that is the ground for the Incarnation. To argue that the ground for the Incarnation and Atonement is gone because scholars take a par- ticular view of a chapter of ancient history, appears to the writer to be juggling ^vith hterary abstractions instead of dealing with facts. Christian writers from the second century downwards have taken different views of the narrative of the Fall, as they do to-day. But certainly, no view of any bit of hterature, no matter how sacred, can possibly affect the world's need of salvation from its faU into sin. Nor can any hterary view of the origin of sin have any bearing upon the manner of that salvation, whether it be by Incarnation or in any other way. " Because Professor Bonney says that Genesis iii. is mythical, therefore Mr Sensuahst CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 225 has no need of Christ " — is, we submit, an unsound piece of reasoning, even if Professor Bonney be right. E. C. Cayley. The answer to which — a verbal one to me — was " the writer liimseh very evidently was on the shde from Orthodoxy to Rationahsm; that he was attempting to whittle away the dogmas of the Fall and the Incarna- tion, and that liis argument merely amounted to the self-evident assertion that mankind was in need of moral improvement." To which he added, " I should like to ask the young gentleman one question : ' Do you beheve that a thousand devils were cast out of the demoniac and entered into a thousand pigs? ' That miracle rests on precisely the same basis as the miracle of the Resurrection. They stand or fall together. We cannot apply one criterion to one and another to the other. Well, the miracle of the Gadarene swine is based on a purely Jewish conception. None of the demoniac miracles are mentioned in the Fourth Gospel, because that was written by a Hellenic not a Palestinian Jew. But the last thing I wish to do is to draw out a theological controversy. I might indeed write and say that Professor Cayley is bound by his Ordination vows to the XXXIX Articles and therefore not free to argue the question. But I shall desist." Mag 23, 1905. " I have been reading Aristotle's Ethics again," said the Professor to-day. "It is a pity that work has never been properly translated; a notable work, a notable work, a search for the principles of moral conduct by the acutest of Greek minds; an attempt to portray the ideal man. A very statuesque figure Aristotle makes him. My friend Palmer used to call it a devilish ideal, because Aristotle makes his great- minded man esteem himself highly because he knew himself to be high; ' just what Satan did,' said Palmer! A notable work. It ought to be well translated. There are two spiorious books — the Eudsemian Ethics — inter- calated : these ought to be expurgated. And there are 15 226 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS some uninteresting passages, such as the controversial parts directed against Plato's theories; but if the re- mainder were well done, it would make a very readable book. Though, after all, I doubt whether it would suit the modern generation. The ideal is too statuesque. Aristotle, too, includes many things that modern morahty sets httle store by; physical perfection, for instance ; the ideal man should be tall, self-contained, have a good presence, and so forth." " I rather think it would suit the modern genera- tion," I rephed. " The modern generation is searching for a rational, in place of a supernatural, basis of ethics ; it sets great store on physical culture ; and it thoroughly beheves in the high cultivation and development of the individual by the exercise of his own powers — mental and physical." " Well, perhaps, perhaps." " Suppose you do it yourself, sir." " Oh, no ! Oh, no ! " — as if he were past undertaking anything new now. May 25, 1905. The joumaUstic diatribes anent the Professor's theological position multiply apace. " These people," he said, " all hold that a lapse from orthodoxy signifies a lapse from morahty. They think that heterodoxy imphes delinquency," and the old gentleman strode pensively beside the long biUiard- table and rubbed his chin. It is a very strong chin, somewhat indented in the middle. All his features are strong. He has a splendid brow, much corrugated when in thought. Very full just over the eyebrows, large, broad and full. A brow bespeaking both thought and force — force backing thought. A large nose; a strong upper hp, staid and immobile, dominant, quietly forceful, as who should say " I can bide my time," a mouth set, and very grim, very grim, save when it smUes, which is rare. Beneath these the aforesaid chin ; large, indented, often hirsute, be- traying, when a difficult sentence is undergoing revision, a shght and scarcely discernible muscular working. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 227 There really ends the man. The rest of the corporeal frame is but substratum to the head. A tall, broad- shouldered frame, which, by exercise, might have been magnificently developed (he must have stood 6 feet 2 inches in his youth), seems now merely the pedestal of his brow. Beneath the bodily frame are now two weak and lean shanks. His eyes are keen and penetrating, very penetrating. They are hke bayonets — both in hue and in the idea that they convey of possibihties and penetration. And when confronted by these bayonet eyes, the brow, the nose, the mouth, and the chin, you . . . well, you say what you really thuik. And that is what those bayonet eyes seek. You forget the frail frame ; you feel that what you are " up agaiast," to use the American slang, is the intellect; and you conjure your brains to give as rational an answer as may be, and, withal, a sincere one. Stupidity the Professor can make allowances for. But what he demands is absolute sincerity. He himseK, I truly beheve, much as I differ from him, is always absolutely sincere. He says and writes just what he thiaks. And he asks you to say and write just what you think. I do not suppose that anj^hing in this world ever during his whole lifetime drew him away or tempted him from what he beheved to be the right path, be that path pohtical, theological or social. May 1905. " A letter from Bourassa > to-day," said the Pro- fessor, " arguing that the Jesuit is in reahty Uberal and by no means given to intrigue." "The Jesuit Mberal!" I ejaculated. "And not given to intrigue!" ejaculated anti- phonically the Professor. " As remarked the other day, intrigue cannot but be pohtical." "Humph! " I said, "what about the Council of Trent? " " Well, one cannot well intrigue about Theological dogma," was his reply. ' Mr Henri Bourassa, M.P., a well-known French-Canadian politician. 228 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS "No; the intrigue was between parties, factions. Dear me, I thought that intrigue was the raison d'etre of the Jesuit." He. " Of course. Why did the CathoKc Clergy ask for their expulsion? The Cathohc Monkish Orders covered all the ground. Of course poMtical intrigue was their sole raison d'etre. 'Twas they instigated the persecution of the Huguenots." I. " Was the Inquisition their work? " He. " Ah, no. The Inquisition was prior to them. But of course they backed it might and main." I. " Of course. I was forgetting. They were founded by Loyola." He. " Yes. I have seen Loyola's tomb; a mass of lapis lazuU and gold ; and near it stands the monument to Giordano Bruno, erected on the spot where he was burned." May 1905. An interesting conversation to-day also on the " Immaculate Conception." He had been looking up Thomas Aquinas on the subject. In the middle of a letter he turned and said: — " That surely is the point." " Surely, sir," I advanced, " the whole talk is about things incomprehensible. The Roman Cathohc re- gards the Virgin as ' divine,' and therefore perforce as ' immaculate.' The Anglo-CathoKc does not regard her as divine, and therefore disregards her immaculacy." " Yes, that is true." And he added a sentence to his letter. June 10, 1905. Some interesting bits of talk with the Professor lately. Letters are still appearing on the subject of his attitude towards rehgion^evoked chiefly by his letters to the New York Sun. " I don't intend to be dragged into a controversy on these questions," he said the other day. " Yet if I i7.'ere to reply I should be much tempted to say this one CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 229 thing: I should point to that text . > . where is it? in Leviticus, I think — the text which says that the hare chews the cud.» Now that is a blunder, an obAdous blunder. That is patent to any intelhgence. Well, that text rests upon exactly the same basis as the whole of the rest of Holy Scripture. The question is: Was it inspired? I know some sort of explanation is at- tempted. I beheve the hare moves its jaws as if chew- ing the cud. But that only makes the blunder worse. Fancy Omniscience being taken in by the similarity!" " I see Professor Cay ley cites Harnao against me; claims Harnao is on the orthodox side; that he has demohshed the Tiibingen School ... as much as says that if I had read Harnac-I could not stand where I do. I have just read Hamacivagain, and hsten to this — " and he read aloud to me several long passages from an English translation of What is Christianity ? — passages relating to miracles, to the phrase " Son of God," etc. " Those sound pretty rationalistic," I said. " Sheer rationalism. Miracles are mere ' stories,' you notice; the divine Sonship is ' Klnowledge of God,' and so on. To say that Harnaa has demohshed the Tiibingen School is preposterous. That school went too far perhaps, but its chief results remain. Harnac- is pretty shifty and shuffling; he uses a terrible lot of words; but orthodox he is not." Something brought up the Relacions des Jesuites the other day — an invitation to subscribe to a Society formed for the repubhcation of old works relating to New France, I think. " I suppose I should be pelted if I said it," he re- marked, " but people forget that those Relacions were written by the actors themselves for the perusal of the spectators at home; they are not disinterested reports and are not trustworthy. If my memory serves me, I fancy there is at least one report of a massacre in which not a single eye-witness is supposed to have survived! " I laughed, and he went on, " The Indians regarded those Jesuits as necromancers, of course. They watched them carefully, and these missionary priests resorted ' It is Leviticus xi. 6; and also Deuteronomy xiv. 7. 230 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS to desperate shifts by which to baptize dying children — surreptitiously sprinkled a drop or two of water on their foreheads . . . pretending to moisten a lump of sugar or something ... as if a drop of water on a dying Iroquois child's brow made a difference of eternal heaven or eternal heU! " I. " The Indians were not far wrong in thi nkin g them Necromancers." He. " The Indians were right. What is more," he went on, looking grave and raising a forefinger as if to impress the remark; "what is more, I shrewdly suspect that those same Jesuit priests egged the Indians on against the EngUsh settlements." Nov. 1905. The old Professor is ageing fast. This has been par- ticularly noticeable in the last few months. He is not equal now to continuous work, hardly to continuous attention — I have seen it stray in a note of three sentences. And his memory is apt 'm play him tricks. Yet now and then the old fire throws out its pecuhar sparks. I was taUdng to him about an elaborate edition de luxe of the Lives of Mahers of Canada at (I think) a guinea a volume. At once he fired up. "Where will it sell? " he asked. " These people are aU carried away by the erroneous idea that there is a imified ' Canada.' There isn't. It might sell in Ontario; but what does a Doukhobor rmining naked over the prairie looking for Christ care about the hfe or pohtics of George Brown ' for example? " Nov. 1905. The other day it was amiounced in our papers that Sir Frederick Pollock, after travelhng tlirough Canada, had come to the conclusion that sentiment here was not yet ripe for the practical working-out of a system of Imperial Federation. " Well," said the Chief, as I entered the library that ' A rather violent Liberal Canadian politician ot Scotch birth, floruit circ. 1875, the political idol ot the so-called " Grits " of that day. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 231 ' you see Pollock has thrown up the sponge." " It wiU come, nevertheless, in time," I replied* "Humph! The whole thing will come to smash before that! " And there that conversation ended! In spite of his age, the Professor stiU takes up his pen daily, almost hourly, and writes till only bodily fatigue stops him. Two columns and a haM he contri- butes weekly to the Toronto Weekly Sun ; almost every other Sunday's New York Sun contains from him a controversial letter on some ethical or religious topic; he has just offered the New York Independent an article on India and another on Mr Balfour's prog- nostications of peace; he has lately been dictating some additions to his Reminiscences; he has just finished his Irish History and the Irish Question ; a httle pamphlet on SociaKsm (written last spring) he is stiU thinking of bringing out; every now and then he contemplates furbishing up and re-printing his aforesaid contributions to the New York Sun : only recently he corresponded with the Macmillans about bringing his United King- dom down to date for a second edition; at this moment he is debating what magazine would accept from him an article on Canada — an article not a line of which is yet written, by the way ; these, in his eighty-third year, are some of his projects ! To say nothing of letters by the score weekly to correspondents. To-day he indited a letter to the Spectator on the party system of Government — a letter that cost him infinite trouble and that after aU he left in the rough tiU to-morrow. May 10, 1906. Over and over again of late Disraeli's description of the Professor, " a wild man of the cloister," has re- curred to my mind. It was an astonishingly pene- trating description. He is an immured Esau. But whereas Esau's wildness arose from his exclusion in the wilderness, the Professor's arises from his seclusion in a hbrary. For example : Mr Birrell brings in an Educa- 232 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS tion Bill inimical (so they say) to the Anglican Church. Immediately the Professor writes to the Manchester Gfuardian to say that Disestabhshment is imminent. Turkey disputes a boundary hne in the Sinaitic Penin- sula; immediately the Professor avers that the British Empire is on the verge of submersion by Islam. " What the Turk really has in his mind," says the Professor, " we cannot tell. But I shrewdly suspect, I shrewdly suspect " — and he gravely pats his left palm with his right forefinger — " that the Turk is going to test the power of Islam ; and if the Green Flag is unfurled, then where shall we be? The Turk fights, fights hke the devil. He is miserably officered, he is miserably equipped and provisioned ; but he fights Hke the devil. Plevna proved that. People don't know the power of Islam. I heard a preacher the other day — I can't hear very well now, alas ! but what I did hear seemed to be a tirade against the heathenishness of Mohammedanism ! [with a gesture and an intonation that bespoke the fact that he had plumbed the lowest depths of that ineptitude]. Islam is a society, a confraternity. It is rehgious, no doubt; the Mohammedan is a mondtheist [with the accent on the second o]. Well, do you think any preacher is going to convert a monotheist to . . . let us say Trinitarianism ? [with an meffable accent: as if the difference between one and the other was such a difference as is between a treasured heirloom and a child's toy]." Maij 10, 1906. Andrew Carnegie has come and gone. He was the guest of the Professor — " Sage," as Carnegie always addresses him. When the guest had departed G. S. let fall one or two bons mots on the conversation at the breakfast-table, but very guardedly. " An irrespon- sible optimist," he said, " who talks in a slap-dash style. What an idea that war can be averted and a reign of universal peace inaugurated by ' arbitration,' by reference to the resolutions of the Hague Tribunal! Why, when two nations are raguig with the war-fever, and ready at a moment's notice to fly at one another's CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 233 throats, it would be about as much use to quote a resolution of the Hague Tribunal as it would be to quote a sentence from the Talmud." July 2, 1906. 3-33 p.m. " There is one thing," said the Professor to me about an hour ago, " which I regret having lost very much indeed." The remark was called forth thus: A Life of Danton has just come out (by Beesley, I thiak), and the Professor is intending to use it as a peg for an article on " Danton and the Terrorists " for the Atlantic Monthly. While thinking over the subject he re- membered that in some cupboard or other was a long manuscript by a Miss (or Mjts) C. M. Davies — a History of the French Revolution, I beheve; though how it came into his possession I do not know. He asked for this, and I laid it before him. This manuscript, ap- parently, led him to think of another. " There is one thing I regret very much having lost: a description of Robespierre by Sergent. Sergent was one of the last of the Jacobins. He knew Robespierre intimately — had numberless opportunities of observing him — in fact came often in contact with him. His description was very detailed — narrated small personal facts about Robespierre's daily hfe. It was an irre- placeable document, for all the descriptions of Robe- spierre extant are written with a violent bias either for or against the man. . . . Sergent didn't love him. I don't see how anyone could love the ' Sea-green In- corruptible,' as Carlyle calls him." I. " How did you come into possession of the manu- script? " I asked. He. " Sergent gave it to Madame Beaudechamp [I don't know whether this is the way she speUs her name] ; Madame Beaudechamp gave it to Lady Brodie, and I think Lady Brodie gave it to me." /. " And how did you come to lose it? " He. " Oh, I must have lent it to someone who did not retiu-n it. It was long ago — before my marriage." /. " But here in Toronto? " 234 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS He. " Yes, here." That MS. would be worth the finding. October 20, 1907. We were talking about the dearth of great statesmen in both the pohtical parties in England just now: " Unfortunately," said the Professor, " it seems to take a great upheaval to produce a great man; the man is thrown up ; we cannot have the great man first and the upheaval afterwards." October 20, 1907. The Chief is reading Parkman. " Did you ever read about the Jesuits in North America? " he asked me two or three days ago. " Very Uttle, I am ashamed to say." " I have always thought," he went on, la5ang down his pen, " that what happened was this: the Order in those days no doubt received into its ranks a good deal of simple and sincere rehgious devotion, a devotion totally unfit for pohtical intrigue. Such devotees I have no doubt [this with a grim smile and just a dawn- ing of humour in the eyes] were shipped oil to hopeless missionary errands among the Ojibways or the Iroquois." Then he went on writing. Soon he laid down his pen again — evidently Parkman had set his thoughts agoing. " Isn't it astonishing, isn't it extraordinary, that there were men, intelUgent men, who actually beheved that Almighty God, the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, had not only decreed but took the trouble to see to it that every jib way or Iroquois infant that had not had a drop of water sprinkled on his forehead by a Jesuit priest should be tortured for all eternity, and the infants that had were exempted from this? " I asked if this almost incredible behef were really still a dogma of the Cathohc Church. " Of course; the Church is infalhble; what it be- lieved then it beheves now. But isn't it astonishing 1 I know of nothing in the whole range of pagan mytho- logy that is a patch to it." CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 235 Nod. 12, 1907. The Professor said a notable thing to me yesterday. He has been writing a lot of letters to the New York Sun lately supporting his favourite and recently- evolved theory contradistinguishing the " Papacy " from " Cathohcism " proper, the " Hildebrandlne Theocracy," as he calls it, from the " Eoman CathoUc Rehgion." He has been much impressed too by the " Trouble at Rome " — so he headed one of his latest letters referring to the letter addressed to the Supreme Pontiff by a small circle of Itahan Priests and translated into Enghsh with the title, What we Want. I had put before him several things relating to this " Trouble " — the Times, the Spectator, the Manchester Guardian, the Contemforary Bevieiv, and a report of the rumoured excommunication of Father TyrreU. I suppose he had looked over some of them, at all events he suddenly stopped me as I was walking about the hbrary. " Haultain, you will hve to see one thing — the down- fall of Papacy." " That is a strong saying, sir," I remarked, not a httle astonished and not a httle incredulous. " Nevertheless I say it," he added impressively. " Well," I hazarded, " if you had told me I should hve to see open war between Capital and Labour ..." " Oh, that you assuredly wiU see." March 19, 1909. Had an amusing talk with my Chief to-day. I was laughing over a letter he got from a man yesterday asking him what was the " one flat phrase " which, so my Chief had somewhere said — probably in his article on Lincoln in (I think) Macmillan's Magazine soon after the assassination of that great man — had said, marred the otherwise " noble " " Gettysburg Speech," and adding that he had read the speech over and over again without being able to discover it! I told the Chief what was amusing me (for the flat phrase, surely, is 236 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS obvious)/ and added that I thought American Litera- ture was signally lacking in samples of really good English prose. " They seem to be curiously devoid of a knowledge of the nice shades of meanings of words," I ventured. " With the best Enghsh writers you feel sure that there will be no lapses from at least tasteful and accurate diction; there are no hedges or ditches. With American writers you do not know when you wiU not be suddenly landed in a swamp. Have they any real master of prose style? " I asked. " No, I don't think they have. Their system of teaching oratory and rhetoric to boys at school is a very bad plan. They can pour out words, sometimes pom: them out very cleverly and brilliantly ; but this system is not conducive to good prose." " I am glad you agree, sir," I said; " I have thought that even in such a writer as OUver Wendell Holmes I could detect lapses. And siu-ely Emerson was not what you would call a great prose-writer? " ' As perhaps not everybody (at all events on the Eastern shores of the Atlantic) has read Lincoln's speech at the dedication of the battlefield of Gettysburg (19th November 1863), I insert it in full here. THE SPEECH. " Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. " Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. " But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot conse- crate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long re- member, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us thi- living, rather, to be dedicated here to the un- finished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honoured dead we take in- creased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 237 " No. What Emerson's fame rests on," he said, " I really do not know. To me his wisdom seems to consist of obscure platitudes, and as to his prose, it is a cataract of pebbles." March 1909. He was immensely pleased over the long and, on the whole, sympathetic review in The Spectator [of 20th February] of his " No Refuge but in Truth," which reached us to-day. He manifests an extraordinary anxiety and concern over his most trivial and ephemeral production, and manifests just as extraordinary an anxiety and concern over its reception by the pubhc. He cuts out and puts away — or rather I do according to his injunctions — every scrap he prints, be it six hnes in an evening paper or six pages in a heavy magazine. If he hsis written anything in a paper, that is the thing he first turns to in that paper. Does a book arrive — a Memoir, Reminiscences, a History, what not — almost always he very soon turns to the Index, with the object, I am now sure, of finding out whether he has been quoted or referred to. I suppose, to a man who has all his life devoted himself to pubhcation, this is but natural. February 25, 1910. On the 17th of this month, about a fortnight after his accident, as I was sitting by his bedside, Goldwin Smith had a very curious conversation with me. We were talking about Cornell University, and something made him divulge to me the value in figures of dollars of the wealth he was about to leave behind him. I must have shown, by a gesture or an ejaculation, my astonishment at its magnitude. He also intimated that he intended the bulk of it to go to Cornell University. The old gentleman then began to talk, and to talk rather rapidly, and he requested me to take notes. The notes naturally were in quite skeleton form. I amplify them now as best my memory serves me. " Remember these things, Haultain, if anybody should say that I have shown myself UMberal to Toronto. 238 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS You know my wife and I have already bequeathed to it this house and grounds ; but I do not consider myself called upon to do more. I have never felt at home here. I have only been happy within my own house with my wife and Chin [the butler]. Often I have thought my- seK treated as if I had been an intruder. Besides, in almost everything I took up I was thwarted. For example, I, aided by Pell and BaiUe, did our best to organize and keep on foot the Associated Charities ; but at every step obstacles, promoted probably by jealousy, were thrown in our way, yet I worked hard for the charities of Toronto. It was I who proposed a City Rehef Officer, and it was I who for the first two years paid his salary. " Then, look at University consoHdation, I and Gzowski did our best by speeches and meetings to advo- cate and support that. But here again we found obstacles on every hand. " Then there was the Athletic Club. The Banks ought to have supported us in that, but only one Bank manager came to our aid. And you know just what happened to the Athletic Club. " Then long before these matters; in the early days I, in concert with Howland and Foster, founded the National Club, of which I was first President. But here again animosities sprang up. " You know, too, what happened to me at Upper Canada College ; and you know how they tried to expel me from St George's Society. " If anything is said as to my iUiberality to the City of Toronto the above is my answer." I quote as nearly verbatim as my memory permits. This perhaps is the best place in which to make public Gold win Smith's own written, but hitherto un- published, " Apologia for his Life in Canada." Though undated, it was composed, if my memory serves me, some time within a twelvemonth of his death. During that year my Chief had contributed several httle letters to a little newspaper pubhshed at Kingston in the CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 239 Province of Ontario, Canada, called The Standard, a paper that was very favourably inclined to all Goldwin Smith's views. The editor had tried to get from him a full explanation of his whole political attitude towards Canada; and Goldwin Smith comphed so far as to write out and (I think) to send him the following paper. He hesitated long, however, as to whether to permit publi- cation or not; and ultimately decided in the negative. The paper, corrected by his own hand, was, however, entrusted to my keeping, and I think I do right in pub- lishing it now. He spent much time over it, and more than one typewritten copy was made. Here it is in full: — Private. — A Worb in Self-Defence To THE Editor of the Kingston Standard. SiK, — With great reluctance and hesitation I re- spond to yom? suggestion that I should say something more in reply to the charge of treason made against me in print and scattered here and in my native country. As a rule it is well to leave calumny to die; and this I feel I might securely do so far as those who have wit- nessed my conduct are concerned. In England the charge of treason against me is scouted by a conservative journal which differs from me as widely as possible on the Canadian question. But then comes the next generation, and finding only one version of the matter, turns that version into history. You and your readers may take comfort in the assurance that my first word on this forbidding subject will be my last. When Judge Riddell spoke of an advocate of Annexa- tion not Canadian by birth, there can be Uttle doubt to whom he referred. Annexation, implying force, is a term which I repudiate. Voluntary union of the Enghsh-speaking race upon this continent, like the union of Scotland with England, is the end to which, as it has seemed to me, the course of events is tending. Where was Judge RiddeU's Canadian meeting held? It was held at New York. My coming to Canada was totally uncomiected with any political object. I had been holding what I had 240 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS most desired, the Professorship of Modern History at Oxford, combining with its work an active share in the reorganization of the University, which then was going on. Domestic duty compelled me to leave Oxford and resign my Chair. The duty performed, my time was on my hands, and I found rehef in acceptance of an invitation to take part in the foundation of Cornell University. I had already been in the United States, and had formed many acquaintances there. Cornell University was successfully founded, and was opening its arms to all of British race. I crossed over to Canada, where I had relatives, and where I should still, in case of need, be near Cornell. Marriage bound me by a happy tie to Toronto, but my tie to my native country never was broken. From England invitations came which could not possibly have been made to any one who was not deemed a loyal EngUshman. I brought with me the opinion, then prevalent in England and avowed even by so strong a Tory as Disraeh, that the ultimate destiny of the Colonies was independence. This attracted me to the young party of " Canada First," and made me President of their National Club. But upon a near view of all the circum- stances of the case, territorial, economical and social, I was led to the conclusion that in the case of Canada the tendency was to Continental Union, which I assumed would be formed with the consent of the Mother country and beheved would rather strengthen than weaken the natural tie. A correspondence has been printed to prove that I was an originator of the " Continental Association of Ontaria " formed in 1892 to bring about continental union. Here it is : Canada Life Building, Toronto, Nod. 30, 1892. Dear Sir, — It is the unanimous wish of the members of the Continental Union Association of Toronto that you accept the position of Honorary President of the Association. As you have for many years been an earnest advocate of the union of the EngUsh-speaking CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 241 people on this continent, it is considered fitting that you should fill this position. I am desired to add that your acceptance would not necessarily involve your attendance at oiu? meetings nor require you to take an active part. — Yours respectfully, T. M. White. GoLDwiN Smith, Esq., Toronto. Toronto, Dec, 2, 1892. The Secretary of The Continental Association of Ontario. Dear Sie, — As the Continental Association does me the honour to think that my name may be of use to it, I have pleasure in accepting the Presidency on the terms on which it is offered, as an honorary appointment. Prom active participation in any pohtical movement I have found it necessary to retire. Your object, as I understand it, is to procure by constitutional means, and with the consent of the Mother country, the submission of the question of continental union to the free suffrage of the Canadian people, and to furnish the people with the information necessary to prepare them for the vote. In this there can be nothing milawful or disloyal. That a change must come, the returns of the census, the condition of our industries, especially of our farming industry, and the exodus of the flower of our population, too clearly show. Sentiment is not to be disregarded, but genuine sentiment is never at variance with the pubhc good. Love of the Mother country can be stronger in no heart than it is in mine; but I have satisfied myself that the interest of Great Britain and that of Canada are one. Let the debate be conducted in a spirit worthy of the subject. Respect the feehngs and the traditions of those who differ from us, while you firmly insist on the right of the Canadian people to perfect freedom of thought and speech respecting the question of its own destiny. — Yours faithfully, GoLDwiN Smith. 16 242 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS The movement had its origin in agricultural and in industrial distress. I don't know whether I shall be beheved if I say that had the movement been successful, my connection with it would have been used in securing above all things the interest and honoior of England. An attempt made when I was out of the country to expel me from the St George's Society failed, the movers covering its failure by a platitudinous resolution. I, after waiting some time to challenge a renewal of the attack, withdrew from an association in which I had to meet rancorous enemies. The affair has been greatly misrepresented . An attempt was made on another occasion to con- nect me with treason by a false accoimt of a letter which I had written. By good luck I recovered the real letter, which had not the slightest reference to poUtics, and the calumny, with a shuffling apology, collapsed. At Oxford I had been prominently engaged in the reform which the mediaeval University required to adapt it to the needs of modern times. This probably it was that led to my being enhsted, soon after my arrival, in the work of University reconcentration and improvement here. The movement presently received the powerful support of Sir Casimir Gzowski, aided by Mr Gooderham's bounty, and ultimately took efiect. For a great many years I was worMng in conjunc- tion with my good friend Mr Pell, the Secretary of the St George's Society, and with Mr BaiUe, of the Irish Protestant Society, who afterwards joined us in the organization of the City Charities Association, the necessity of which must by this time be abundantly apparent. It is not very pleasant to say that all the time we were contending against obstinate and even rancorous opposition. Leisure would hardly have been found for this had I been deeply engaged in organizing pohtical revolution. To free trade against protection, when the question was started here, I heartily adhered. The subject, unless taken up for a party purpose, is not one of party. CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 243 Surely, if Nature has visibly decreed anything, she has visibly decreed the common enjoyment by all dwellers on this continent, north and south, of its various pro- ductions. Locked in by the French Province, the United States, and the not yet hterary West, Ontario is not a good field for authorship. Those of its sons who have hterary gifts seem rather to look to England. A writer of history especially misses, at least when I settled here he missed, the archives of the past. But my pen was practised, perhaps restless, and I returned to journalism, my occupation in early days, with very moderate success ; though a httle good may have been done by an example of independence, certainly not unneeded here under the empire of the brothers Brown. One good thing in the journahst line at all events I had the good luck to do. The farmers of Ontario, finding their interest neglected by party pohticians, made an independent effort in their own cause and sent to theLegislatm"e a body of members called the "Patrons of Industry." But party, as might have been expected, prevailed, and the httle organ of the Patrons in the press. The Sun, was at the point of death. I saved its life and ran it, or got it run, for some years in the interest in which it had been brought out independently of pohtical party. That it has done and is doing some good service I think I have reason to beheve. I have received gratifying acknowledgments from the farmers. I shall hardly be thought to have been doing any- thing imbecoming an Enghshman in upholding, as to the best of my abihty I have done, the principles of the Great Charter against the attempt of a Provincial Government to exercise powers of confiscation and of shutting the gate of justice.' My connection with my old friends in England was all the time fuUy kept up; and anyone who imagined that he had succeeded in discrediting me there would ' This refers to the case of the Florence Mining Company (Limited) v. the Cobalt Lake Mining Company (Limited), which is fully explained in a footnote on pages 458-459 of Goldwin Smith's Reminiscences. 244 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS have been rather surprised to see me put in the front of the battle against the dismemberment of the Kingdom by Home Rule; still more perhaps by hearing that I had myseK been pressed to nm in the decisive election. As a Canadian citizen I was opposed to the Boer War. I happened to know well what had brought it about. I knew that the Canadian Parhament and people had been shamefully misled by its authors. I knew that commercial agencies of the most sinister kind were at work. I have repeatedly shown that the cause assigned to the Canadian Parhament and entered on its record was a falsehood, and no answer has been made. Bemg warned that in the United States an organization was on foot to stump that coimtry in favour of the Boer, I sent an earnest remonstrance. Mischief might have ensued. Never, I hope, have I failed, when occasion called, to show myself an Englishman. Several times my pen has defended the action of British diplomacy against Canadian discontent. When the Canadian Parhament voted sympathy with Irish Home Rule, I have come out in defence of the union. When the personal character of the British General who had commanded against the French haK-breeds at Batoche was assailed by the French at Ottawa, and he there found no de- fender, I invited him to my home in Toronto, drew up his reply to the charges, and organized a pubhc dinner on his behaK. When the Home Rulers sent over from Ireland an emissary to get up an attack on the Governor- General, Lord Lansdowne, and the Canadian pohticians stood aloof, I organized a force for his protection. On a tablet which hangs from my wall are recorded the thanks of the Loyal and Patriotic Union for what I did on that occasion. Differences of opinion on pubhc questions there will be, and hot words will sometimes pass. But I will venture to say that no decent man, however opposed to me in opinion, would justify, or regard otherwise than with disgust, the insults, oral and written, which for several years I received. This language, I beheve, wiU not seem too strong to any who were present at the CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 245 distribution of prizes at Upper Canada College on the 18th of October 1894. They will remember that on that occasion I was an uivited guest. On the other hand, I recall with pleasure and gratitude the years of intercourse with many Canadians who, though they may have differed from me strongly in opinion, have not beUeved me capable of treason. From my brethren of the Toronto Press I have received tokens of esteem in my election as President of the Toronto Press Club, and in an address on my resignation of the Presidency sufficient to assure me that in their eyes I can have done nothing at variance with the honour of the profession. Here ends Goldwin Smith's Apologia. The accident by which Goldwin Smith broke his thigh bone occurred early in February. The great man lingered on till 7th June, doggedly, courageously, dictating letters and articles almost till the end. The end came in his own hbrary, and by his bed stood his doctor, his butler and myseM. To sum up, as I have already said, the whole of Goldwin Smith's life wa;S shaped and determined by two great acts of self-abnegation: his resignation of his Oxford chair to attend upon his afflicted father; his relinquishment of a poUtical or academical career in England in deference to his American wife. Had he remained at Oxford, not only might that University have felt the influence of the great Oxford reformer, but the intellectual world might have been the richer by a deep and inspiring historical work. Had he re- turned to England, not only might the petty faction fights of rival parties been largely ehminated, but the standard of political morahty might have been greatly raised. For Goldwin Smith's pohtical views were dis- interested in the highest degree. Self-interest was the last thing he thought of — he never consulted self — jaever asked himseK, " What wiU be said of me if I write 246 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS or say so-and-so? " In the smallest matters, in the most insignificant matters, material self-interest held no sway whatever; although, to speak frankly, I must confess that certain things that conduce to the glorifica- tion of self did hold a good deal of sway. Therein lay a certain secret of Goldwin Smith's career. Never did he seek material advantage ; never did he shape his thought so that his thought should redound to his material advantage — never, iadeed, did he shape his thought save as Ms own earnest and deep-seated con- victions guided; but, were his thought not received, or were it ill-received, he waxed wroth. This very attitude of mind mihtated against both his success and his influence, for it prevented him from working in co-operation with others (since nobody could agree with him in everythiag), and therefore he could not bring his ideas to fruition. Goldwin Smith stood apart. Always he called himself a " Bystander." But never was there such a Bystander. He took the keenest, the hvehest, almost one might say the most personal, interest in the questions of the day. Yet he never joined any party ; and always he fought alone. He fought alone. That is the secret of his life. He never wavered; he never compromised; he never loosened a conviction in order to accommodate either a friend or a foe. Accordingly he was an uncompro- mising foe to " Party." How he hated the word! How he objurgated Burke his upholding of Party! Never was he tired of girding at Party. . . . Party ! I have heard him utter the word with profound and inimitable scorn. Goldwin Smith's character was depicted on his face — grim, thoughtful, disappointed, critical, resentful, tenacious, dogged, lofty, reserved, craving sympathy, yet loath to ask it, shyly looking for acquiescence, yet too proud and too reserved to divulge the search, de- termined yet distrustful — a warfare between the keen- ness of his intellect and the deficiency of his emotions, a warfare of which he himself was perhaps dimly aware. An ordinary man could have held all his anti- CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 247 Imperialistic views and ... I was going to say kept them to himseK. Goldwin Smith coiild not keep them to himself. To his honom- be it said that Goldwin Smith, of all the men of his time and generation, had the courage of his convictions. He had more; being convinced, he thought he ought to speak. And he spoke. He spoke frankly, freely, fearlessly. But alas! he spoke also often with acerbity, with satire, with biting sarcasm, with stmging irony, with irritant venom. He sought to convince, not to persuade. He tried to con- fute, not to convert. In short his appeal was to the intellect, not to the emotions. Sentiment — a concrete, personal, passionate sentiment, felt about a concrete thing, theory, or party — one's country, one's traditions, one's connections, one's family, one's friends — this sort of sentiment he did not seem to understand. He railed at Loyalty; he railed at Aristocracy; he railed at " Jingoism." ' He railed at the party system. He laughed " flag - worship " to scorn. He ridicules Decatur's " My country, right or wrong." Yet a very deep-seated, abstract sort of sentiment he did possess in a very remarkable degree. If I am asked to explain the apparent anomaly, all I can say is this, that he put abstract Right and Truth and Justice before any concrete thing whatsoever. Oppression of the weak he castigated. Political intrigue all his life he lashed. He stood on the same platform with Joseph Arch on behalf of the peasant; yet when he thought the pluto- crat hardly dealt with — as he did in the case of the great Electric Light and Power Companies of Toronto, when " the people " strove to cancel contracts and a Provincial Legislature, so he thought, played into " the people's " hand — he took the part of the pluto- crat. Goldwin Smith was a great and magnanimous Esau; an Esau whose hand was against every man who sought any ends but those of Right and Truth and Justice. Hia ideals were high and noble. What could be nobler than the motto engraved, by his own orders, ' See his pamphlet on " Loyalty, Aristocracy and Jingoism." Toronto, 1891. 248 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS on that stone seat, his own gift, on the Campus of ComeU?— Above all Nations is Humanity. It breathes the very spirit of the Brotherhood of Man. So in fact at bottom, could we see it, do all his theories. His advocacy of the Annexation of Canada to the United States is in reahty an advocacy of the reunion of the Anglo-Saxon race. His abhorrence of Protection is in reality his hope of an ideal and international freedom of trade. His Little-Englandism is one side of the shield which looks to the larger and freer national develop- ment of each of the Colonies; as his detestation of Home Rule is the other side of the shield, since Home Rule, so he thought, meant chsruption of the United Kingdom. So with his attitude towards the Jews. Only because they will not fuse with the peoples among whom they hve does he so gird at the Jews. And all has other whims and foibles can be explamed, condoned, nay, if we are cathohc and tolerant, perhaps, may be lauded, if we interpret them aright, with this motto : Above all Nations is Humanity ever in our minds. " Loyalty," " Aristocracy," " Jmgoism " are to him only hindrances to the Brother- hood of Man. The " Party System " — to him always a byword and a hissing — is but an impediment to a pohtical action which shall be based on Truth and Right alone. " Empire " is a trammelling of the natural instincts of free-born peoples. Rehgious dogma is a dimming of the rays of divine and universal Light. And so on. It may mdeed be that Goldwin Smith has seen far, very far, into the futme; a future in which Great Britain, Canada and the United States will be under the sway of a single ruler ; when all the nations upon earth will dwell together in amity; when wars will be aboHshed, and custom houses razed to the ground; when pohtical parties will be obsolete, and government be carried on by statesmen with a single eye to the CONVERSATIONS AND COMMENTS 249 common good; when Jew and Gentile will merge; and everybody be content with that which he has. If so, it is a future beyond the range of ordinary vision. What he himself says of Cobden perhaps we may say of him: " Cobden," he says, " assumed that the world was a single commimity ; he could not bring the human race to that far-off goal of philanthropy, though he did something to help it on its way." ^ ' In the Nineteenth Century for June 1888. , p o U.S. NOTES U.S. NOTES [Note. — This is an authentic copy of a manuscript Diary in Goldwin Smith's own handwriting foimd by me, Arnold Haultaia, among his papers after his death. The title on the cover was " U.S. Notes." 1864 Aug. 13. Left Mortimer. Aug. 29. Left Oxford for Liverpool. Coarse, dirty- looking Liverpool merchants in the train. News of riots at Belfast. 20. Sailed from Liverpool. Mr and Mrs EHot, Mrs Cleveland and her daughter, Mrs Parkman and her son and daughter, Americans on board. Mr Eliot. American administration. Honest officials imder the place hunters ? Want of high education in America. Consequent want of the best kind of men for pubhc business. No- thing answering to open scholarships — only eleemosy- nary scholarships. Short period of education. Causes and remedies. The attachment of this party to American institu- tions and their country combined with their reverence for Enghsh institutions and character — indicating the real relation between the two countries. To bring out this and cultivate it. The R.C. Bishop of Boston (Fitzpatrick) on board. His Uberahty — showing that the free system tells even in the R.C. The American R.C. rejected Newman's Development, which the Enghsh R.C. were w illin g to use for poHtic ends. Translations of the Bible. The 253 254 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS Bishop allowed the Enghsh version to be far the best. Wished it to be adapted to the R.C. use. Spread of vague infideUty in America. The Bible nominally revised, but made to bend where convenient. No doctrine. The state of the Irish in America. The B. thought their degradation exaggerated. Many of them made fortunes. There might be a doubt whether making fortunes was the great thing. Difference between the emigrants from different parts of Ireland. Those of Kerry idle. (Mem. Position of the Irish in the New World — they form the servant class. Do they get trained to something above their state in their own country and pass through an intermediate stage in this way?) Incidents of the voyage. Queen's messenger on board (Lord Dundreary) — Ms story of himself smoking in a railway carriage and giving the officials as his address when they pulled him up Musurus Hotel, Constantinople. Cabins — beds hke lying on a rail covered with a tape ! We read poetry. Great f amiharity of the American party with Enghsh poetry. Porpoises. Long continuance of fog near Newfoundland. Near ice once. The captain (Anderson) caring more for his passengers than for the associated press did not attempt to make Cape Race. Whale spouting. Phosphor- escence. The loneliness of the mid-ocean. Anxious precautions against fire. The various ways of hilling time. You see what it is then to hill time on board a steamer. Five meals a day. R. Lowe wished for one more. The great interest of meeting vessels at sea. Pass two large steamers — one at night. Care to pre- vent running down. The Newfoundland fishing fleet. 29 of them just burnt by the Confederate privateer Tallahassee. Hard hfe of the fishermen. The slaves of modem civilization. Halifax. Kept up chiefly by the Army (3000 or 4000 men) and Navy. Supphes Newfoimdland with agricultural produce. Recent stimulus to its prosperity from blockade running. Two blockade runners in the U.S. NOTES 255 port. A Yankee, not an English town. Host calls you " stranger." American currency. Laborious and ex- pensive efforts of England to sustain this artificial creation by the side of the natural growth of American prosperity like the mud pyramid in Herodotus by the side of the other pyramids. The E.G. Archbishop of HaUfax. He was promoting the federation of the provinces, with a view to defence. Asked him how he would arrange about the Canadian debt. He admitted the difficulty — but said " What was the debt to the danger of invasion and devastation? " " But cannot you avoid that danger by preserving a peaceable de- meanour toward your neighbours? " " But we might be rim into it by two hot-headed captains in the China seas! " He pointed to the great forts, saying that they were now all useless, being too far from the port, and would have to be reconstructed. Violent Southernism of the people at Halifax. May get them into quarrels with the States. Danger of the American tariff producing smuggling and thus war. Negro settlement at Halifax. The Archbp. gave a bad accoimt of their morahty and industry. Great beauty of Halifax. View over the country from Siddell Hill. Approach to Boston. Glorious evening, brUHant sunset (with coloiurs more defined than the European) — ships in the sunset, phosphorescence. Friday, Sept. 2. Land at Boston. Custom house. New biu'den of taxation — cheerfully borne at present according to Mr Ehot. Heavy income tax, also cheer- fully borne, and fair returns made, in some cases volun- tary seff-assessment at a higher sum. (But wUl this be so when the war feeling is over?) Tremont House. American hotel fashions. Mr Loring and Mr (Judge) Gray call. Introduced to the Union Club. Called at the State House to leave card and a letter of introduction for Governor Andrew. Mr Norton came. Went with him to Shady Hill. Horse car. Mr Norton's family. Mr Lowell joined 256 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS us in the evening. Long talk about American and English politics, American manners, etc. American servants, restless desire to better them- selves. Compare the English. Ladies inclined to complain. Mr N. not. General restlessness of American life, and weariness arising from it the theme of complaint among the ladies. (Its causes — how far transitory? Cure for it in a practical philosophy, founded on rehgion.) The war, no longer one of enthusiasm — but still of steady purpose — being carried on by armies raised with money. Doubtful prospects of Presidential election. A great mass which would go with the winning side. The ( ) nominee (Mr Clellan) war democrat — the platform Peace Democracy. Difference of opinion between Mr N. and Mr Ls about feeling towards England. Mr L. thought it very bitter. Great enthusiasm for Bright. Would he tell the Americans their defects? Argument about Protection. The old fallacies, from which experience has freed England. The notion that each nation should be independent of others. Attempts to prove that the rules were true, but that America was an exception. Fear of excess of labour in England competing with high-priced labour in America — Pitt and the question of Free Trade with Ire- land over again. Idea that national character is im- proved and thus good done to the whole community of nations by freeing various kinds of industry. The practical answer to this Smuggling. They could see that Protection raised the price of commodities to the consumer, but they could not understand its effect in the misdirection of industry. Want of high cultivation perhaps makes the Americans slow in apprehending the theory of pohtical economy. Their ingrained notion that the single object of Enghsh economists is to push Enghsh manufactures. American pohtical characters. Everett, Garrison, Curtis of New York— a writer of hght hterature and U.S. NOTES 257 diner out became an earnest, courageous and self- sacrificing politician under the influence of this struggle. (The abstinence of men of intellect from pohtics before owing partly to the absence of worthy questions?) The vast work of the American people in bringing the country under cultivation to be taken into account in estimating their intensely busy character. It has forbidden repose and the growth of tranquil quahties of mind. The effect of the cUmate on the race. Mr Lowell thought the race did not deteriorate. Large men in New Hampshire and Vermont as well as in the West. No doubt as to the valour of the negro troops. The migratory habits of the population. A man who thought himself overtaxed in his township would have no hesitation in selhng his house and moving else- where. The rest hghtly taxed for fear they should move. Herbert Spencer has many enthusiastic disciples in America. The Comtists are few. The men of business in New York do not now gener- ally dine early and spend the evening in the counting- house. They come home to a late dinner. Saturday, Sept. 4. Mr Clarke, Unitarian clergyman. No rehgious or architectural art at present in America. Went to Governor Andrew. News of the fall of Atlanta. Absence of form in the office, but no vulgarity. Supercession of an official for talking Copper headism. Spirit of civil war. Danger from its continuance to the idea of a community. Governor Andrew's theory of the special faculty of leadership. He wishes the President to put himself in "magnetic "communication with the people and to call out a large force. His strong testimony to the Slave-trading in Virginia. Went to Mr Read. Railway arrangements. Un- finished look of everything as though the people were pressing restlessly forward. Many philanthropic institutions for the blind, lunatics, etc. Perpetual endowments freely permitted. 17 258 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS Mr Read's place and the other places at Brookline. Rational luxury without ostentation. No men-servants. Common enjoyment of the Jamaica lake. Plenty of social intercourse. Contrast London suburbs. Variety of enjoyments in a small space. One house with a Uttle theatre. Unkempt look of the grounds compared with England. People change their houses with great facihty. Mr P. with about £2000 a year, a gentleman without a profession. This case not common. The Cemetery. Egyptian entrance with winged globe. Pleasure grounds. Attempt to make death cheerful. Each walk called after a shrub or flower. In the evening, Dr Hedge, a leading Unitarian clergyman. The Secessionists if they had remained passive and called for a national convention would not have been attacked. Jackson began the system of giving the spoils of office to his supporters. The New York Herald the only influential paper (Dr Hedge). System of poor rehef. Cases inquired into from house to house. No workhouses. Sunday walk through more villas. One, older than the rest, kept more trim. Unitarian Church (Dr Hedge). Service cold. Sermon a good essay in well-chosen language. Preached against extravagance in female dress, ascribing the drain of gold to it. Spoke of the American people as the most prodigal of money and life. Approved the sacrifice of hfe in the wa7\ Position of the young in America. The parties composed of them. The young lady used at one time to send the invitation. But this given up. American young ladies too free and independent. Irish servants. American ladies taken up with training them. The priests come between them and attachment to their masters. Mr Read thought them not so bad. The position of the Irish in America that 260 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS Fernando Wood, leader of the Irish party in New York, a low rogue. Want of permanent administrators in the American system. Everybody turned out when the other party comes in. Rotation of office. v.f'X}'^ "«' ap^tedai. The strong attachment of everybody to these in- stitutions, while in Europe Liberals are lapsing into Imperiahsm. Religious parties in America. Calvinism on the one hand — Unitarianism on the other. Want of a rehgion at once rational and fervent. The Episcopahan Church merely a Church of good society. Strauss and Renan have taken httle effect. Buckle read mainly from the interest of the people in great questions. The Fort and its commandant. A great number of deserters, owing to the Bounty system. The President's address at Gettysburg — very good. The army — good men on the whole brought forward. The President swayed sometimes by pohtical considera- tions, as in the case of Sigel. Compare our war with France. Wellington and Nelson. New York Education very good. Water supply, etc., very good. Pohce now pretty good. Old windmill at Newport carefully preserved as a Scandinavian antiquity. Craving for a historic past. Friday, the 9th. Journey to New York. Country thickly wooded but at the same time cultivated and beautiful. Pretty towns of Connecticut with multitude of church spires. Connecticut by its schools has sent forth a large proportion of American statesmen, Jeff Davis and Stephens among the number. Arrival in New York. IVIr Osborn, old Democrat. Strong for the war — Dwelt however on the horrors of the war. Numbers of women in Mississippi and Arkansas left destitute, their husbands having been killed. Reduced to prostitution. Swallowing snuff as a narcotic. The negroes dying fast. U.S. NOTES 261 Abuse of the popular vote in New York. Cobden's view too ideal. Five Points — not so bad as the bad parts of Liver- pool and London. Schools and Houses of Industry in it. The Irish have built a great part of New York. Also constructed the raihoads. Their lives short — Excellent infirmary for the sick and wounded soldiers. Many such in the States. Ladies attending the soldiers. Busy aspect of New York — busier than London. Saturday, the 10th. With Mr Osbom to Garrisons, near West Point. The docks of New York without shipping — work of the Alabama. Deep feeling of the American people on that subject. Scenery of the Hudson. Grandeiu- of the river. Introduced to General Scott. Talked to me on the question of the identity of human and divine justice raised by my lectures. Talked to Mr Lowe, who had lost heavily by the Alabama. His strong sense of the wrong done, but readiness to accept Enghsh sympathy. His anxiety to promote English emigration. Sunday, the 11th. With Mr Osborn at his place at Garrisons. His nice house and family. Talk on various subjects. Pohtical evils. Corruption and per- sonation at the New York elections. Want of highly- trained statesmen. There are a thousand men as fit to be Governors of a state as the man who has the post. The one who pushes himself into notice does so generally by questionable means. The race of professional poUticians very bad — but external to the real hfe of the nation. (Want of cultivated statesmanship visible in a Lincoln and his cabinet.) Numerous instances of men rising from the lowest ranks of society to the greatest wealth and highest position. Mr Osborn himself, a railway king, had been brought up at a free school. Great influence of the schools at the West. A boy who was driving Mr Osborn for a dollar a day turned round and explained the electric telegraph. The schools 264 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS (Partly perhaps from the rank of a lady not being ascertained.) Monday, the 12th. To Albany by railroad. Villas and signs of prosperity along the Hudson. Albany. Nice situation. Pretty streets with trees. Large R.C. Cathedral. Mr Pryne, wealthy member of the Demo- cratic party. Showed me the State Library — the Chambers of the State Senate and Assembly. The Senate elected by the same Constituency as the As- sembly and mthout distinct quahfications — but for two years. Some check on the Assembly. It used to be for four years. Half going at the end of every two years. Much better plan. Code of laws for the State of New York. The power of granting degrees too lavishly granted by the States to local institutions. There ought to be a central board of Examiners. Mr Pryne a strong advocate for State rights. Be- lieved the States to be sovereign and to have only delegated certain functions, mostly those relating to foreign aiJairs, to the Central Government. Opposite views on the question whether the United States are a Confederacy or a nation — indication of an ambiguity in the terms of the settlement. Mr Pryne's antipathy to the Abohtionists. He thought the other States had nothing to do with the conduct of the Slave States in the matter of Slavery. Thought Slavery would have been gradually abolished in all the States as it had been in the Northern if the Abohtionists had let it alone. (But in the States which had a great interest in maintaining it? ) He thought the question of Slavery in the territories (Kansas) of no practical importance, because it would have been decided by the people directly the territory became a State. But the Kansas slave-owners tried by force to estabhsh Slavery there. Mr Pryne's alarm at the state of the finances. Dear- ness of all imported articles. (Tendency of the tariff to estrange America from the nations.) Persuasion of Americans that England protected her manufactures till they had become the greatest in the world and then declared for Free Trade. U.S. NOTES 265 Monday, the I2th (10.40 p.m.). From Albany to Niagara. Sleeping-car. Some of the passengers play- ing rough pranks through the night. No bad language. Tuesday, the lith. Niagara. International Hotel. Black waiters here and elsewhere. The negro, Kke the Irishmen, may commence his course upwards by per- forming the menial (though free) offices of Society. The Falls — discharge of four lakes through a narrow chaimel into Ontario. The American and the Canadian Fall. The rapids above and below. The FaUs by sunlight and by moonhght. Their appearance in the last twihght. Solar and lunar rainbow. Walk on the Canadian side. Different appearance of the people and houses — apparently belonging to a less prosperous community. JMr Randolph with me. Educated at a free School and an " Academy." The Academies preparatory to the University. Some rich men send their sons to the free schools and some of the poor manage to send their sons with the rich to the Academies. Wednesday, 14:th. From Niagara to Detroit. Thursday 15th. Detroit to Chicago. Received at Detroit by Mr Price. Great concourse of people at the railroad in spite of the taxes. Republican Senators for Michigan, Mr and Mr Howard, with me in the carriage. Ardent Republi- cans, gentlemanly men. A Colonel from East Tennessee who had been burnt out by the rebels. Wretched log houses among the clearings in Canada. Michigan — its towns and villages. Their neat and prosperous aspect. Number of church steeples. Counted four to a town of about 1000 or 1200 inhabi- tants. This, according to Mr PhiUips, less than the average. The first thing when there are ten or twelve famihes collected is to build a church. Subscriptions more easily collected for this than any other object. The peace, according to Mr Randolph, weU kept in these new settlements. 266 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS Appearance of the people comfortable. Well clad. They make several trips to one of the great cities every year. The Michigan lumberers formed several of the finest regiments at the outbreak of the rebellion. Strikes in America not common (Mr Randolph). Some since the derangement of the currency, but no violence. Great effect of the railroads in opening up the country. At Chicago — received by Mr Philhps (at Mr Cobum's home) and by Mr Douglas. Agricultural prosperity of Illinois. Its produce this year will be greater than ever, though it has given 140,000 men to the war. Great exhibition of new agricultural implements at the last State fair. They have made up for the scarcity of laboiu:. Farmers owning farms 3 or 4 miles square, who have risen from the lowest station. The land here rapidly changes hands. Seldom held by the same person 10 years. They sell at a profit and buy cheaper land further west. Curious preference of some for timbered land instead of prairie. They think the prairie will yield them no wood for their houses, railiiigs, etc. Also some are afraid of coming vevj far west. The Court House. Elective State judiciary. Mr Douglas thinks it works ill. His respect for English judges. Mr Scammon. Chicago schools. The free schools excellent — resorted to by almost all parents. A six- teenth of the land set apart for their maintenance. The difficulty they have to contend with in training this population of mixed nationalities, perpetually flowing in and perpetually shifting. Struggle to make education denominational — resisted by the peojjle. Universal reading of the Bible — sign that the people are rehgious. (The Comte de Paris 's account of the army of the Potomac.) Bookshop at Chicago. Sohd works on the table — U.S. NOTES 267 especially theology and metaphysics. Works of EngUsh Liberal theologians. Immensely rapid growth of Chicago. The only port on Lake Michigan. High value of house property. Talk with Mr Lewis. Relations between employed very good. Few strikes before the war. The questions settled justly. The masters held out when an attempt was made by the engineers to coerce the railroads. No organization in the nature of Trades Unions before the war — its existence now threatens evil. Mr Lewis heard a demagogue the other day for the first time trying to set labom: against capital. The armies. The soldiers will soon be reabsorbed into other employments. Many of them will settle South. They belong to a different class of men from the soldiers of standing armies. There have been isolated acts of atrocity, and sometimes plunder has been permitted by bad ofificers. But their conduct generally good. (In their treatment of women they would have their own families before their eyes.) In the evening at Mr Newberry's — His account of the rapid growth of Chicago since he arrived at manhood. There had scarcely ever been any disorder or violence in the place. (The wonderful thing not the growth, with the raOroad and the prairie, but the way reUgion and education retain their influence.) No registration of voters. Resisted by the Demo- crats. Exists in Massachusetts. General resort of all classes to the free schools. Every child on presenting itself has a right to admittance. Treatment of the Indians. They are dealt with not as wards of the Government, but as independent lords of the soil, and treaties are made with them, but they are defrauded by the agents of the Government. The Democratic party. The name carries a good many. Universal reading of newspapers. Every farmer has his daily or weekly paper. The great com elevators. The corn trade of 268 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS Chicago. The land freightage double the ocean freightage. Limits to the corn trade with Europe. Protectionism in America — The common text-book (Wayland's) Protectionist. Prostitution in Chicago about the same as in other great cities. Crimes of violence, etc. Mr Lewis, formerly editor of a paper, thought the influence of the press in forming opinion not very great. The Schools. Open to all — no compulsion — but their excellence produces a moral pressure. More women than men teachers. The women looked healthy. Separate desks for each child. No grade in the free schools. Attempts to grade in the rural districts. The R. Cathohcs would have schools of their ovm if they could afford them. A chapter of the Bible read each day. R. Cathohcs permitted to use the Douay version but do not care to do so. Case of objection to reading the Bible. No compulsion apphed. Atrocities of the rebels against the Federal prisoners in the prisoners' camp at Andersonville. (Government and association, their several spheres and relations — Association tending as Society advances to supersede government.) Dinner at Mr Scammon's. Argument as to the arbitrary arrests. Mr Scammon upholding inherent right of the President to act by mihtary law. Two judges contra. Strong feehng for law and the Con- stitution. (Seward began the arrests. Obscure persons arrested and confined without any specification of the offence. Case of General Stone — arrested without cause given after Bull's Bluff. Kept in prison for 14 months. Put again in command but with inferior rank. Afterwards employed in high command again. Personal spite of subordinates — Arbitrary acts of generals. Imposition of oaths.) U.S. NOTES 269 Absence of atrocious sentiments against the South in conversation. Small pay of clergymen — Not above £200 a year on the average. Dishke of farmers for high education. " Does not teach a man to make a straight furrow." Argument on the effects of the Civil War. One of the company strongly denied that it had brought out a more Christian feehng about Slavery or any other subject. Mr PhiUips. The produce of IlUnois this year worth five hmidred milhons of dollars. Net produce three hundred miUions. Great proportion of the cost of land carriage to water carriage. The Erie canal to be widened so as to have water carriage from Chicago to New York. The Mississippi will never again be so great a route. Some of the articles {e.g., treacle) brought up that way now produced in Illinois itself. (Many of the commanders in the war had been employed on the lUinois Central Railroad.) Factitious parties bred by the contests for the Presidency. Party conventions against the spirit of the Constitution, which provides Electoral Colleges. Insanity not common, in spite of the gambhng speculation (Mr Lewis). The Scandinavians excellent settlers. All Repubh- cans, while the Irish are aU Democrats. Most of the leading men of business in the Chamber of Commerce at Chicago between 25 and 30. Sunday at the Episcopahan Church. Service good. The clergyman rebuked the congregation very freely for not coming to afternoon church. The clergjonan paid $3000 a year. Sent twice to Europe for his health at the expense of his congregation. Xmas presents besides. The congregation (Episcopal) not a very close bond — United in charities — great gatherings at the clergy- man's twice a year. Simday evening at Mr Newbery. Mr Higginson, 270 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS who had been a prisoner in the camp at Andersonville, present. Horrors of the camp. Company all republi- can. Absence of desire for bloody retahation. Determination to maintain the rights of negro soldiers obstacle to the exchange of prisoners. Mr Cormick, a very wealthy man and a very grinding employer, the candidate of the Democratic mob m Chicago. They hope to bleed him about $50,000. General dissatisfaction at the character of Congress and the Statesmen. Lager beer — the Germans. ("36 glasses did no harm — but could not say what might happen if a man made a beast of himself.") The Chicago schools. Their excellence. Liveliness and attentiveness of the pupils. Mixture of sexes. Women teaching boys of 14 or 15. School opened with a chapter in the Bible, a psalm, the Lord's prayer. Children of aU denominations present. 20,000 in the schools. Drafting from the Primary schools into the High school. Short lessons. Shoeless children in the playgroimd with those of the rich people of the place. Chicago University — Great buildings rismg in the midst of civil war. Pupils very young. Colonel Tucker — isolated acts of atrocity by Federal troops — general conduct good. Bad officers at first. Failure of elective system. Pohtical motives for appomtments. Passion of the Americans for pubhc spealdng. Its causes and effects. No other way of becoming ac- quamted with pubhc men. Sept. 19. From Cliicago to Dmileith and Dubuque. Dubuque capital of Iowa. Catholic town. 12,000 people. Upper Mississippi. Fine country. Nice country seats. The villages on the Upper Mississippi as well or better supphed with churches as the others. Mr Douglas U.S. NOTES 271 asked by a very new and small settlement to contribute to a church which is to cost 6000 dollars. English emigrants cling together. They are not so apt to build churches or schools. Brought to build schools by their American neighbours and the law. Good farmers. The lead muiers — good character, thrifty — gener- ally working on their own account. They buy land as soon as they are able to settle. Union of mmeral with agricultiu'al wealth in Illinois. Route from Dunleith to Bloomington. Court Hill about 6000 inhabitants scattered over 3 or 4 square miles. 4 churches, 4 schools. Cheerfuhiess and prosperity of the httle towns and villages on the road. Sept. 21st. Bloomington. General Gridley. Military man, lawyer, banker, gas-maker, and general speculator. Type of a money-making Yankee. But he had sunk 8000 dollars in the way of a loan not repaid in the neighbouring training institution and did not repent it. Bloomington a thriving place of 10,000 inhabitants with a fine hotel — the Astley House. Nice-looking waggons in the streets belonging to the neighboming farmers. Clerical salaries. The Episcopal clergyman has a thousand dollars, the Presbyterian 1500 doUars, at Bloomington. The stipends paid to clergymen, both Episcopahan and Presbyterian, range from 1000 dollars to 8000 dollars. Besides this a popular clergyman gets almost as much more in perquisites — on marriages and burials — and by " donation and surprise parties," par- ticularly if he is thought to be in difficulty. The Methodist clergyman has allowances from his church equivalent to 1000 or 1500 dollars. The clergy hve as well as other people of their class. A clergyman in New York has a good carriage. Dr Carming, a popular preacher at Chicago, found his church in debt, 33,000 doUars, which was paid off in half an hour. 272 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS Minds and intelligence alone can sustain a republic. The Normal University (Training College) at Bloomington. Pine building and noble rooms. The males and females taught together. They lodge in the neighbourmg houses — no bad general effects. Occa- sional breaches of disciphne. Drive through the coimtry. Farm of 27,000 acres owned by a man who had risen from poverty and could scarcely ^vrite. He was giving his sons a good educa- tion. Visit to the farm of Mr Case — neat house, with well- furnished sitting-room with books. The farmer's manner good. Everything about him prosperous. The State of Illinois against the admission of negroes into the State — unrepealed fiat made a dead letter by pubUc opinion. Col. Gridley knew an instance of 200 negroes employed in farm work. They made excellent labourers. Did a good day's work and never thought of leaving their master. The Irish opposed their admission. The State Fair — great numbers of agricultural imple- ments. Perfect happiness and good humour. The price of admission 25 cents. 17,000 dollars taken in this way. Col. Gridley had a high idea of the President, but thought Congress " rowdy." His anecdotes of the scenes there. Mr Lewis on California. Splendid chmate. The first settlers enterprising and respectable with some money, the passage being expensive. Then a lawless set from all countries, including England and Australia. Now good order again. Schools and churches as m the Eastern States. San Francisco has produced a theologian of some eminence. Ilhnois State Fan-. Splendid stock as well as farm implements. 27,000 people present. The farmers all in their best clothes and in good humour. Large prices given for high-bred animals. 1500 dollars for a merino ram. The lUinois farmers generally spare men. Temper- ate in their habits. Great Methodists. Go to meeting U.S. NOTES 273 three times on a Sunday — Family devotions with prayer by the head of tlie family at home. Keep the Sabbath very strictly. Nobody can lead them pohtically but respectable and sensible men. The morals of the people good. Syphihs almost unknown. Prostitution confined to the great cities. Mr Lewis. (But there was a conspicuous advertise- ment of syphihtic medicme in the leading Chicago paper.) The Mormons. Polygamy confined to a few leading men. When they leave the settlement they fall back into monogamy. From Bloomington to Cairo. Southern character of the scenery at Cairo. Junction of the Mississippi and Ohio. The woods of Kentucky on the other side of the Ohio. The Mississippi very low at this time. Cairo full of soldiers going to and returning from the war. The hundred days' men apparently eager to get home. Proof that the troops raised for the war will become citizens and labourers again. Same tendency visible in generals — Grant. Talk with a soldier. The army of the Potomac not downhearted after Chancellorsville. They beheved their generals to be hampered by orders from Wash- ington. The soldiers civil and ready to converse. The com- pany officers elected by the men. The colonels by the company officers. The negroes, according to an officer, fought admir- ably. Went into action smihng. The very best troops they had. Passed on the railroad a village in Illinois which had sent its 100 men, full complement, to the war. 24 of the men fell at Fort Donelson. Their bodies brought back to their village. The Illinois farmers ready to help each other. One being blind, his neighbours offered to take land of the Illinois Railway Company and cultivate it for him. 18 274 GOLDWIN SMITH : LIFE AND OPINIONS Journalism carried on in small towns by men who are at once editors, writers and practical printers. Tolerably independent according to Mr Lewis. Bad printing. (American journaKsm rougher than Enghsh. But doubtful whether more sensuous or more unscrupulous. Little fine writing. Gives sohd reasons.) [Perhaps the East will be converted to Christianity from Cahfornia.] Passed Jonesborough. Mass meeting at which the two opposing candidates were to address the people. These meetings well conducted. A president appointed by those present, and a certain time allowed to each of the candidates to speak. This must breed habits of fair discussion. A candidate for Congress must be an inhabitant of the Congressional district. Thus he must be personally well known to the electors. This possibly apphes to general State elections, e.g., for the Governorship. Urbana (Champaign). Mr Johnson, farmer. Well- educated man. Had been writing a history of Illinois. Called plants by their scientific names. Rather a misanthrope, having met with some disappointment. Had not been to church for 7 years. Disliked schools. A Copperhead in poHtics — in favour of the right of secession on the ground of popular sovereignty. Com- plained of a reign of terror in matters of opinion, caused by the violence of the majority. Did not complain of a reign of terror on the part of the Government. He expressed his sentiments freely before a Repubhcan. Inclined to take a gloomy view of institutions. Did not complain of the elective judiciary. Thought substantial justice well administered by it. " The Supreme Court of the State a disgrace to the country, because it had never decided against the railroads." The officers of justice paid by fines on the criminals. It very rarely happens that the offender has not where- withal to pay the fine. In cases of murder it is ex- pected that Society will aid the law. The pay of a judge only 1000 dollars a year. That U.S. NOTES 275 of the Governor only 1500 dollars. These sums fixed by the Constitution of the State. Greatly reduced by the paper currency. (Qy. whether, the salaries being fixed by the Constitution, the officers will not become virtually unpaid?) Cultivation of sorghum (sugar cane) for molasses. Superseding the molasses of the South. People always selhng their farms and moving west- ward. This must give a very shiftmg character to Society. Nevertheless the State feeling is very strong. Acquaintances are very quickly formed. There seems to be httle society. But all read the daily newspapers. Drive over the prairie. Splendid farm of Mr Arthur. Boundless expanse of the prairie. It extends several thousand miles in length and breadth. The railway has been to it what the Nile is to Egypt. Storm on the prairie. Great clouds of dust. Violent rain with thunder and hghtning. Man at the hvery stables breeding mules. Wished to buy an Enghsh stallion. Cared not whether Lincoln or McClellan was elected. Weary of the war. Farms in Iowa had been left un tilled for want of hands. Women had been doing the work of men. Met some waggons full of emigrants retiuning from Iowa, where they had failed or been disturbed by bush- wackers. Restless desire of pusliing further west. The schools. Not full, a circus having drawn off the pupils. Good master and mistresses, teaching by very good methods In speUing two boys write each word on the large slate. The rest write on their own slates. Corrected afterwards. Pay of the master, 1100 doUars. Of the mistresses, 400. About 2500 people in the town- ship. 400 children in school. Children, according to the master, indifferent to any knowledge but grammar and arithmetic. Thought they might pick up the rest afterwards. Mr Crandall. Editor of the Champaign Gazette, farmer, etc. Very intelligent and well read. His idol the WesUninster Review. Had watched the Essay 276 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS and Review's Controversy, etc. Went with the Liberal side, but still a Christian. The sects very dead and hollow. The spirit of Christianity had grown broad and was showing itseK in Society in the form of philanthropic institutions, etc. The sects exercise power of excommunication. At Champaign four churches for 2500 people. The ministers rather ill paid — salary, 400 dollars ; donations, etc., 200 to 400 more. A ruffianly-looking Irishman, unable to read, a prominent Democrat in Champaign. The Welsh have a large colony in the S. of New York. Good c[uiet people. The Germans very good colonists. The Scandmavians excellent colonists, well educated. They do not hang together — but merge, as soon as they can, m the Americans. The negroes excellent work- men. (Evident change of sentiment about the negro.) Desire for a common Christianity beginning to grow up among those weary of the narrowness of the sects — even the clergy. No very eminent theologians in America. (Their theology is takhig rather the form of philosophy, in- quiries into the behef in a future state, freedom of the will, etc.) A circus at Champaign fully attended — Lack of amusement among the farmers. The mayor of Champaign — a yomig lawyer under 25. The population of Illinois, ui the North, consists of the most enterprismg and active men from the Eastern States. In the South the Southern element comes in with its ignorance and other defects. The Southern part Democratic. Stephen Douglas pohtical leader of Ilhnois — self- raised man — Ms hfe. A moderate Democrat. His theory popular sovereignty of the xvhites. RaUied to Lincohi after the outbreak of the rebeUion. A day labourer in lUinois at present gets two dollars a day- — but this is exceptional. Commonly he gets twenty dollars a month besides board and washing for U.S. NOTES 277 eight months — twelve dollars for the rest of the year — he lives with the farmer and his family, and in every respeot on equal terms with them. It is common to hold a farm under another person, paying him as rent a certain portion of the produce. Union mass meeting at Urbana. The neighbouring farmers there. Fine intelhgent-looldng race of men — more spare in frame than our farmers. Speech addressed to them by Mr Bromwell, the candidate for Congress. An hour and a half long. Good speech, appealing throughout to the reason and to high poHtical considera- tions. Calumnies against England. A httle clap-trap, which the audience did not seem to hke. Loud cheering at the announcement of Sheridan's victory. A ragged boy tumbling on the platform while the orator was speaking. Dumer with Mr Crandall. The daughter acting as housekeeper and cook. We dined in the kitchen opening on the sitting-room. Sunday, the 25th. Inferior quarter of the town full of Irish, German Cathohcs and negroes. The bitterness and superstition of Cathohcism. The Cathohcs gener- ally became Protestants in the second generation. Sabbath strictly kept. Fine for selling beer or spirits on Simday (or election day) sometimes evaded by the Germans. (The magistrates have been stricter in these matters and in the general exercise of authority since the war.) CoUegiate Institution large building erected as private speculation. The friends of education dis- courage private estabhshments, wishing to make the pubhc as perfect as possible. Nice appearance of the people in their best clothes, coming in in their waggons to church. FuU attendance at church. A very church-going people. Six churches for a population of rather more than 2000 inhabitants. Where the population is very scattered, the schools used as churches. Went to the Methodist Church. Full congregation, well-dressed and very devout. The ruling elder preached 278 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS a good sermon in the Methodist style. Good prayer for the success of the armies, the generals being men- tioned by name. The minister called for a collection in very free terms. Negroes present and stayed for commimion. (Evident change of feehng in favour of negroes produced by the war. According to the law of lUinois they are still excluded from the State.) In the evening to the Congregational Methodists — Small congregation. Unobjectionable but rather duU sermon. Good hymn book. Introduced to the minister — a plain good man. Action of the Churches in the matter of Slavery — according to Mr Crandall not very firm and consistent. The Episcopalians Pro-Slavery. The ( ) have never admitted a Slave-owner into their communion. The Methodist theology to a great extent biogra- phical. No other Methodist hterature. The Churches really exercise the power of excommunication for breaches of Christian morahty. The Church government of the Congregational Methodists entirely democratic. Mr Johnson's accoimt of the soldiers. They were not guilty of murdering non-combatants nor of violation of women. But they insulted women and robbed. (Mem. Mr Johnson very hostile to the war.) A farm labourer's wages, according to Mr J., 25 or 30 dollars a month, besides board. Treated by the farmer as an equal. Mr J. complained of having been insulted for the profession of his opmions. A large piece of ground reserved for a park at Champaign. The trees all grow toward the S.W., the winds com- ing from the N. West. Beautiful sunset on the prairie. Iowa hght soil, inferior in wealth to IlUnois. Indiana something like Ilhnois. Incapacity of Carlyle to understand the Americans as an intelligent people fit for self-government, not a nation of fools to be governed by a Idng. U.S. NOTES 279 Urbana — old capital of the State languishing — the railroad having been turned aside to Champaign by a grasping land-o^vne^. Monday, 27. Returned to Chicago. Mr Healy, artist. Desire for paintings among the rich men of Chicago. Dr Duggan^CathoHc Bishop of Chicago. Irish. Mamtained that his countrymen were mdustrious and excellent workmen in America. Himself a highly- cultivated man. Read and admired Gibbon — anxious to hear of good works of all kinds. Winning manners. Apparently a cordial love of American institutions. Strongly against the rebeUion. Opposed to any inter- ference of the State with the Church. Confederate prisoners at Gamp Douglas. Each prisoner 12 oz. of good bread — 10 oz. of good pork a day, besides beans and rice. Vegetables when certified to be necessary. The barracks very rough but much the same as those of the U.S. soldiers. The men ap- parently cheerful. A very different-looking set from the Northern's. Many of them very yomig. Boys of sixteen. One of 17 had been m the army three years. Douglas' grave. Douglas, the great poUtical hero of Illinois. Apparently an honest man. But held ex- treme doctrines of white Uberty, includmg a power for each State to settle " the relations of master and servant as well as of father and child, husband and wife." De- claimed against despotism. " Wanted no Enghsh aUiance." Appeals in the Senate to the " platform " on which the President had been elected as though it were equal in vahdity to the Constitution. Close and tyrannical organization of the Democratic party — adverse to the duties of citizens. The commandant of Port Douglas had been three times wounded. Some of the wounded had remained on the field nine days after the second battle of Bull's Run. He thought men as a rule were brave in battle. Cowardice the exception, except in case of panic or confusion. 280 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS Tuesday, 28. Niece of an Englishwoman with her six children sent over here by her brother (?) to get rid of her. Kindness of Mr PhUhps and of the Superm- tendent of Pohce. Abundance and activity of American charity. Mr Clarkson. American clergyman. 280 famihes under his charge. He and the other clergymen asso- ciated cordially in all matters of public benevolence. Missionary associations and all other rehgious works carried on apart. Little interest felt in questions of speculative theology. Infidel works have no influence. The Enghsh emigrants slow in supporting churches. Not used to the voluntary system. Many Enghsh emigrants leave the Church for the Methodists. Went to the Chamber of Commerce. Recent panic caused by the fall of gold and prices generally. Busy throng in the Hall. Great trade between Chicago and Montreal. The commerce on the lakes equal in value to the ocean com- merce of America. Great bargains made in the Chicago Exchange merely by word of mouth. A body of 100-day men just returned from the war. sired to march against the Confedej Missouri — marched without hesitation. Desired to march against the Confederate invaders of Tuesday, Sept. 27. From Chicago to Detroit. Detroit — fine streets. The draft going on very quietly. Driven round the town by Mr Joy. House of Mr Ward, a milHonaire who had risen from nothing. Invited me to stay with him (A. Ward, Detroit). House of General Cass — old declaimer against England. Not according to Mr Joy, very much against a war. The pressure of the debt. Anxiety which it is causing. Difficulty of adjusting taxation. The people themselves creditors and not disposed to repudiate. The interest to be reduced ? CaTiada Wednesday, Sept. 28. From Detroit to Toronto by sleeping-car. Canadian railway officials more civU than U.S. NOTES 281 American. Passed through a wooded but nice-looking country. Toronto on the shores of Lake Ontario. Spread over a great deal of ground with poor houses. Some fine pubUc buildings — Osgoode Hall. The city ap- parently not prosperous. Dined with IVIr Boulton. Mr Brown, the leader of the Liberal party, and Mr Cayley, a former minister of the other party, present. Strong, and according to them, universal feeling against the continuance of the con- nection — No reason but the sentiment given. Contra- dictory notions as to the character of the connection — whether temporary or perpetual — and as to the abihty of Canada to maintain herseK as a nation. Violent prejudice against the Americans — no such prejudice expressed by the Americans against the Canadians. Plans for Confederation. A governor for each pro- vince and a supreme Governor and legislature for the whole. Will such a plan work? The Canadians free from the reaction against Enghsh institutions caused in America by the violent disruption. But inclined to lay down their new institutions too much in the English lines. Canadian Law-courts. The judges sit in their robes — more authority than in England. — Strong respect for the Bench which prevents the appointment of bad men on pohtical groimds. Advantage in this respect over the States. Not universal suffrage but shght property quahfica- tion. Provincial Eair at Hamilton. Hamilton a flourish- ing place. Fair well attended. Good stock — fruits — blankets. The Canadian farmers rather fine-looking. Apparently more intelhgent than the Enghsh farmer — less intelhgent than the farmers of Illinois. Rich merchants of Hamilton — The wealthiest about £100,000. Effect of the presence of Enghsh aristocracy and officers in leading to display and extravagant entertainments. Tendency of rich Canadians to carry their wealth to England. If the connection was severed all the wealthy men would go home. (Mr Boulton.) 282 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS Drive with Mr Geddys — clergyman of Hamilton. Pine view of the town and country, with the Flam- borough Hills, woody and dotted with farms. Mr Buchanan, leading merchant at Hamilton. Pohtical man. Strong Protectionist — Thought Free Trade and Empire contradictory principles. Pamphlet by a Colonist, " The Northern Kingdom," advocating the estabhshment of a monarchy under an Enghsh Prince. A great many poor at Toronto. From want, they take to whisky. No regular poor rate, but an annual sum given by Government. The rich not very hberal — Contrast vdth the Americans. University. Dr McCaul. Large new buildings with excellent lecture-rooms, etc. Forty students in the college. The rest in the towm, in houses chosen by the parents or approved by the Principal. 300 in all. All rehgious denominations in the College as well as out. Simple prayers and a chapter m the Bible each morning. Jews attend the prayers. Each student placed under the care of the minister of his own denomination. More rehgion, according to Dr McCaul than rmder the compulsory system in England. Expense only about £40. A large number of scholarships open to com- petition. There was a wish to hmit them to counties. System of the University allowing of hues. The students come generally about 18. Some much older who have been schoolmasters. Sharp matricula- tion examination. 25 out of 80 plucked. Children very independent of their parents in this country, on account of the early age at which they make their own futures. Nevertheless very tractable at College. Increasing wish among the men of busmess to give their sons a high education. Pubhc opinion decided in favour of mixed education as against denominational. Sharp distinction of classes in Canada. People do not send their sons to places of education with those of a class beneath them. Impress of Enghsh Society on Canadian. Rev. Mr Fuller. The Canadian farmers on the M'hole U.S. NOTES 283 a good set of men and religious. Better in the first generation and the third than the second. Cheap whisky the bane of the country. Municipal Constitution. Each towaiship an elective hive. The Reeves from the County Council — All these people paid. Also the members of the Legislature (6 dollars a day besides travelling). The Upper House elected for eight years, by the same constituency. Not affected by a dissolution, but go out by rotation, to avoid General Elections. The whole system becoming too comphcated and expensive. Taxes at Toronto 20 per cent, on rental. Great bribery at elections. An election at Toronto costs £4000 or £5000 spent in bribing the low electors. Great jobbing in the Government. Ottawa — Tlie Grand Trunk. The municipal offices now held by fourth-rate men. A school of demagogism gradually rising. No convulsions yet. (Dr Bevan.) The morals among the Canadian youth at the Schools and Universities very low. Enghsh youths sent among them liable to contamination. Want of truthfulness, arising from their bemg of a lower class. Trinity College for Church of England exclusively not flourishing. No effective mihtary force in Canada — no militia — volunteers drawn mainly from the population of the towns (Mr O'Brien). The people cannot understand mihtary requirements. Cause of Canadian parties. Rebellion of 1837. The Reform party annihilated after it. Afterwards revived. Lower Canada Lidemnity Bill. Clergy Reserves Bill another battle-groxmd. Violence of some of them. Confficts — Bloodshed. Parhament House burnt — Lord Elgin pelted. Fierce debates in Congress. Pohtics now at a deadlock. The Orangemen a Conservative party. Foimd sometimes in alliance Math the Roman Cathohcs. Opposed to the dissenters. The Upper House — exercises a real check on legis- lation (Mr O'Brien). The length of tenure gives its members a conservative character. 284 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS Mr A. A member of the Upper House. His hatred of the Americans. Had been for some time in England and spent a great deal of money there. Imitation of Enghsh aristocracy. His anxiety to remain a " British subject." Everything at Toronto in debt — The new churches throughout Canada in the same state. Mr L. S. very anxious to get some money made and leave the place. (For history of Canada apply to J. G. Hodgins, Deputy-Superintendent of Education, Toronto.) Extraordinary fluctuation of the value of property and of the fortunes of individuals at Toronto. Like the heaving of waves before Society settles. Upper Canada College. Great High School of Canada preparatory to the University. No rehgious restrictions. Prayers of a comprehensive character read in the Boarding-House. The pupils placed under the ministers of their own persuasion. The pupils very tractable if kindly treated — though not like Enghsh boys in their outward demeanour. (Master of Boarding-House.) Training College with School of Art about to be attached. Under Dr Ryerson. Very good building and arrangements. Tuesday, Oct. 4. From Toronto to Montreal. Grand Trunk. Montreal the only increasing city in Canada. Present terminus of railroads. Toronto flourished while it was the terminus. The St Lawrence one of the great channels of trade. Large ships can come up to Montreal. Fine view of Montreal from the mountain — with the city, the St Lawrence — the hills beyond. Compare Salzburg. Fine buildings in the town, especially the banks. The wealthy and progressive part of the town Enghsh. Some quarters and the neighbouring peasantry French. The lowest quarter Irish. The Roman CathoUcs inoffensive (Mr Rose) but unprogressive. The education question quietly settled on the separate basis. U.S. NOTES 285 The seigniorial tenures entirely and no primogeniture. A Liberal party (on Colonial subjects) at Montreal. Oct. 5. From Montreal to Boston. Called on Mr Sumner. His views on the conduct of the war and England. He thought England ought not to have recognized the South as belUgerents. This was done by Lord Russell mthout consulting the American Ambassador. Weakness of Mr Seward. He had been inclined to a violent foreign poUcy up to the time of the Trent affair — after that he became pacific. His indis- creet dispatches on the subject of Slavery. His de- clarations that Slavery had nothing to do with the war. His violent language (amounting to a declaration of war so far as a mere diplomatic act could) cut down by Mr Lincoln. Mr Sumner, Chairman of Foreign Affairs Committee. Reciprocity treaty under consideration. Hon. S. Hooper. Member of the Senate. Confi- dence in the re-election of Lincoln. The Irish voters mercenary. Go to the side which can give them patronage. Called on Mr Lamrence. Spent the evening with Mr Watershe, Unitarian clergy- man. His confidence in and affection for the people. Spirit in which the war had been carried on, without bitterness of feeling against the Southerns. The young men of the upper classes had gone willing to give their fives from a sense of duty. Their portraits and memories cherished. State of rehgion. Tending towards liberahty and a virtual reunion of the best men of all sects — Unitarian and Evangefical — an Evangelical minister wilhng to promote the objects of a Unitarian's ministry. Thought intercourse between Christians of different sects useful. They had more to impart and the variations of idiom brought the thoughts more home. Oct. 6. Breakfast with Mr Fields— Mr Holmes and Governor Andrew. Capital punishment — the Governor for its abolition. 286 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS Thought the experiment successful in the States where it had been tried. The criminal confined for life always buoyed up by hopes of pardon. Mr Holmes thought capital punishment made human hfe cheap, while abohtion would make it supremely sacred. (Qy. Different systems suited to different states of Society.) Rehgion — convergence of the sects. Middle ground between the Liberal Methodists or Baptists and the Unitarians, pecuhar feature of this country. An orthodox clergyman's description of Emerson — " Pound legs to heaven somehow." There must be a screw loose in him somewhere, but, though he had often had his ear at his breast, he could not hear the creaking. But he knew no more of Gospel rehgion than Balaam's ass did of Hebrew grammar. A rude Methodist preacher's prayer: "Lord, we would not pray for anything so mean as that the laws of the universe and the convenience of the Host of Heaven should be interfered with to suit any selfish desire of ours. We pray that justice may be done — hit where it may." CathoUcism in America. Necessary for the Irish, who become heathens and bad citizens when out of the hands of their priests. The hierarchy not bad citizens (Governor Andrew). Faith of the Americans that their hberal institutions are powerful enough to swallow up what is noxious in Roman CathoUcism. The hberal- izing tendency very visible and very beautiful in some of the R.C. Clergy. Pusejdsm in America very weak (without its pohtical support). Universahsm (belief that aU will be saved) a sect produced by reaction agamst Calvinism, especially among mothers. Sect principally among the uneducated. (MultipUcation of sects favourable ultimately to miitjr.) Universahsts get over the difficulty of moral indifference apparently inherent in their scheme by supposing greater capacity for future enjoyment in the good. Wendell Phillips. Great anti-slavery lecturer. Lectures all over the country. Two hundred times in a U.S. NOTES 287 year. Makes, by his own account, 8 dollars by a lecture. The practice of lecturing in America a New England institution which has spread to the other States. No lecturing south of Mason and Dixie's hne. Philhps a mild, gentlemanly man. But given to violent language in his speeches. Inveighing against Lmcoln. Loves to be in opposition, and to have the world against him. (The rhetorical character in America.) Great egotist and impervious to practical considerations. Saturday, Oct. 8. To Mr J. M. Forbes at Naushon. Naushon, an island 7 miles in length, with deer. All Mr Forbes' own property. American country house in rough style — but great hospitality and comfort. Party: Mr and Mrs Forbes, their daughters, Mr Emerson, Mr Sedgwick, Mr Weiss — Unitarian minister and friend and biographer of Theodore Parker. Mr Emerson the reverse of a mystic in conversation — a business-like man. Drewhoching . Driven over the rocky hills and through the woods. Tractabihty and surefootedness of the horses. The light carriages of America. Lunch in the woods. General concurrence as to the corruption of Wash- ington. State of theology in America (Mr Weiss). Breaking up of old sects. Great desire among the people in the west especially for a new and sormder faith. The German emigrants mostly atheists. Thursday, Oct. 13. To Boston. Friday, Oct. 14. To Mr Norton's at Cambridge. Harvard University. Course general and the same for aU with some ofificial deviations. The governing body mostly Unitarian. Yale rather Calvinist. Hart- ford, Church of England. All the Universities have something of a sectarian character — but not exclusive. The mode of hfe — rooms in the College but dining out. 288 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS Hazing. Stimulants in the shape of marks — but no regular competitive system nor pubhshed class hsts. The Professors, etc., at Cambridge — Lowell, Tracy, Agassiz, Longfellow — his house an old Colonial mansion. The elm under which Whitfield preached — the Charter Oak. Schools. — Shown over them by Mr Child. Graduated series of schools, carrying the child up to the University. Common School — Grammar School — High School. Too many thmgs taught. Prepare all children too high. Text-books, especially scientific text-books, ambitious and not good. Many girls mitaught. Great competi- tion for the place of teacher. Male teachers get 1200 dollars a year. Females teaching boys of fifteen or sixteen Latin. The State Prison. Separate but not solitary. All learning trades. They nearly maintam themselves. Large number of negroes in proportion. Insanity among those employed at sedentary and monotonous trades. The prison distinctly on the Reformatory not the Penal principle. Two days at Weymouth with Miss Weston and her family. Little New England town. General comfort and intelligence of the people. Excellent house of the carpenter. The universahst Chm'ch — salvation for all — though ■ for the wicked — produced by antagonism to Calvinism. The Rev. Olympia Brown formerly pastor. Went to Mr Everett's oration on the pohtical state of the country at Faneuil Hall. Speech an hour and a hah long. Hall crowded by people stanchng. All most attentive. The speech not clap-trap, but argu- mentative. Mr Everett's career — Unitarian minister, Greek Professor — poKtician — the great rhetorician of his time. His rich wife. His great sermon (Selah). Visit to Mr Emerson at Concord. His home. The Transcendentahsts at Concord. Thoreau — living in a shanty in the woods. Drive through the town — The prosperity and intelhgence of the farmers. Conversa- U.S. NOTES 289 tion with one who had made his own way and was work- ing with his own hands but was quite up to high questions of pohtics. Supper at Longfellow's. Wednesday, Nov. 2. To Mr Loring's at Boston. Called on Mr Everett— his study — reminiscences — collections. Mr N — his European reminiscences. Went on Simday to the Parker Fraternity — Pohtical discourse from Mr Calthorpe. Miss Stephenson, friend of Parker. The changed position of ministers. No longer so far above their congregations as they were. Need beginning to be felt of a change of system. Country clergyman at Mr Loring's thought the position of his order sounder — and the reUgion of the people more genuine. Dirmer at LTnion Club. Evening club at Dr Bigelow's. Approach of the elections. Torchhght processions for Lincoln and McClellan. School-ship. Sailors' Fair. Speeches at Sailors' Fair. The Presidential Election — Perfect tranquillity at Boston. Tickets. Negroes votmg. Went to Concord to dine with Judge House. Town meeting at Concord. Negroes present apparently on a footing of perfect ecjuahty. Town Library. Social Union. Li the evening, Faneuil Hall. Breakfast at Mr Parkman's. Conversation with Mr Dana. Difference between the English and American Constitutions. The practical nuUity of Congress. The great question between Nationahty and Federation. Lifiuenced by the presence of European powers on the Continent. Dinner at Mr Ward's. Thursday, Nov. 10. To New York. Breakfast at the Union League Club. Speeches. Dinner on Sunday at Mr Hunt's. On Monday reception of General and Mrs Butler at Fifth Avenue. Tuesday, Nov. 16. With General Butler to Wash- 19 290 GOLD WIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS ington. Saw the President. His stories — The three pigeons. The manufacturing population. They would annex Hell as a market for their cottons. Mr Seward. /" Mr Pessenden. Manufactory of Notes in the Treasury. The White House. Wednesday, Nov. 17. To Fortress Monroe. General Butler's Bastille for prisoners of war and poUtical prisoners. The iron-clad. The Monitor. Admiral Porter. The Florida. Constitution Frigate. Thursday, Nov. 18. To Head-Quarters. Rides round the lines. Wonderful activity and ingenuity of the American soldiers in fortifying. Dutch Gap and the Canal. Ride past the Confederate pickets. View of the enemy's lines and pickets from Fort HoUy. The Negro troops. Their attack on Newmarket Heights. The extent and excellence of the commissariat. Pontoon bridges. Shelhng between the Forts. Picket firing at night. The staff. General Terry. General Weitzel, Commander of Forts. Abattis. Roads. Distant view of Petersburg and Richmond. The scenery of Virgmia. Woods. Traces of former cultivation now overgrown. Scenery of the rivers. Flat and wooded. Virginia mansions — The Epper House. General Grant's Head- quarters at City Point. Sunday, the 20th. From the Camp to Fortress Monroe. Thence to Baltimore by steam-boat — from Balti- more to Washington. Visited Jamestown — the first settlement. ReUcs of houses and old church. Washington — stayed with Mi" Seward. Mr Dana — Mr Denison, Postmaster - General. Interview with General Grant. Mr Seward's dictum about touching his beU and sending men to fortresses — not in published correspon- dence — but he said something of the kind. The famous bell in his room. Mr Strenton. His great strength of constitution — He was succumbing under his work. U.S. NOTES 291 Character of Washington — well described by TroUope. Vain attempt to create a great city. Per- haps typical of a vain attempt to create a bomidless nation. The Capitol. Chambers of Senate and Re- presentatives. Statuary. Statue of Washington. Smithsonian Institute. Soldiers' burying-ground near the city. 6000 graves. The Mecca of America. Conversation about Finance. The pecuhar views of American statesmen on this subject. Wednesday, Nov. 23. To Mr John P. Kennedy. Baltimore. State of things at Baltimore. Border State. Recently Slave State. The aristocracy in alhance with a furious mob. Plug-ugUes. Emancipated negroes. Most of the domestic servants negroes. This possibly their condition for the future. Antipathy still existing between the races. Physical repulsiveness of the negroes. No use in forcing matters on too fast. Schools for the negroes alone — Not aided at present by the State. State aid hoped for. Very Httle pecuniary loss from Emancipation. Aristocratic town of Baltimore. Private schools for the upper classes. The common school system not so vigorous as in the North. The New England system of being introduced. The strong Secession famihes' intimacy with Yankee officers — this will be a powerful instrument of recon- cihation. The trumpeter of a Yankee regiment eloped with the most violent female secessionist in Maryland. Strong division at present between the Loyalists and Secessionists. Go to separate services. Bishop Whittingham. Strong Loyahst. His flock disaffected and trying to make his place uncomfortable to him. His strong evidence as to the demorahzing effect of Slavery among the Whites. Head-quarters of General Wallace. A disaffected gentleman pleading for release from assessment. The hospital for Rebel prisoners. Good treatment of its inmates. Wards — dispensary — kitchen— latrines. 292 GOLDWIN SMITH: LIFE AND OPINIONS Dietary ordinary and extraordinary — General aspect of kindness. Other hospitals. Dinner on Thanksgiving Day. Superabundance of funds. No need of private con- tributions. Negro barracks. General evidence that the negroes are good soldiers. Their imitativeness. Prisoners from Rebel prisons at J 's Hospital. Terrible condition of the majority of them according to universal testimony. These convalescents. Put my fingers round a man's arm. The stockade at Ander- sonville 18 acres. 80,000 men. 14,000 deaths in nine months. No shade, though in the middle of the woods. Hardly any wood for cooking. Water running from a place where the Rebels washed. The sick crowded together in a hospital shed, many suffering from charrhoea. Men shot without challenge for crossing or even approaching the dead hne. The shots some- times told on those who had not offended. A soldier told how he had seen two shot at once : one killed, the other wounded. Mr and Mrs Bonaparte. His likeness to Napoleon. Bust of the young Napoleon. Separate school for negro children. Their quickness in learning. Nov. 28. Philadelphia — Quaker City. Influence of the Quakers seen in its pliilanthropic institutions. Its formal and monotonous character. Great number of separate houses. Their comfort and respectabihty. Greater number of houses than in New York — though the number of mhabitants is much less. The Penitentiary. College. The High School. The pubhc almshouse. 60 per cent, of the paupers foreigners. Philadelphia once the seat of Government and residence of Washington. Dec. 2. New York. Dec. 14. Embarked in the Chiim for England. Dec. 25. Arrived at Liverpool. INDEX Abbott, ReT. Dr Lyman, 47, 48, 190, 201 ; hia theietic hypo- theses, 201, 203, 204 Acton, Lord, 92; his attitude towards the Church, 117; his letters, 114 "African Confessors," the, 91 Agriculture, Goldwin Smith on, 89 Alaska boundary question, the, 79 et seq. Anglo-Japanese Treaty, 103 Annexation of Canada to the United States, 106 et seq., 113, 114, 239, 241 et seq. See aho Canada Annual Register, the, 32 Anselm, 223 " Anti-Imperialism," 68 Arbitration Courts, 144 Aristotle: his " Ethics," 225,226 Arnold, Matthew, quoted, 9, 48 Arnold. Sir Edwin, quoted, 13, 14,48 Arts, the fine, 48 Ashburton, Lady, 80, 81 Associated Charities of Toronto, 238, 242 Athanasian Creed, the. See Creed Athletics, 59, 60. See also Sports Austen, Jane, 35 Australia, doom of, 167, 168 Automatism, 77 B Bailie, Mr, 238, 242 Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. , 29, 30 Barlow, George, 192 Batoche, battle of, 163, 244 Beaconsfleld, Earl of. See Disraeli, Benjamin Beaudechamp, Madame, 233 Becket, Thomas k, 223 Beecher, Henry Ward, 204 Beehive, the, 69 Benjamin, Charles F., quoted, 13 Bible, the, 100, 217, 218 Birrell, Augustine, 231 Boat-racing, 59 Boer War, the, 68, 193, 244 ; Gold- win Smith's attitude towards, 75,76 Bolingbroke's speeches, 66 Bolton, 18 Bonney, Prof., 224 Borgia, Alexander, 96 Borgia, Cesaro, 97 Borgias, the, 169 Bourassa, Henri, 227 Bourinot, Sir John, his "Lord Elgin, "105 Boyle, Dean, quoted, 11 Bradford, Lord, 14 Bradley, A. G., his "Canada," 105 Breton, Adela C, quoted, 15 Breton, Captain Peter, 15 Breton, Eliza, 15 Breton (or Britton), General, 15 Breton for Britton), Miss, 15 Breton, Mrs Peter, 15 Bribery, political, 202, 203 Bright, John, 48, 147. 148 British Weekly, the, 186 Brodie, Lady, 233 Brown, George, 230 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 128 Browning, Robert, 48, 183 ; Gold- win Smith on, 46, 47 Bruce, General, 86 Burke, Edmund, 246 Burns, Robert, 162 Bushby, Lady Frances, quoted, 7, 18 Bye-law, a curious municipal, 183, 184, 189 Byron, Lord, 162 Bystander, the, 146; selections from, 82 C Gairnes's political economy, 40 Cambridge, Duke of, 112 "Cambridge Modern History," the, 96, 97, 175 Campanile of St Mark's, 74 293 294 INDEX Canada, 230; autonomy of N.-W. Territories Bill, 213, 214 ; climate of, 78, 79 ; confederation of, 57, 58; French, 213, 214, 221,222; Goldwin Smith's atti- tude towards, 100, 106, 107 ; Goldwin Smith on, 67 ; public men of, 165, 166; Roman Catho- licism in, 213, 214 Cardwell, Lord, 33 Carlyle, Mrs, 80, 81 Carlyle, Thomas, 80, 81, 95, 96, 129, 139 ; compared with Goldwin Smith, 11; Goldwin Smith on, 44 Carnegie, Andrew, 232 Castle Bromwich, 14 Cats at The Grange, 176, 177 Caucus, the, 190, 196 Gayley, Rev. Prof., 224, 225, 229 Cemeteries, 123 Chalfont St Giles, 30 Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. Joseph, 30, 190 et seq. ; his fiscal policy, 98 Ohancellorsville, battle of, 55 Chicago Convention, 156, 157 Chinese, Goldwin Smith on the, 28 Chin. William, 179, 238 Christchurch, studentship of, 9 Christendom, the Founder of, 169 ctser/., 218 .S'cf «/so Jesus Christ. Christianity, 91, 93 et seq. ; Goldwin Smith's attitude towards, 76, 77, 78, 168, 216, 224, 228 et seq. See also Theology and Jesus Christ Christian Science, 158 Church, a State, 73 Church, Dean, quoted, 12 Churchill, Lord Randolph, 165 Church of England, 97; Goldwin Smith on the, 35 ; and the State, 37 ct seq. 8ce also Disestab- lishment Chnrch parades, 153 Church, the, 112 Church, the Baptist, 171 Church, the Roman Catholic, 134, 135 Cicero, his De ISatura Deorum, 25 ; motto from, 142 Civil War, the American, 73, 115 et seq., 154, 155 Clairvoyance, 158 Clarke,"Sir Edward, 80 Classics, Goldwin Smith's attitude towards, 99 et serj. Clergy, the, 37, 38 Cleveland, Grover, 45 Clough, Arthur Hugh, 151 Cobalt Lake Mining Co. case, 243 Cobden, Richard, 62, 249 Coincidence, as explanatory of occult phenomena, 159 Coleridge, Lord Chief - Justice, quoted, 12, 132 Collins, Sir Robert H. , 76 Comic paper, a, quoted, 146 Commissions, the, on which Gold- win Smith served, 194, 195 Commodus, 96, 97 Comte, Auguste, 217 Conington, John, quoted, 11 Conscience, 164, 218. Consciousness, the phenomena of, 100 et seq. Constitution, the American, 184, 185 Continental Union, 240 et seq. See also Annexation Continental Union Association, the, 240 et seq. Conventions, the United States electoral, 156, 157 Convocation, the Upper House of, on the Athanasian Creed, 148, 149 Cooke, Douglas, 13 Cornell University, 199, 237 Courier, Paul Louis, 143 Creed, the Athanasian, 148, 149, 167 Crimean War, the, 103, 104, 183 Cromwell, Oliver, 152, 153, 156, 162 Crowley, Father, 195 Crozier, Beattie, his works, 102 Cuban Question, the, 29 Curtis, George William, 58, 107 DaUi/ News, the, 161 Daili/ Telegraph, the, 214 Danton, 233 Darwin, Charles. 48, 182 Daubeny, Prof., 167, 168 Davidson, Randall, Archbp., 215 Davies, C. M., 233 Deity, the evolution of the, 39 ; dual nature of, 192 Democracy, 189, 191, 192, 196 ; INDEX 295 Goldwin Smith on, 81, 82, 117, 118 DeterminiBm. Hee Necessarianism Dickens, Charles, 57 Dilke, Sir Charles, igi Dilke, Lady, 193, 194 Dinner parties at The Grange, 142 Disestablishment of the Church, 37, 97, 232 Disraeli, Benjamin, 30, 31, 40, 60, 62, 65, 79, 110, 122, 130; pro- jected edition of his works, 197 ; his novels, 200; his " ReTolu- tionary Epick," ih. ; his "libel " of Goldwin Smith in "Lothair," 204; see also "Lothair"; char- acterization of, 206 ; his ex- quisite superciliousness, ib. ; his serious humour, 207 ; his phrases, 208 ; hie courses of action, 209 ; his "inconsistency," ib. ; his influence on the Empire, 210 ; his imagination, ib. ; his literary spirit, ib. ; his youth, 211 ; his maiden speech, ib. ; his invective, 212; his seriousness, ib.; on the management of Ireland, ib. ; Morley's description of novels by, 221 ; description of Goldwin Smith by, 231, 232 Divorce, Goldwin Smith on, 85 Dixon, Homer, 14 Domitian, 96, 97 Douglas, Frederick, 157 "Do We Believe?" 214,215 Drapeau National, Le, 221 Dukinfield, Sir Henry, 17 Duudonald, Lord, 179 et seq^. Dunne, Walter, 197 E Eocelino, 96 Edward VII,, King, 72, 85, 86, 192 Edwards, Jonathan, 89, 90 Elcho, Lord, 58 Elections, Ontario Provincial, 196 Eliot, George, 35 Emerson, R. W., 236,237 "Empire," the, 161 " Encyolopaidia Biblica," 215, 216 Energy as a substitute for Deity, 201 Epigrams, the Greek, 99, 100; Goldwin Smith's translations of, 104 " Essays on Questions of the Day,' 174 Ethics, Goldwin Smith on, 27, 28, 37 ; Goldwin Smith's interest in, 217 Evangelicals, 202 Evenimj News, Toronto, 186 el scq., 194 Evil, the origin of, 157, 219 Evolution, 39, 219, 220 Eyre, Governor, 67 Ezekiel the Prophet, 104 Fall of man, the, 40, 71, 77, 222' 224 Farrar, Archdeacon, his "Life of Lives," 83 Farrer, Sir William, quoted 18, 19 " Federalist," the, 155 "Flag-worship," 72, 73 Florence Mining Go. case, 243 Foggo, Alexander, 211 Forbes, J. M., letter to, 59, 60 Force as a substitute for Deity, 203, 204 Poster, W. A., 238 Freeman, E. A., quoted, 9 Frogmore, anecdote of, 151 Froude, J. A., 38,39 Fugitive Slave Law, 155 Funeral, Goldwin Smith at a, 119, 120, 122, 123, 221 Gardiner, S. R,, 152 Garibaldi, 200, 201 Garrison, W. P. , 138 General Slocum disaster, the, 1G3 Genesis, the book of, 46 George IV,, King, 81 George, Henry, 184 GiralduB Cambrensis, 223 Gladstone, W. E,, 55, 94, 95, 165, 185, 186, 188; Goldwin Smith on, 33 et .sc}. ; Goldwin Smith's article on, 102 et seq. Gloucester, the Duke of, 82 God, a personal, 201, 203 Gooderham, Mr, 242 Goechen, Viscount, 165 Gospels, the, 223 Government, necessity for stability of, 196 296 INDEX GoTernor-Gcneral of Canada, 211; ; duties of, 161 Graham. Sir James, G'2 Graage, Tlie, 16, 145, 178 Grant, General Ulysses, 56 Grattan's vilification of Flood, 12:'., 124 Gray, Dr Asa, 12 Green, J. R., 92 Grey, J:arl, 161 "Guesses at the Riddle of Exist- ence," ;W, 76, 77, 144, 238, 242 H Haeckel, Ernst, 160 Haggard, Rider, his " Agricultural England," 89 Hague Tribunal, the, 232, 233 Hallam, Henry F. , 18 Harcourt, Sir William, 30, 31 Hardinge, Viscount, 33 Hare, the, Levitical description of, 229 Harnac, 223, 224, 229 Harrison, F'rederic, on stylo, 129 Harvard University, 158 Heliogabalus, 06 Henley, 158 Herbert, Sidney, 62 Hickman, Mr, 15 Higher Criticism, 144, 222 et seq. Highlanders, 162 History, Goldwiu Smith as a writer of, 174 ct scq. Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 236 Homer, descriptive passages in, 26 Home Rule, 147, 148; Goldwin Smith on, 83 et scq. Hopkins, Castell, 87 Howland. W. H., 97, 98, 238 Huguenots, the, 228 Hume, David, 140 Humour, Goldwin Smith's, 150 cl seq. I Immaculate Conception, the, 113, 228 Immortality of the soul, 82, 83 Imperial federation, 230, 231 Imperialism, 44, 62 Incarnation, the, 46, 71, 77, 222, 224 India, British empire in, 167, 168; Goldwin Smith on, 121 et seq. Indian Civil Service, the, 120 etseq. Indians of North America, 230 Infallibility, Papal, 115 "Instrument of Government," Cromwell's, 152 Ionian Isles, the, 40 Ireland, 89 ; Disraeli on, 212. See also Home Rule '^ Irish History and Irish Char- acter," 173, 174 Iroquois, 234 Isaiah the Prophet, 105 -lackson, Andrew, 154 Jamaica question, the, 57 Japan, 103; expansion of, 167, 168 Japanese, the, 170 Japanese Treaty, the Anglo, 103 Jefferson, Thomas, 155 Jeremiah the Prophet, 104 Jesuits, the, 74, 114, 222, 227, 228, 229, 230, 234 Jesus Christ, 75, 76, 93 et seq., 112, 168, 223 Jeune, Lady. See St Holier, Lady J"ews, the, Goldwin Smith on, 125 et seq. John, King, 96 John of Salisbury, 223 John, St, See St John Johnson, Samuel, his Dictionary, 126 Jokes, practical, 150 et seq. Journalism, Goldwin Smith's addic- tion to, 172 et seq. Jowett, B., 37,43 Junius, 91 Kipling, Rudyard, 49 KnoUys, Lord, 192 Land, ownership of, 184 Langtry, Dr, 222 Lansdowne, Lord, 244 Lascars, 167 Laurier, Sir Wilfrid, 87, 213 Law, Goldwin Smith on, 163 Lawn-tennis at The Grange, 141, 142 INDEX 297 " Lectures on the Study of Modern History," 173 Leo XIII., Pope, 95, 100 Letellier, Lieutenant - Governor, 161 Licensed Tictuallere, 202, 203 Liddell, Dean, of Christ Church, 3l'> Lincoln, Abraham, 56, 154, 157 ; his Gettysburg speech, 235, 236 Literature, American, 236, 237 Local Option, 31 Locke, John, 220 Loisy, the Abb(5, 112 Longfellow, H. W., 182 Long Marston, 14 Lome, the Marquess of, 161 '■Lothair," Disraeli's, 40 et seq., 62, 65, 198; quoted, 49 "Loyalty, Aristocracy and Jin- goism," 247 Loyalty, Goldwin Smith on, 73 Loyola, Ignatius, 228 M Macaulay, T. B. , his "History," 35; his style, 39 Macdonald, Baroness, quoted, 15 Macdonald, Sir Jolm A, , 87 Macdonnell, James, quoted, 13 M*Kinley, President, 44 MacKnight, Thomas, 211 " Makers of Canada," 230 Mansel, Dean, 71, 72, 216 Maranatha, 157 Marie Antoinette, 197 Marston Rectory, 15 Masson's "Milton," Goldwin Smith on, 152 Materialists, 160 " Maud," Tennyson's, 183 Mazzini, Giuseppe, 182, 200, 201 Melgund, Lord, 153 Metaphysics, futility of, 164, 165 Methodist movement, the, 169 Meyrick, Rev. Frederick, 20 Michel, Louise, 197 " Middlemarch," 194 Middleton, General Fred., 153, 166, 244 Military system, the Canadian. 180, 181 Mill, John Stuart, 72, 82, 122, 171 etseq. Milton, John, Goldwin Smith com- pared to, 13 Miracles, 100, 101, 108, 195, 215, 223, 229 Missions, 60 Missions and missionaries, 27 Mohammedanism. 232 Morality, Goldwin Smith on, 28 Morley. Lord, 188, 221 ; his ■• Life of G"ladstone,"94, 120 Morris, Lewis, 48 Mortimer House, Reading, 15 ; description of, 60 Motto on the seat at Cornell, 218 Mozley, J. B., quoted, 12 Muller, Max, 220 Murchison, Roderick, 103 Music, zone of, 48 Mysticism, 15''^, 160 M , Justice, stories about, 88 N Napoleon Bonaparte, 75 National Club of Toronto, 238 Nation, the New York, Goldwin Smith's letters to, 67 Nature, laws of, 163, 164 Necessarianism, 77, 78, 90 Newman, John Henry, Cardinal 195, 196 Newcastle, fifth Duke of, 62, 86 Newspaper, the modern, 172 New Zealand, 144 Nicholas I., Czar, 103 " No Refuge but in Truth,'' 237 North-West Rebellion, 153 Norton, Charles Eliot, letters to, 52 et scq. , 60 et seq. Novels, modern, Goldwin Smith on, 35 Occult phenomena, 158, 159 O'Connor, T. P., 211 O'Hagan, Lord, quoted, 10 Ojibways, 234 Onslow, Lord, 79 Ontario, 243 Ontario Farmers' Association, 186 Ontology, 160 " Opposites of the Universe," 46 Orange Lodges in Canada, 214 Ostrogoraki, M., 191 Ovid, Goldwin Smith on, 29 " Oxford Professor," the, 41 et acq. Oxford University Bill, 213 298 INDEX Paine, Tom, 215 Palma Trophy, 158 Palmer, Roundell. See Selborne, Earl of Palmereton, Lord, 34, 35, 55 Pamphlet, the, 172 Papacy, the, 169, 195, 235 Paper money, 144 Parker, C. S., 32, 33 Parkman, Francis. 234 Parthenogenesis, OS Party, Goldwin Smith on, 246 Patrons of industry, 243 Pattison, Mark, 194 Paul, St. See St Paul Peel, Sir Robert, 62, 162, 211 ; Parker's ' ' Life '' of , 32 c/ seq. , 6iy Peel, Viscount, 33 Pelee, Mount, 163, 164 Pell, John E. , 238, 242 Pensions Bill, the U.S., 116,117, lis Phrase-making, Goldwin Smith's, 129 Phrases, examples of Goldwin Smith's, 130 et seq. I*laco, Sophia, quoted, 14 ct seq. Plato, 164, 165 Pleyna, 232 Plutocracy, 61 Poetry, decline of, 48 Pollock, Sir Frederick, 230, 231 Pope, election of, 95 Positivism, 169, 170 Powell, York, quoted, 143 Presidency, the United States, 45, 118 Presidential Elections, the United States, 154, 155 Press, the Toronto, 245 Prince Consort, the. 86 Professorship (the Regius) of Modern History at Oxford, Goldwin Smith's resignation of, 51 Prohibitioniflte, 202 Proof-sheets, Goldwin Smith's carefulness regarding, 135 Prophets, the Jer/ish, 100 Punch, 57 Punctuation, Goldwin Smith's, 138, 139 " Puscyites," 65 Q Quebec ' (Province), 213, 221 clergy of, 222 Queen's College, Oxford, the Fel- lowship of, 19 et seq. Quietists, political, 202 R Railway, the Great Western, Goldwin Smith's fight with, ll'.i, 150 Reciprocity (of trade between Canada and the United States), 110, 111 Record, the, 65 Redcliffe, Stratford de, 103 Redemption, the, 46, 71, 77, 222, 224 Reformation, the, 169 " Relacions des Jesuitee," 229, 230 ' ' Reminiscences," Goldwin Smith's , 41, 42, 66 Renan, Ernest, 169 Resurrection, the, 215, 222, 224 "Revolutionary Epick," the, 200, 201 Revolution, the French, 197 Riddell, Judge, 239 Ridgeway, battle of, 153 Ritualism, 44, 45 ; Goldwin Smith on, 31, 32 Robespierre, Maximilien, 233 Rolleston, Professor, quoted, 9 Rosebery, Lord, 131, 132 Round Table Club, 48, 49, 183, 201, 202 Rowton, Lord, 110, 197, 198 Royce, Josiah, 164 Ruskin, John, 74, 129 Russia, revolutions in, 196, 197, 204; the revolutionary outbreaks in, 1S9, 190 Russo-Japanese War, the, 122 Sahatier, lU St George's Society of Toronto, 238, 242 St Holier, Lady, quoted, 53, 143 St Januarius, lul St John, the Gospel of, 75 St Louie Convention, 156 St Paul, 93, 96, 223 St Paul's Cathedral, 74 INDEX 299 St Peter, his pontificate, 112 St Peter's (at Rome), 74 Saliebnry, Dean of. See Boyle, Dean Salisbury, Lord, 165 San Marco, Church of, 74 Saturday Night, 113 Saturday Review, the first number of, 11 ; the writers of, 13 ; quoted, 49 Savage, Rev. Minot, 39, 40 Science, 220 ; progression of, 165 Scotland, Act of Union with, 162 Scottish nation, the, 162 Scott, Walter, 35, 162 Secession, War of. See Civil War, American Selborne, Earl of, quoted, 12 ct seq., 147 Sergent, Agate, 233 Sergins, Grand Duke, 204 Servants, 88, 101, 102 Sigma's "Personalia," 105, 110 Single Tax, the advocates of a, 27 ; theory of, 184, 188, 189 Shady Hill, 61 Shaftesbury, Lord, 34, 169 Shelley, P. B., 182, 183 Sherbrooke, Lord, quoted, 11 Slavery, abolition of, 169 ; Lin- coln's letter on, 56 Smith, Arthur, 15, 17 Smith, Bishop, 14 Smith, Dr Richard Pritohard, 15, 17 ; his illness and death, 52, 53 Smith, Eliza, 16 Smith, Goldwin, acerbity of, 247 ; his achievements, 247- 49; his "Apologia for his Life in Canada," 238 et scq. ; appreciations of, by eminent men, 9 etseq.; books of, 173; as a Bystander, 175 ; character of, 246 ; chronological conspectus of chief events of life of, 4 et seq.; methods of composition, 126 ct seq. ; his courage, 247 ; how he spent his days, 140 ; disinterest- edness of, 245 ; his antagonism to Disraeli, 65, 212, 213 ; cntouraijc of, 178 ; explanation of expatri- ation of, 50, 52, 64, 198, 239 el seq. ; his family, 14 et seq. ; his fixed ideas, 161 ; funeral at- tended by, 221 ; as a historian, 105, 106, 174 et seq.; home life of, 145 ; humanitarianism of, 176; his humour, 125; his ideals, 247, 248 ; his industry, 231 ; his intensity, 155, 156 ; ironical humour of, 212, 213 ; isolation of, 143, 146 ; as a jour- nalist, 172 ; his laughter, 123; leisure of, 145; his life shaped by two acts of self-abnegation, 245 ; literary activity of, 67 ; loneliness of, 143; the " Lothair " incident, 40 el seq., 197 el seq. ; his marriage, 64 ; his method of working, 132 et seq., 140 ct seq. ; personal appearance of, 226-7, 228 et scq.; philanthropy of, 176 ; his poetry, 136 ; his pro- gress from orthodoxy to hetero- doxy, 216; his reserve, 175; school and early days of, 17, 18, 19; seclusion of, 177, 178 ; sen- sitiveness to criticism of, 186 et seq.; his solitary efforts, 246; sketch of life of, 3 et seq. ; his style, 143 et seq. ; the snbjects on which he wrote, 45 ; his talk, 142, 143; his temperament, 187, 188 ; tendencies and proclivities of, 68 et seq.; vaticinations of, 147 ; his views on Christianity, 161, 168, 224, 228; on the occult, 159.; on science, 160 ; on the universe, 160 Smith, Mrs Goldwin, 16 Smith, Mrs Richard Pritohard, IG et seq. Smith, Sir Thomas, 14 Socialism, 144, 184 Somerset, Lady Henry, 194 Soul, the immortality of, 170, 171, 219 Speaker, the, 116 Spectator, the, 237 Spencer, Herbert, 160 " Spirit of Modern Philosophy," the, 164 Spiritual, meaning of, 91 Spiritualism, 158 Sports, United States, 158 Standard, the (of Kingston, Ontario, Canada;, 239 Standard, the, on Goldwin Smith, 58, 59 Stanhope, the fifth Earl, 32, 33 State Church, the, 54, 65 300 INDEX statesmen, dearth of, 234 States, the, sovereignty of, 185 Stead, W. T. , 194 Stephen, Fitzjames and Leslie, 39 Stephen, Leslie, 39, 43 Stephens, Rev. \V. R. W. , 63 Sterne, Laurence, 139 Stonehenge, 88, 89 Strong, Captain, 193 Style, Goldwin Smith on, 129 ; Goldwin Smith's, li'i, 12S et seq. ; Goldwin Smith on models for, 140 " Subjection of Women," the, by J. S. Mill, 171 Sun, the New York, 162, 163, 228, 235 ; letter on Christianity to, 168 et seq. " Supernatural Religion," 217 Sutherland, Alexander, his *' Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct," 27, 28 Swinburne, Algernon, 181, 182 Talleyrand, quoted, 197 Taylor, Jeremy", 129 Taylor, Mrs, 171, 172 Telepathy, 158, 159 Temple, Archbp., 43 ct seq., 215 Tennis. See Lawn-tennis Tennyson, Alfred, 48 ; his " Maud," 11 Theology, 76,77 ; Goldwin Smith's views on, 70, 71 ; Tubingen School of, 229 Thomas Aquinas, 228 Thomson, William, Archbp. of York, 20, 34 " Three English Statesmen," 161, 173, 174 Tiberius, 96 " Tima!us,"the, 164, 165 Times, the, 116 Toronto, 98, 237, 238 Toronto Press Club, 245 " Tracts for the Times," 195, 196 Tsar, the, 197 Turks, the, 232 Twamley, Mr, 14, 15 Twisleton, Edward, 90, 91 U Union, Act of (Scotland), 162 Unitarianism, 130 Unitarians, the, 40 United States, government of, 10 9 Universalism, 130 Universe, riddle of the, 159 et seq. University consolidation in Canada , 238, 242 Upper Canada College, 238, 245 V Vanderbilt, W. K., 85 Verschoyle, Rev. Mr, 98 Veteran, meaning of, 126 Victoria, Queen, 72, 76 Vocabulary, Goldwin Smith's, 139 140 Voltaire, 168 Voting, compulsory, 201, 202 W Wallenstein, 140 Walpole, Robert, 140 Walrond, 33 War of Secession. Sec Civil War in the United States Watson, William, 48 Weekly Sun, the Toronto, 67, 138, 154, 163, 164, 243 Wemlock, Lord, 14 Wesley, John, 169 "What is Christianity?" Ilar- nac's, 229 "What we Want," 235 White, Andrew D., 50, 53, 199 Whitelock's " Memorials," 152 White, T. M., 241 White-washing, 96, 97 " Wilderness," the, battles of, 55 " Wild stocks, "Goldwin Smith on, 28, 29 Wilkes's "Essay on Woman," 66 Will, freedom of the, 160, 218 William IV., King, 81, 82 Willison, Sir John S., 87, 92 Woman suffrage, Goldwin Smith on, 130 Women and politics, 97, 98, 197 World, the Toronto, quoted, 49 Wren, Christopher, 74 Wyburnbury, 14 Wyndham'e Irish Bill, 92 Yale University, 158 "Yellow Peril," the, 122 INDEX TO U.S. NOTES Abolitionists, the, 26i AdministratorB, lack of, 260 Alabama, the, feeling on, 261 Albany, 264 American people, agricultural ele- ment in, 262 ; the boye, 262, 203 ; the character of, 257 ; prodigal of money and life, 258 ; position of the young, ib. Andersonville, prisoners' camp at, 268, 269, 270, 292 Andrew, Governor, 255, 257 Arkaneas, 260 Armies, the (in civil war), 267 Art, desire for, 279 ; religious and architectural, 257 Assembly, the, of Albany, 264 B Baltimore, 291 Bancroft, G., 258 Bankruptcy, 262 Beecher, Henry Ward, 203 Beer, lager, 270 Bevan, Dr, 283 Bible, translations of, 253, 254; universal reading of, 266 Bigelow, Dr, 289 Bloomington, 271 Benaparte, Mr and Mrs, 292 Boston, approach to, 255 ; journey to (from Montreal), 285 Boulton, Mr, 281 Bribery, political, 283 Bright, John, 256 Bromwell, Mr, 277 Brown, George, 281 Brown, Rev. Olympia, 288 Brown University, Providence, R.I., centenary of, 259 Buchanan, Mr, 282 Bull's Run, second battle of, 279 Butler, General Benjamin, 289, 290 ; a visit to hie headquarters, 290 Cairo, 273 California, 272 Calthorpe, Mr, 289 Cambridge (Massachusetts), 288 ; schools at, ib. ; the State prison, ib. Camp Douglas, 279 Canada, 262, 265; character of the children, 282; corruption in the Government, 283; journey to, 280, 281; farmers in, 281, 282, 283; law-courts, 281 ; military forces of, 283 ; municipal constitutions of, ib. ; parliamentary govern- ment of, ib. ; plans for confedera- tion, 281 ; political parties in, 283; political tendencies of, 281 ; sharp distinction of classes in, 282 Canal, the Erie, 2G9 Canning, Dr, 271 Capital punishment. 285, 280 Carlyle, Thomas, 278 Case, Mr, 272 Cass, General, 280 Catholicism, 277 ; in America, 286 Catholics, 268 Cemeteries, 258 Champaign, 275, 276 Chancellorsville, battle of, 273 Chicago, 266, 279 ; growth of, 267 Christianity, how evidenced, 276 Church, the Episcopalian, 260, 269 ; a Methodist, 277, 278 ; Unitarian, 258 Clarkson, Mr, 280 Clergy Reserves Bill, 283 Clergy, the, 269, 280 ; changing conditions of, 289 ; salaries of, 271 Climate, effect on the race of, 257 Commerce, 280 Comtists, 257 Concord, 288 Confederate pickets, view of, 290 301 302 INDEX TO U.S. NOTES Congregational Methodieta, 278 OongresB, 272 ; qualificatioii for, 274 Connecticut, 260 Cormick, Mr, 270 Corn, 262; exportation of, ib. Corn elevators, 267 Corn trade, 267, 268 Crandall, Mr, 275, 276 Curtis, George William, 256, 257 D Dana, Charles, 289 Democratic party, the, 259, 267, 279 Detroit, 280 Domestic life, 258 Douglas, Stepher, 276 ; his grave, 279 Dubuque, 270 Duggan, Dr (Bishop), 279 E Education, 266, 267, 269; in Canada, 282 ; in Illinois, 277 ; "want of high, in America, 253. See also Schools Elections, the Presidential, 289 Electoral colleges, 269 Elgin, Lord, 283 Emerson, R. W., 286, 287, 288 Emigrants, English, 27] England, feeling towards, 256 Everett, Edward, 256 ; career and speech of, 288 P Farmers, 266 ; the Illinois, 272, 273 Federation of Canadian provinces, 255 Fields, Mr, 185 Finance, 264, 291 Fitzpatrick, Bishop, 253 Forbes, J. M., 287 Fort Donelson, 273 Fortress Monroe, visit to, 290 Fuller, Rev. Mr, 282 Garrison, W. L., 256 Geddye, Rev. Mr, 282 Germans as colonists, the, 276 Grant, General Ulysses, 263 Gray, Judge, 255 Gridley, Colonel, 272 Gridley, General, 271 Halifax, Nova Scotia, 254, 255 ; its beauty, 255 ; negro settlement in, lb. ; Southernism of its people, !6. Hamilton(Canada),281; merchants of, ib. Harrison, President, 259 Harvard University, 287, 288 Healy, Mr, 279 Hedge, Dr, 258 Herald, the New York, 258 Higginaon, Mr, 269, 270 Hodgins, J. G., 284 Holmes, Mr, 285, 286 Hooper, Mr S., 285 Hospital for prisoners of war, 291, 292 Hotels, American, 255 Hudson River, 261 Illinois, 262, 269, 271, 272; char- acter of the population of, 276 et seq. Imperialism, 259, 260 Indians, treatment of, 267 Infidelity, theological, 280 Insanity, 269 Irish, the, in America, 254; their priests, 259 ; riots of, dreaded, 263; their votes, 259 Jackson, Andrew, 258 Johnson, Mr, 274, 278 ; his political views, 274 Jonesborough, 274 Journalism, character of American, 274 Joy, Mr, 280 Judiciary, the, 266; pay of, 274, 276 Kennedy, John P., 291 Labourers, wages of, 276, 277, 278 Land, rapid changes of ownership of, 257, 266, 275 Lawrence, Mr, 285 INDEX TO U.S. NOTES 303 Lewis, Mr, 267, 268, 272, 273 Lincoln, Abraham, 285; visit to, 290 Longfellow, H. W., 289 Loriug, Mr, 265, 289 Low, Mr, 261 Lowell, Charles Ruseell, 255, 256 Lower Canada Indemnity Bill, 283 M Mahon, Prof., 263 MoOaul, Dr, 282 Methodists, 277. 278, 28G Michigan, 265, 266 Missionary enterprise, 280 Mississippi, 260, 269; (Upper), 270, 271 Montreal, journey to, 284 ; de- scription of, ih. Mormons, 273 N Nauahon, 287 Negroes, children of, 292 ; their future, 291 ; as labourers, 272, 276 ; as soldiers, 273, 292 Negro troops, character of, 257 Newberry, Mr, 267, 269 Newport, 260 Newspapers, universal reading of, 267 New York, 260; busy aspect of, 261 ; compared with Liverpool and London, ib. Niagara, 265 Norton, Charles Eliot, 255, 287 O'Brien, Mr, 283 Officers, military arrests of, 268 Oligarchs, 259 Orangemen, 283 Osborn, Mr, 261 Osgoode Hall, Toronto, 281 Parker Fraternity, 289 Parker, Theodore, 287 Parkman, Francis, 289 Parties, political, 259, 269 Philadelphia, 292 Philanthropic institutions, 257 Phillips, Mr, 269, 280 Phillips, Wendell, 286, 287 Politicians, 261 ; American, 266, 257 Politics, 261 ; American, 259 Port Douglas, 279 Potomac, army of the, 266, 273 Prairie, the, 275, 279 Prisoners, how treated, 279, 291, 292 Prostitution, 268 Protection, 256, 264, 268 Pryne, Mr, 264 Public speaking, passion for, 270 Puseyiam in America, 286 Railways, 257, 265, 266, 267 Read, Mr, 257, 258 Reciprocity treaty, 285 Religion, 266, 267 ; divergence of sects, 286 ; influence of, 259, 276; in Illinois, 277; state of, 285 Religious parties, 260 Republic, a, how sustained, 272 Republican party, 259 Ryeraon, Rev. Dr Egerton, 284 S Scammon, Mr, 268 Scandinavians, 269 ; as immigrants, 276 Schools, 270, 275 ; the Chicago, 266, 268; influence of, 261, 262 Scott, General, 261 Sears, President, 259 Seoessionism, 291 Secessionists, 258 Sedgwick, Mr, 287 Senate, the Canadian, 283 ; the, of Albany, 264 Servants, American, 256; Irish, 258, 259 Seward, William Henry ; 268, 285 ; a visit to, 290 Slavery, 259, 264 Spencer, Herbert, 257 "Spoils of o£ace,"258 State rights. 264 Stephenson, Miss, 2t-9 Stone, General, 268 Strenton, Mr, 290 Strikes, 266 Sumner, Charles, 286 ; his political views, ib. Sunday, how kept in Illinois, 277 304 INDEX TO U.S. NOTES Taxation, 255 Thankagiving Day, 292 TheologianB, few eminent, 276 Theology, character of American, 276, 287 ; speculative, 280 ; Methodist, 278 Thoreau, Henry D„ 288 Toronto, 281 ; indebtedness in, 284 ; the poor in, 282 ; taxes, 283; the UniTersity, 282; the value of property in, 284 Trade, 280 Trades unions, 267 Tranecendentalists, the, 288 Trinity College, Toronto, 283 TroUope, Anthony, 2C2, 291 Tucker, Colonel, 270 Tyler, Vice-President, 259 U Union Club, 289 Universalism, 286 University (Normal) at Blooming- ton, 272; Chicago, 270; of Toronto, 282 Upper Canada College, 284 Urbuna, 274, 277, 279 Virginia, slave-trading in, 257 Voters, registration of, 267 Voyage, incidents of the, 254 W War, the Civil, 256 ; the armies in, 267 ; bravery of the troops, 279 ; character of the troops, 273 ; effects of, 269 ; a glimpse of, 290 ; horrors of, 260 ; recruits for, 263 ; spirit in which it was carried on, 285 Ward, Mr A. , 280, 289 Washington, 291 ; journey to, 289, 290 Waters lie, Mr, 285 Wealth, 262 Weiss, Mr, 287 Welsh immigrants, 276 Weston, Miss, 288 Weymouth, 288 Whisky, 282, 283 Whittingham, Bishop, 291 Woman, American, extravagance of, 263, 264 Wood, Fernando, 260 COLSTONS LIMITED, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH