BY SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 DELANE OF THE TIMES 
 
 With frontispiece portrait. 6s, net. 
 
 {This is a volume in Constable's Makers of the XIX. 
 Century Series, <which includes also Basil Williams' 
 '^^ Cecil Rhodes"; Lord Charnnxsood' s '■'■Abraham 
 Lincoln ",• C. Grant Robertson s " Bismarck" etc. etc.) 
 
~ c- c , • • ^ f , 
 
 I'hot,< Kci;iii,il,l H,ti 
 
 Sir EmVARD COOK. K.B.E. 
 
SIR • EDWARD • COOK 
 
 K.B.E. 
 A BIOGRAPHY BY 
 J. SAXON MILLS 
 
 M.A. ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE 
 BARRISTER -AT- LAW INNER TEMPLE 
 
 LONDON : CONSTABLE & CO. LTD. 
 IO-I2 ORANGE STREET • W.C.2 
 
First published 1921. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 I HAVE to acknowledge with gratitude mucli efficient 
 help afforded to me in writing this book by Sir Edward 
 Cook's family, especially Mr. A. M. Cook, whose wisdom 
 and literary ability recall his brother's most striking 
 characteristics and who has spared no pains in marshal- 
 ling the vast material available for the biography. For 
 the list of books and magazine articles I am indebted 
 to the kindness of Sir Edward Cook's sisters, Mrs. 
 Leach and Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 479567 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PACE 
 
 Parentage and School . . . . .1 
 
 CHAPTEE II 
 
 Oxford Days . . . . . . .12 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Early Journalism . . . . . .37 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Early Days on the " Pall Mall " . . . .64 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Politics in the Eighties . . • . .84 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Editor of the " Pall Mall " . . . . . 100 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 From "Pall Mall" to "Westminster" . . .113 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The "Westminster Gazette" . . . .128 
 
viii LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The "Daily News" . . . . . .153 
 
 CHAPTEE X 
 
 The South African Scene . . . . .178 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Sale of the "Daily News" . . . . .192 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 As Editor and Journalist .... 206 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 Literary Work . . . . . .218 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 The Last Task . . . . . . 236 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 The Age op Puff ...... 254 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 Some Stories ....... 267 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 Death and Character ..... 285 
 
 LIST OF BOOKS AND MAGAZINE ARTICLES . . 295 
 
 INDEX . . . . . . . .301 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 PARENTAGE AND SCHOOL 
 
 Human Portraits, faithfully drawn, are of all pictures the welcomest 
 on human walls. — Caklyle. 
 
 U 
 
 The subject of this Memoir enriched our English 
 literature with four biographies of supreme excellence. 
 He also published in one of his volumes of essays an 
 elaborate paper on the art of biography. One approaches, 
 therefore, with some trepidation the task of writing 
 the life-story of the author and expert himself. Sir 
 Edward Cook's biographical imperatives were somewhat 
 austere. Among the rest he quotes Lord Morley's 
 requirement that the biographer must write " without 
 grudge or partiality ". It is easy enough to write of 
 E. T. Cook without grudge. It is more difficult for 
 one who was closely associated with Cook in work and 
 interest to write without partiality. One's reminis- 
 cences are of such unqualified respect and admiration 
 that the biographer is in danger of falling into panegyric. 
 Some of Sir Edward's rules are not quite applic- 
 able to his own biography. It is true the biographer's 
 main purpose and duty is to tell the life-history and 
 to portray the character of his subject. Everything 
 must contribute in general to these ends. But it is 
 rather too rigid to insist that every page must be strictly 
 and directly relevant thereto, that the author, for 
 example, may quote letters written by, but not to, 
 
 1 B 
 
2 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 his subject. An editor in succession of the Pall Mall 
 and Westminster Gazettes, and the Daily News was 
 brought into correspondence with most of his leading 
 contemporaries in art, politics and literature, and Cook 
 preserved all his letters with the utmost order and care. 
 From the autograph-hunter's point of view alone the 
 material bequeathed by Cook to his eventual biographer 
 forms an incomparable treasury. From Gladstone to 
 Tichborne, from poets to policemen, from rogues to 
 royalties, from archbishops to actors, almost every 
 person of any sort of distinction is represented by a 
 letter or signature, some, of course, by a very large 
 correspondence. Among these latter are Lord Rosebery, 
 Lord Milner, W. T. Stead, Lord Morley, Su: Percy 
 Fitzpatrick, Sir Henniker Heaton — the last a great 
 purveyor of gossip ; and among the less voluminous, 
 but still frequent letter-writers are persons so diverse 
 as Michael Davitt, Admiral Maxse, William Watson 
 and Marie Corelli. Many very illustrious persons wrote 
 to Cook with extreme but well- justified confidence. 
 Though a journalist. Cook was the soul of discretion, 
 and his judgment was so sound and well-balanced that 
 its counsels were sought by a wide and varied circle 
 of acquaintance. It is impossible to apply the rules 
 of biographical composition so superstitiously as wholly 
 to include these interesting letters, though they may 
 be concerned more with the addresser than with the 
 addressee. 
 
 In his essay on Biography, Cook remarks that the 
 opening chapter on birth and parentage is apt to be 
 as dull as the introduction to a Scott romance. In- 
 cidentally this implies that Sir Edward was never 
 brought under the authentic spell of the Great Magician. 
 But we will comply with this particular instruction, 
 and without any attempt to climb genealogical trees, 
 
PARENTAGE AND SCHOOL 3 
 
 simply recount that Edward Tyas Cook was born on 
 May 12, 1857, the fifth and last son of Silas Kemball 
 Cook, who had also two daughters. His birthplace 
 was Brighton (23 Montpellier Crescent), a fact to which 
 he alluded in an address to the Institute of Journalists 
 in that popular resort in January 1913. "If I may 
 be egotistical for a moment ", he said, " I should like 
 to say that to me Brighton is a great deal more than 
 London-by-the-sea. I was born in the town ; and the 
 fact that I have survived thirty years of daily journalism, 
 without, so far as I know — touch wood ! — any serious 
 injury to my health, is to be attributed, I doubt not, 
 to the fact that my early years were spent under the 
 care of that prince of physicians — Doctor Brighton ". • 
 
 Edward's father was secretary of the Seamen's 
 Hospital, then in the old Dreadnought ship moored 
 ofi Greenwich. He went up from Brighton to his office 
 in London daily, surely a rather unusual feat in those 
 days. At Brighton he helped his wife in the conduct 
 of a preparatory school, attended by an average number 
 of fifty boys, many of whom won distinction in after 
 life. Among these may be reckoned the Earl of Chester- 
 field, the Provost of Oriel (L. R. Phelps), A. A. Tilley, 
 Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and Professor 
 Foakes Jackson. Later, when the Hospital was moved 
 into what had been the Infirmary of Greenwich Hospital, 
 and the secretary became also house-governor, the 
 family moved to Greenwich. 
 
 Most fathers of a family desire that the bond of 
 kinship should remain strong and effectual among 
 their children when they themselves have gone ahead. 
 It is partly with this object that boys are sent to 
 the same school, so that they may share in the same 
 memories and traditions. But Cook's father held an 
 original, and perhaps a more experienced, view on 
 
4 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 this subject. He thought his boys were much more 
 b'kely to remain friends if they were not thrown too 
 much together. His sons were therefore not placed 
 in the same public school, though A. K. and E. T. 
 both went to Winchester College, of which the former 
 became the historian and the latter a Fellow. Mr. 
 S. K. Cook's method of ensuring a continuance of 
 fraternal affection may not have many imitators, but 
 its success with his own sons cannot be questioned. 
 They remained the best of friends to each other, and 
 most of them won an honourable distinction in different 
 spheres. Sir Charles Cook is well known on the Charity 
 Commission, while A. K. and A. M. are men of high 
 academic and literary attainment. Many school- 
 generations of St. Paul's boys have reason to remember 
 A. M. Cook, surmaster of the school and the author 
 of excellent classical text-books, with abiding affection 
 and gratitude. 
 
 Cook had an imblemished record and won high 
 distinction at Winchester, and he maintained through- 
 out his entire life a singularly devoted attachment to 
 the school. He entered as a Commoner in Short Half, 
 1869, but was elected a scholar in 1870. The Head- 
 master of Winchester at this time was George Ridding, 
 afterwards the first Bishop of Southwell (died 1904). 
 As might be expected from his future achievement. 
 Cook took a keen interest in the intellectual and political 
 life of the school, apart from the formal routine of class 
 and examination. He quickly found his feet in the 
 School Debating Society. 
 
 " I remember him very well ", writes Sir L. A. Selby-Biggc 
 of the Board of Education, " as the leading figure in the Debating 
 Society at Winchester, of which he made me secretary when I 
 was quite a junior. He was the only boy I ever remember who 
 thought of setting up facts and marshalling them in argument. 
 
PARENTAGE AND SCHOOL 6 
 
 Usually the school debates were an interchange of generalities. 
 He even read Blue-books at that early age, and I remember his 
 moving that the society should purchase a large parliamentary 
 return relating, I think, to land tenure. After it was bought I 
 do not think anybody ever looked at it, not even himself. But 
 his action was a precocious anticipation of his subsequent methods 
 of quarrying for facts. . . . 
 
 His advocacy of the Tichborne claimant had many amusing 
 features. I sat by his side in school when he was pelted with 
 coal because, having greatly distinguished himself in College 
 Fifteen, he refused to play in College Six, and gave up football 
 that he might have more time for reading Ruskin. He insisted 
 on my reading Fors Clavigera, a pursuit which was thoroughly 
 uncongenial to me. I found it also difficult at that age to share 
 his passionate admiration for William Blake ". 
 
 In this regard for fact and detail, and reliance upon 
 them in argument, the child was quite remarkably the 
 father of the man. It is interesting to observe the 
 subjects which the boys discussed and the early trend 
 of Cook's political views. He appears for the first 
 time in 1872, when he seconded a motion for the abolition 
 of the House of Lords. " The speech of Cook, a new 
 member ", says the school paper, " was especially 
 noticeable ". Next year, at the mature age of sixteen, 
 he proposes " that the necessity for the improvement 
 of the lower classes, politically, socially and materially, 
 craves immediate and decisive legislation ". This might 
 have been accepted as in some degree a self-evident 
 proposition. But it seems to have been debated by these 
 budding senators with much heat. " The proposer ", 
 runs the report, " first said that there could be no 
 improvement without a national secular education. He 
 then proceeded to let off a few quiet squibs in the 
 most harmless way against the Queen, whom he termed 
 an ' official puppet ', the House of Lords which, he said, 
 represented all the selfishness and prejudice of the 
 
6 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 aristocracy, and the House of Commons, as representing 
 class interests only. He urged lastly the abolition of 
 the game laws and alluded to such little trifles as 
 Universal Suffrage and Redistribution of Land ". In 
 spite of this and other even more subversive speeches, 
 and " in spite of the proposer entering into an alter- 
 cation with the President, fortunately stopped by the 
 Chapel bells", the motion, unlike other motions of so 
 revolutionary a kind, was carried. 
 
 Other debates follow on the stock subjects of school 
 debating societies, such as Ghosts, Charles I., Thackeray 
 and Dickens, and in nearly all of them Cook takes part. 
 One debate, however, is conspicuous. The secretary, 
 E. T. Cook, proposes that the conduct of the Govern- 
 ment in the Tichborne trial is worthy of the severest 
 condemnation. The secretary was an ardent, though 
 perhaps not wholly serious, believer in the claimant, 
 with whom he was privileged to have personal inter- 
 views and from whom he received a number of letters, 
 still preserved, in acknowledgment of moral and financial 
 sympathy. On one occasion he organized a kind of 
 Flag Day in the College with a procession in the 
 claimant's interest, and in this debate he almost suc- 
 ceeded, by a speech which the President described as 
 " a very lucid exposition of a difficult subject ", in 
 carrying the day for the motion — 17 against 18. In 
 1874 E. T. Cook somewhat failed in an intelligent 
 anticipation of events before they occur by speaking 
 and voting against a motion " that German influence 
 in Europe has reached such a dangerous pitch as to 
 require immediate suppression ". At another debate, 
 however, he speaks in favour of compulsory military 
 service. 
 
 Cook's keen and continuous interest in the 
 Wykehamist, the College magazine, is equally a fore- 
 
PARENTAGE AND SCHOOL 7 
 
 shadowing of his future life's work. He once told a 
 company of fellow- journalists he was addressing that 
 his catastrophic career as a journalist had begun very- 
 early in his connection with his school paper. He 
 rose to be editor of the magazine, but had to resign on 
 grounds not now ascertainable, but ostensibly for the 
 reason given by the higher powers, that it interfered 
 with his work. The real reason was probably some 
 unimportant indiscretion in criticizing the established 
 authorities. But, whether official editor or not, he 
 continued while at school to inspire and contribute 
 to the Wykehamist. Some new features, we find, are 
 introduced : for example, a column headed " Our 
 Contemporaries ", which, however, had to be dis- 
 continued. But the burning question which occupies 
 most space in correspondence and editorial comment is 
 that of " fagging " and the possibility of " bullying " 
 involved in that system. The problem as stated in 
 Wykehamist parlance was this : " Are College Inferiors in 
 Sixth Book to continue to be subject to Cricket Fagg- 
 ing " ? A future editor of the Times wrote, " Yes, College 
 Prefects cannot do without them, and the practice is 
 a good antidote to conceit ". The future editor of the 
 Daily News fights tooth and nail against an opponent 
 who buckles on all his logical armour in defence 
 of a flagrant injustice. Whether vested interests pre- 
 vailed or the grievance was in any degree redressed 
 is not apparent. In any case the victims were not 
 very numerous. 
 
 But Cook's attitude on this subject remained always 
 characteristic. Bullying may or may not be inseparable 
 from school fagging, but bullying in any degree or 
 form he relentlessly attacked through his whole journal- 
 istic career. He was always on the side of the weak 
 and the defenceless. When editor of the Daily News 
 
8 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 he made a very prominent feature of what he called 
 " The Cry of the Children ". 
 
 Cook incurred some loss of prestige in the public 
 opinion of the school by his lack of interest in games. 
 He was not by nature an athlete. He played a little 
 football but gave it up partly perhaps, as suggested 
 by Sir Selby Bigge, that he might have more time to 
 study his beloved Ruskin, but also for the more sufi&cient 
 reason that he suffered at school from a back weakness 
 which required him to sit every day for a certain time 
 in a specially constructed chair. He showed no sign 
 of this weakness in after life, but it certainly affected 
 his school activities. 
 
 The domination of athletics in our public school 
 system has been a little overdone. It is unreasonable 
 to attempt to standardize a large number of boys of 
 widely differing tastes and temperaments, and to insist 
 that they shall be equally interested in certain games 
 of ball. The question came up in the Wykehamist in 
 the course of a correspondence upon subscriptions to 
 athletics. Though not an athlete himself, Cook could 
 understand their importance in school life, and the 
 following extract from the Wykehamist, characteristic in 
 tone and literary expression, shows his fair-minded and 
 tolerant opinion on the subject : 
 
 We deprecate very strongly the view which two of our former 
 controversialists seem to hold that this is a question between 
 athletes and non-athletes. It is not what we are or like our- 
 selves tliat we are most bound to consider. It is what we wish 
 the community to be. Shall we not do well to view all school 
 matters as independently of our own powers or fancies as is 
 possible ? Exactly in proportion as we can do this, as we can 
 take pleasure in the school Athletics though we be hopelessly 
 asthmatic, in the school cricket though we do not know how to 
 hold a bat, in the School's intellectual successes though we be 
 
PARENTAGE AND SCHOOL 9 
 
 unable to do a verse or leam a proposition — exactly in that pro- 
 portion are we worthy to call ourselves a Public School and not 
 a fortuitous concourse of jostling atoms. 
 
 Though Cook must have been in all essentials a highly 
 praiseworthy boy, the reports sent to his parents were 
 of no unmingled eulogy. A rather severely critical 
 letter bears a date in December 1873. Only in history 
 is the record satisfactory. " In Divinity ", writes the 
 Headmaster, " his examination has been the worst but 
 two ". His scholarship, his " unseens " and verses were 
 " far from up to his place ". "He puzzles me in many 
 ways ", concludes Dr. Ridding, "by an apparent com- 
 bination of solidity and intelligent interest and thought- 
 fulness with strange blimdering and obliquity of ap- 
 prehension, and his work seems in this to reflect the 
 state of his general ideas and character". In this 
 picture the " solidity " and " intelligence " are recogniz- 
 able enough, but it is not so clear how the " blundering " 
 and " obliquity " manifested themselves. We may judge 
 from the Tichborne infatuation and from his subsequent 
 escapade in the divinity examination at Oxford that 
 Cook sowed in his early years some intellectual wild- 
 oats, but they were not a very productive or long-lived 
 crop. Such parental discouragement as was caused by 
 this letter must have been quickly dissipated by Cook's 
 growing distinction and by following reports. One of 
 the latter addressed to Mrs. Cook after the death of her 
 husband, and dated August 3, 1874, has been preserved : 
 
 Your boy has done himself great credit. His English work 
 is unusually promising, and I hope his classical work is gaining 
 the accuracy that has been its want. His conduct and character 
 are all that I could wish. I should be glad if he took more part 
 in the boyish life of school games, etc., and so was more at one 
 with the other boys, but it is for his sake I regret it mainly, 
 though I feel it will prevent his being so effective a school leader 
 
10 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 as his brother. He takes, however, so active a part in the 
 intellectual interests of the school that it would be absurd for me 
 to attach too much regret to his less active part in the physical. 
 
 The testimony of Dr. Ridding, not an easily satisfied 
 critic, to Cook's moral record at Winchester is conclusive, 
 and his intellectual achievement was no less satisfactory. 
 In September 1874 he became Senior Prefect and Head 
 of the School. He was Prefect of Library, 1874-5, and 
 Prefect of Hall, 1875-6. The prizes he won included 
 those of the Queen's Medals — the Gold Medals of 1874 
 and 1875 for English Essay (" The Influence of Language 
 on History ") and English Verse (" David Livingstone, 
 b. 1816, d. 1873 "), and the Silver Medal of 1876 for 
 English Speech (Burke on the Nabob of Arcot's Debts). 
 Other prizes were : 1874, the Hawkins Prize for English 
 Literature ; 1874-5, the Duncan Prize for English 
 Historical Essay (" The Condition and Importance of 
 the City of Winchester during the period 1000-1300 "), 
 and, 1875, the Warden and Fellows' Prize for English 
 Essay ("The PubUc Duties of a Citizen"). These 
 successes, it will be noticed, are preparatory in fact and 
 prophetic in promise of Cook's future activities. He 
 left Winchester on July 26, 1876, senior on the election 
 roll for New College, Oxford. In a valedictory article 
 in the Wykehamist he writes : " When he (the boy 
 leaving school) has reached his journey's end and finds 
 himself no more at school at Winchester, he will begin 
 to know how dear were his school friendships and the 
 details of his school life, and how sacred the traditions 
 and associations in which he lived and mixed as a school- 
 boy. But leaving school is a parting, not a separation, 
 and Wykehamists, at least, are not inclined to sever too 
 quickly or too readily their connection with the school ". 
 
 This was to be exceptionally true of Cook, and here 
 we may briefly continue the history of his lifelong 
 
PARENTAGE AND SCHOOL 11 
 
 association with Winchester, as recorded in the minute- 
 book of the Warden and Fellows. In February 1903, 
 upon the death of Dr. Temple, Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, Cook was elected a Fellow of Winchester by the 
 Headmaster (Dr. Burge), the Second Master (Mr. 
 Kendall), and the other members of the teaching staff. 
 He served as sub- warden of the College during 1911 and 
 1912. In 1908, when the Warden's Gallery was con- 
 verted into the Fellows' Library — a change which he 
 did much to promote — Cook was appointed Librarian, 
 a position which he held, by annual reappointment, 
 until his death. He was a Member of the Estates and 
 Finance Committee, 1905-18, and Auditor of the Educa- 
 tion Funds Accounts, 1904-10, and again 1913-16. As 
 Auditor he drew up in 1914 a very elaborate Report, 
 to which he added a Supplement in March 1917, on 
 " College Contributions to the Education Fund and other- 
 wise to common School Services ". 
 
 Cook took a full share of work on the special com- 
 mittees of the College. He devoted much time and care 
 to the publication of the College Register. It was the 
 subject of his earliest report to the Warden and Fellows 
 (January 1904), and also of his latest, completed when 
 his short fatal illness was already upon him. " His 
 devotion to his duties as a Fellow ", say the Warden and 
 Fellows in the resolution they passed on Cook's death, 
 " is illustrated by the fact that after 1903 he was never 
 absent from a College Meeting. Out of eighty-six meet- 
 ings held while he was a Fellow, he was present at eighty- 
 five ". Cook's diary contains the corresponding evidence 
 of this lifelong devotion to the welfare of his old school. 
 It was only during his week's last illness that he wrote 
 through his sister a letter resigning his position at the 
 College. Winchester has never known a more loyal and 
 devoted son. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 OXFORD DAYS 
 
 Ut adolescentem in quo senile aliquid, sic senem in quo aliquid adoles- 
 centis probo (" I like a youth with a touch of the old man in him, and an 
 old man with a touch of the youth "). — Cioeeo, De sen. xi. 
 
 We have seen the beginnings at Winchester of Cook's 
 interest in politics alongside his formal school work. 
 At Oxford he was now to cultivate on a higher 
 plane these two abilities for scholarship and public 
 affairs, the combination of which is said to produce a 
 very ideal type of character. When Cook went up 
 Oxford had recently sent out at least three men thus 
 doubly and fortunately endowed — John Morley, H. H. 
 Asquith and Alfred Milner. Another striking example 
 in our times of this dual capacity for thought and 
 action, for literature and politics, was seen in one of the 
 wisest and most successful of British administrators, 
 Lord Cromer. It is not necessary to follow Cook along 
 the worn highroad of academic study and examination. 
 His interest in contemporary public afiairs was so 
 absorbing that he might easily have allowed it to inter- 
 fere with his primary duties at the University. He had 
 the self-command to resist any such temptation, but it 
 was inevitable that his purely academic prospects should 
 suffer to some extent by this division of interest, and the 
 sacrifice was probably manifest in the subsequent failure 
 of his attempts to obtain a College Fellowship. A little 
 
 12 
 
OXFORD DAYS 13 
 
 more success in some conventional subject on these 
 occasions might have relegated Cook permanently to 
 academic shades and deprived our public policy of 
 that wise counsel and direction which he brought to 
 bear upon it for thirty years. 
 
 Cook's high academic success at Oxford is the more 
 praiseworthy because he threw himself with whole- 
 hearted interest into the life of the Union and into the 
 politics of University and city, as well as of the nation 
 and the Empire. The Union Societies of Oxford and 
 Cambridge are the finest training-schools in the world 
 for parliamentary statesmanship. In these societies 
 have been trained now for nearly a hundred years a 
 large proportion of the men who have won the highest 
 distinctions in our public and administrative life. A 
 glance at the list of the Presidents of the Oxford Union 
 alone from 1830 to 1880, reveals, among many other well- 
 known names, those of Gladstone, Dufferin, Ooschen, 
 Lushington, Dicey, Bryce, Asquith, Milner and Curzon, 
 and, as in duty bound, I must claim at least as important 
 a contribution of leaders from the sister society at 
 Cambridge. 
 
 Cook found a highly congenial field for his talents 
 and aspirations in the Oxford Union and in the Palmer- 
 ston Club, of both of which institutions he became the 
 President. His brother, A. K., had held ofiice as 
 Librarian in 1873-4, and he himself became President in 
 the Michaelmas Term of 1879. To be elected President 
 of the Union is an honour as distinctive in its kind as to 
 become Lord Mayor of London or Prime Minister in the 
 Imperial Parliament. It means that a youth has made 
 his impress and won his spurs in one of the most critical 
 and formidable debating arenas in the world. He is 
 not simply responsible as Speaker for the order of an 
 assembly, liable like the Mother of all Parliaments to 
 
14 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 gusts of passion and misrule : he can also " catch, his 
 own eye " and descend at his own chosen moment into 
 the conflict. At Oxford, as in after life, Cook was a 
 graceful, humorous and powerfully convincing speaker. 
 Competent critics have pronounced him the best debater 
 of his time at the Union, which, considering the rival 
 claimants to that distinction, is very high praise. He 
 was perhaps not equally adapted to the conditions of 
 platform and hustings, but he always satisfied the careful 
 classical definition of an orator as " vir bonus dicendi 
 peritus ". The papers he left include copies of a good 
 many of the speeches he delivered. He seems to 
 have written them almost verbatim, sometimes leaving 
 passages to be filled up ex tempore, which implied a good 
 memory for details, and sometimes, but not always, 
 relying upon notes as an aid to delivery. 
 
 A few of Cook's contemporaries have been kind 
 enough to set down their reminiscences of the Union 
 debates at this time. The Right Hon. Lord Sumner, 
 then Mr. J. A. Hamilton of Balliol, who was Cook's 
 junior by two years, was himself President of the 
 Union in the Hilary term of 1882 and has since risen 
 to the highest spheres of the judicial hierarchy, writes : 
 
 Those who remember the debates at the Oxford Union in 
 1879 and 1880 will associate with them the names of E, T. Cook 
 of New College, G. N. Curzon of BaUiol,i and B. R. Wise 2 of 
 Queen's, a remarkable trio of speakers. Of these Cook was 
 certainly not the least either in merit or in iniSuence, In many 
 ways he is best described by contrasting him with the other two. 
 
 Cook was especially a debater. The bent of his mind and the 
 form of his diction gave this character to his speeches. He had 
 the faculty, imusual at his then age, of following an argument as 
 he heard it, of finding the answer as it proceeded, and of clothing 
 
 ^ Afterwards Earl Curzon of Kedleston, K.G. 
 
 ^ Afterwards K.G. and Attorney-General and Agent-General for New 
 South Wales. 
 
OXFORD DAYS 15 
 
 liis answer in telling and appropriate language when his turn 
 came to reply. He was terse, incisive and logical ; austere, if 
 not severe, in manner ; lacking in warmth, but effective by 
 emphasis. His appearance lent itself to support this impression, 
 for his prominent features and large forehead suggested a maturity 
 of thought, in which in fact he had an advantage over his con- 
 temporaries. He had none of the studied and ornate oratory of 
 Curzon ; probably he did not seek it. He was far from the 
 enthusiastic and rather boyish eloquence of Wise. Well equipped 
 with facts and familiar with the principles of the Gladstonian 
 Liberalism, which he had embraced, he was always ready to give 
 battle and always a formidable antagonist. He had the prudence 
 not to speak too often. 
 
 In politics I think that he was a temperate, if not strictly 
 a moderate Liberal. I chiefly remember him as speaking on 
 Foreign Policy ; not that he avoided domestic questions, but 
 Foreign Policy was then much discussed, and I do not think that 
 he was then prepared to advocate any of the far-reaching schemes 
 of social and constitutional change that have since occupied so 
 much attention. I believe that he took part as a speaker in the 
 election in 1880, when Sir William Harcourt and Mr. Joseph 
 Chitty became (for a time) members for Oxford. Wise certainly 
 did. He was also a regular attendant at the meetings of the 
 Palmerston Club, but there, perhaps for want of opposition, he 
 was less conspicuous than on the large field of the Union debates. 
 
 I cannot recall any one speech of his that stood out above 
 any other. There was a speech of A. A. Baumann's,! whom I 
 never heard, that in my day was quoted as the most successful 
 speech made at the Union for a long time, and is still, I believe, 
 recalled by contemporaries. I do not think any speech of Cook's 
 was regarded in this way : but the same may be said of the 
 speeches of Curzon and Wise. I remember a quotation, which 
 must have impressed him strongly, for I heard him use it twice. 
 He said that a Dutch paper, speaking, I suppose, of the acquisi- 
 tion of Cyprus, had said that in the event of aggression in the East 
 England " would make an indignant protest, write some eloquent 
 despatches, and walk off with the Dutch island of Java ". The 
 sardonic tone of this sentence, which he delivered with much 
 
 ^ Afterwards M.P. for Camberwell (Peckham). 
 
16 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 effect, was fairly characteristic of his style. It was in its way 
 very finished and complete ; and though I never heard him 
 speak after he left Oxford, I should not have expected that 
 in later years there would be any marked difference either in 
 method or manner from the style which he had developed 
 as an undergraduate. 
 
 Lord Sumner alludes in this vivid portraiture to the 
 Palmerston Club, a debating society for Liberal under- 
 graduates of which Cook was also President. Cook 
 mentions it as " rather languishing " and " badly in 
 need of a banquet ". Otherwise we hear very little of 
 the proceedings at the Palmerston, though it was at one 
 of its dinners that Cook first met Lord Rosebery and 
 began a friendship which lasted throughout his life. 
 Another society which Cook and Rennell Rodd helped 
 to found devoted itself to discussions on art and became 
 known as the " Passionate Pilgrims ". Then there was 
 the Essay Society at Cook's own college, and a Shake- 
 speare Society at Balliol. Wit sharpened wit with a 
 vengeance in those days at Oxford. 
 
 It is noteworthy how Cook's contemporaries agree 
 in dwelling on the unemotional character of his 
 oratory. There was in his intellectual composition a 
 good deal of that " dry light ", or " siccum lumen ", 
 which according to Heraclitus is " the purest soul ", 
 and this quality was fully reflected in his speaking. His 
 complete reliance upon fact and logic and his exclusive 
 appeal to the reason and intellect had much to do with 
 his power and success as a debater. The Rev. E. M. 
 Walker, Fellow and Senior Tutor of Queen's, himself 
 an accomplished speaker, stresses this point : 
 
 I doubt if I was present at any debate when E. T. Cook was 
 President, but a few speeches that I heard him make left a deep 
 impression on my memory. What impressed me most was his 
 relentless logic and his mordant sarcasm. He never attempted 
 
OXFORD DAYS 17 
 
 the emotional. He and I would have agreed on hardly a single 
 question of the hour — I was as much opposed to him in my view 
 of the past as in my outlook on the present — and yet if I had had 
 to vote immediately after he had spoken, I should have found it 
 difficult to resist his pleading. To put it in another way, his 
 speeches afforded me the utmost intellectual pleasure, although 
 they offended all my prejudices and shocked all my sentiments. 
 He stood there, simply rending an opponent limb from limb. 
 His skill in debate was consummate. And debate is precisely 
 that which few imdergraduates understand. He must have 
 prepared his speeches carefully, but he could adapt them on the 
 spur of the moment to the turn of the debate. I can honestly 
 say that he was one of the most effective speakers that I have 
 ever listened to. 
 
 Sir Montague Shearman, Judge of the High Court, 
 recalls that Cook, B. R. Wise and Sidney Low were the 
 three outstanding men of the Palmerston Club in and 
 about the years 1879 and 1880. At the Palmerston a 
 paper on some political subject was read and then dis- 
 cussed, and in such discussions, which afforded more 
 opportunity for dialectics than for oratory, Cook was 
 in his element. Sir Montague continues : 
 
 I did not go very much to the Union, but used to be drawn 
 thither to hear Cook and Wise, and G. N. Curzon on the other 
 side. All these were wonderfully good. What amused me 
 about both E. T. C. and Curzon was that though they were both 
 boys they had the political information and ready speech of 
 veteran statesmen, and both were fine speakers. 
 
 Another thing I recollect is what an extraordinary difference 
 there was between B. R. Wise and E. T. Cook. Wise was full of 
 youthful eloquence that was vague and misty. He spoke with 
 the air of a devotee and at times was really impassioned. E. T. C. 
 never deviated from logic and could always spot with unerring 
 aim the weak point in the armour of the opponent. The pair of 
 them and Curzon were a wonderful trio to be on the stage at the 
 same time. 
 
 Mr. J. Wells, Warden of Wadham, writes : 
 
18 LIFE OF Sm EDWAED COOK 
 
 I have always thought that the period of the late seventies 
 at the Union was the most brilliant in my time, with the excep- 
 tion perhaps of that of the early nineties, when the present Lord 
 Chancellor fought his early battles against Sir John Simon and 
 Hilaire Belloc. In the first of these periods, which was the time 
 of my own undergraduate membership, we had as Presidents 
 Lord Milner in 1876, A. A. Baumann, Mr. Justice Barton and 
 the Rev. R. F. Horton in 1877, Professor Poulton and Sir Edward 
 Cook in 1879, Bemhard Wise and Lord Curzon in 1880 ; ... of 
 the other eight Presidents of the period four obtained seats in 
 Parliament. 
 
 Among these Presidents two stand out clearly in my mind as 
 the speakers who most appealed to me, Lord Milner and Sir 
 Edward Cook : their speeches seem to me to have been on the 
 same lines ; they had not the fiery eloquence with which Horton 
 or Wise at times swept the House away, nor had they the polished 
 periods which even then marked Curzon as an orator of the grand 
 old style. But for close reasoned argument, apt illustration, 
 command of the subject and well-turned sentences no one excelled 
 them. So far as I remember, neither of them ever made a bad 
 speech ; and Cook, at all events, I heard speak frequently. His 
 maimer was restrained even to coldness and his sarcasm was 
 cutting : every word told. 
 
 Cook seems not to have spoken in his Freshman's year, but 
 early in 1878 he sprang into fame at once. On February 7 in a 
 maiden speech he supported B. F. Costelloe (afterwards M.P.) 
 in condemning Lord Beaconsfield's Eastern policy, and only a 
 fortnight later he was chosen — an unusual honour for so new a 
 speaker — to oppose the motion of R. Dawson (afterwards M.P. 
 for Leeds) attacking Mr, Gladstone. His first independent 
 motion was non-political, advocating State support for the Stage : 
 it was carried without a division ; a year later as an ex-President 
 he spoke for another motion, modified in form, in support of the 
 Stage. As a rule, however, his speeches were political and hence 
 it is the greater tribute to his merit that at a time when the Union 
 had a strong Conservative majority he was chosen President the 
 first time he stood, although he had not held any of the lower 
 offices by service in which approach was usually made to the 
 Presidential Chair. 
 
OXFORD DAYS 19 
 
 The Dean of Carlisle (the Very Rev. H. Rashdall) 
 recalls those days in a letter to Mr. A. M. Cook : 
 
 My personal acquaintance with your brother at New College 
 was very slight, but I have the most vivid recollections of his 
 speeches at the Essay Society and at the Union ; curiously I have 
 no distinct impression of the Palmerston excepting impressions 
 of his speeches in general. I remember the first speech at the 
 Union. He got a prominent place in an important debate — no 
 doubt by prearrangement. The speech produced a tremendous 
 impression and put him at once in the front rank. I do not think 
 he spoke often : his speeches were highly prepared and elaborate 
 efforts. When I got into the Essay Society I was just through 
 Mods and disposed to look upon the distinguished " Great Men " 
 with much awe. I always looked back upon the debates in which 
 your brother did battle with Horton and Sargant as the heroic 
 period of the Essay Society. Your brother figured as a sort of 
 mean term between Horton who represented N.C. orthodoxy and 
 Sargant who was purely destructive. I need not say that he 
 was much more than the equal of Horton in such debates (except 
 in point of readiness and persiflage), and quite the equal of Sargant. 
 I cannot remember anything very much more definite. I don't 
 think I should describe him as acrimonious — " severe and coldly 
 intellectual " might perhaps be nearer the mark. 
 
 Mr. Geoffrey Drage of Christchurch writes : 
 
 I did not often have the privilege of hearing your brother 
 speak at the Union as I rarely attended its meetings, but of course 
 he shared with George Curzon and Bernhard Wise the honour of 
 being in the first flight. He had neither the flowing periods of 
 the former nor the poetical imagination of the latter. He 
 excelled them both, however, in his talent for close reasoning, 
 and his extraordinary capacity for carrying conviction to his 
 hearers' minds. These quahties rendered him fdcile princeps as 
 a speaker at college debating societies and smaller gatherings 
 where the arguments are more closely followed and where less 
 appeal is made to passion or imagination. On the other hand, 
 the fact that he could be very successful at political meetings is 
 shown by his selection as a possible candidate for Oxford in 
 succession to so great a personage as Sir William Harcourt, then 
 
20 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 at the zenith of his power. I never heard him speak on these 
 occasions, but I quite well recollect his speeches being discussed 
 and always in flattering terms. 
 
 Cook was by instinct, but not heredity, a Liberal. 
 During his leadership of that party in the Union, the Con- 
 servative protagonist, no mean opposite in brilliance and 
 ability, was the Hon. G. N. Curzon of Balliol. Cook wrote 
 to his dear friend, H. F. Fox, afterwards a Don at Brase- 
 nose, a vivid account of the first debate which he surveyed 
 and controlled from his Olympian seat. The reader 
 must, of course, make some allowance for the " animus 
 politicus." Mr. Curzon moved (October 16, 1879) " That 
 the return of the Conservatives to power at the next 
 General Election is desirable in the interests of the 
 nation ". Cook writes : 
 
 Curzon's speech at the Union on the first night was fifty 
 minutes altogether, and the Bloody One ^ who answered him 
 produced an analysis of how many minutes had been devoted to 
 each subject. Twenty were devoted to a general introduction, 
 in the course of which were discussed, amongst a host of others, 
 the following subjects : the new arrangement of seats in the New 
 Debating Hall, the parallel with the House of Commons thereby 
 suggested, the greatness of that Assembly and the reflected 
 greatness of the Union. Then came ten minutes of more particu- 
 lar introduction, which were given to an elaborate compilation of 
 synonyms for expressing " I am a Conservative ". As much as 
 seven minutes were devoted to the real subject, [Mr. E. T. Cook, 
 who spoke later in the debate, thought that the Hon. Opposer 
 had httle reason for accusing the Hon. Mover of undue com- 
 pression. That was surely a charge which no one who had ever 
 listened to the Hon. Mover could possibly bring against him. 
 Mr. Cook was rather struck with admiration at the Hon. Mover's 
 fecundity of expression which enabled him to make a defence of 
 the Conservative party last as long as seven minutes]. 
 
 ^ This is the inelegant but regular appellation of B. R. Wise. The nickname 
 
 was perhaps due to Wise's " grand ways ", and the fact that he was an Athletic 
 Blue. Cook and Wise married sisters. 
 
OXFORD DAYS 21 
 
 The House listened to him with wonderful patience, partly, I 
 expect, from a sort of idea that, as it was the first debate in the 
 New Hall, something must be coming. However, they were 
 naturally enough tired out at the end of him, and the result was 
 that the House emptied a good deal when the Bloody One began. 
 He cut up Curzon very well — very deliberate and pointed scores — • 
 some of them perhaps too elaborate and not light enough. Then 
 came the solid part of the speech which he had prepared before- 
 hand and which fell rather flat. I had told him before that I 
 thought it would be too heavy — long extracts from John Morley, 
 antithetical definitions of Liberalism and Conservatism, and so 
 forth. There was no oratorical form about it — that was the 
 fault. His peroration, though, was very good, the best thing I 
 have heard him say. I felt something like listening to Gladstone, 
 as he told us what blessings the Liberal Party had yet in store - 
 with their programme of Peace, Retrenchment and Equality. 
 
 The rest of the debate was very dull. I tried to enliven it 
 later by cutting into Curzon. I felt very virtuous as the House 
 was quite empty and there could be no reason for speaking except 
 conviction. Also it was the first time I had tried speaking at 
 the Union entirely extempore, and I got on much better than I 
 expected. Amongst other things I quoted from memory some- 
 thing that Mr. Cross said the other day about the Zulu War not 
 having been necessary. Curzon thought fit to deny the accuracy 
 of my quotation, and I promised to furnish him with the extract. 
 All the next week we carried on an extra-parliamentary debate, 
 and the letters are great fun. 
 
 Matthew Arnold was up in the gallery all the time — lolling 
 back and looking much amused at the roaring of the young 
 barbarians. I had asked Sir W. Harcourt. He wrote back as 
 follows : "I am obliged to leave Oxford this afternoon ; other- 
 wise it would have given me great pleasure to have been present 
 at your debate — as a hearer, not as a speaker. I owe much in 
 my public life to the Union at Cambridge, and am very glad to 
 think that your institution is in full vigour and discussing the 
 same old questions as we used to discuss thirty years ago. I 
 should particularly have wished to hear Curzon's opening, as I 
 had the pleasure of making his acquaintance at Eton. There is 
 nothing more interesting to an old stager like myself than to see 
 the two-year-olds run ". 
 
22 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 Some of the subjects discussed in the Union during 
 Cook's presidency look rather quaint to-day. It was 
 moved on November 13 " That, in the opinion of this 
 House, the apology of Her Majesty's Ministers with 
 regard to the Afghan and Zulu Wars is inconsistent alike 
 with fact and constitutional principle ". Another even- 
 ing was devoted to Sir Wilfrid Lawson's Permissive 
 Bill. But it is interesting to find the young barbarians 
 at play with a problem which remains still as intractable 
 as forty years ago. On November 27 it was moved 
 " That the grant of complete legislation and executive 
 independence to Ireland alone affords reparation for the 
 past and hope for the future ", the resolution, even so 
 early as 1879, being lost by an adverse majority of only 
 one vote. It is remarkable that neither the President 
 nor the Conservative leader took any part in this debate 
 on a question which in a few years was to " burn " with a 
 vengeance. Among Cook's rather older contemporaries 
 at the Union were Viscount Lymington (afterwards the 
 Earl of Portsmouth), R. F. Horton, H. W. Paul, after- 
 wards with Cook on the Daily News, A. A. Baumann, 
 who was an exceptionally able speaker, and the Hon. 
 W. St. John Brodrick, afterwards Viscount Midleton, 
 Secretary of State for War and India. All these held the 
 Presidency. 
 
 Cook was President of the Union during the Michael- 
 mas term of 1879. The next term but one his future 
 brother-in-law, B. R. Wise, occupied the chair. Though 
 many Presidents have held high, some the highest, place 
 in the State in after life, it is surprising how many pass 
 the chair without fulfilling the promise which that 
 distinction almost always implies. The writer remem- 
 bers in his own time at Cambridge several brilliant 
 speakers who became President and seemed destined to 
 a great name in English politics, and yet were scarcely 
 
OXFORD DAYS 23 
 
 heard of again after leaving the University. They 
 dropped into some unfathomable " oubliette " of the 
 Civil Service or, maybe, accepted some scholastic appoint- 
 ment in the overseas Empire — useful and honourable 
 vocations but not so dazzling as those to which our 
 admiring eyes and ears had predestined them. The old 
 Universities unquestionably turn out from their schools 
 and debating societies many men who, as has been said, 
 have " a great future behind them ", men who seem to 
 exhaust their aspirations and their reserves of vitality 
 in the great competitions of University life. Cook had 
 something to say on this subject in a letter written 
 during the long vacation of 1879 to his friend Fox, whose 
 University life was sorely interrupted by perpetual ill-, 
 health : 
 
 I gather from the tone of your letter that you were in a fit of 
 depression when you wrote it. But I am sure if you are having a 
 day like this at Miirren, the mountains and the flowers and the 
 trees will banish it. Your melancholy must have been associated 
 with confusion of ideas, for you speak as if loss of University 
 distinction left you aimless in life. It would be much more true 
 to facts to put it the other way and say that the attainment of 
 University distinction leaves the victim aimless. If a good degree 
 is to be one's great goal, what comes of the after years ? Is one 
 then to begin looking back and be content to think how dis- 
 tinguished we were when we were young men in College. Uni- 
 versity distinction be blowed ! — more especially if it is going to 
 interfere with you and make you less full of noble thoughts and 
 bright afEections than you are and have been. We are at Oxford 
 to be educated and not to be examined. You are fortunate 
 enough to be obliged to remember this. I am bold or reckless 
 enough to teach it to myself. 
 
 We get a vivid picture in these letters to Fox of 
 Cook's life at Oxford in the late seventies and early 
 eighties of the last century. It was a time of strenuous 
 and aspiring work, relieved by much social amusement 
 
24 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 and an occasional foray deep into the continent of 
 Europe achieved at enviably small expense. For Cook 
 and some of his circle suffered from a chronic lack of 
 pence or " dibs ". They helped one another financially, 
 and, as appears from an amusingly naive letter to Fox 
 at Davos, they loyally repaid. "I am desolated ", 
 writes Cook, " at receiving your postcard, as I'm afraid 
 my dilatoriness in sending dibs may keep you at Davos 
 longer than you want ". Then follows a long and care- 
 ful exposition of the route and cost of the journey to 
 London. " So I hope ", continues Cook, " the £8 which 
 I have managed to scrape together will see you through 
 all right. In case, however, you have been counting on 
 more from me, I send you a cheque for £5, which you 
 can use as a last resource. I haven't a Id. in the bank, 
 so it will be overdrawing, which is all right in the end, 
 only not to be resorted to except in extreme necessity. 
 If you don't want it mind you destroy it ". " I owe 
 you fivepence ", writes Cook elsewhere to his friend, 
 " but I haven't so much in the world, but have patience 
 and you shall get it ". There is something delightful in 
 this early-Christian communism among Cook's friends 
 and their indifference to " dibs ", save so far as these 
 were unfortunately necessary to a moderate fruition of 
 life. 
 
 It was financial pressure that constrained Cook to 
 take a private pupil in the long vacation of 1879. At 
 twenty pounds a month and all expenses he coached 
 Cyril Drage, son of Dr. Drage of Hatfield, a boy " as 
 delightful as he was handsome ", for the preliminary 
 medical examination. Cook became greatly attached 
 to his pupil, though the work interfered rather seriously 
 with his own studies. 
 
 Cook's letters to his dear friend Fox are marked 
 already by that refined wisdom and sound and steady 
 
OXFOED DAYS 26 
 
 judgment which were his lifelong attributes. They are 
 also full of a humour and a joie de vivre which redeem 
 their more serious features from any suspicion of priggish- 
 ness. There is a grave and gentle sincerity in the 
 beginning of a long letter to his friend : 
 
 My dear Boy — I am very sorry to hear of your collapse ; but 
 as you have bravely done with moaning, I shall say no more about 
 it. You know you have my sympathy, whatever that is worth — 
 all that I have to give of it and that you can digest ; perhaps it 
 will be light enough to go down with the milk and lime water. 
 Indeed I don't know what more I could say, for it is as useless as 
 it is easy to preach about patience and resignation. I quite agree 
 with the doctors (what a spec, for them !) that you ought to 
 reserve all your powers for getting well. " Pueri si valent, satis 
 discunt ". Preaching is tempting, as well as easy and useless, 
 and I take that as my text from the I-don't-know- which epigram 
 of Martial. You are much too anxious about yourself and not 
 nearly conceited enough : take a lesson from me. . . . Never try 
 to write sad or introspective poetry. Happiness is just as 
 beautiful as sadness. Poetry may perhaps be a Kadapaa, but 
 prevention is better than cure. The rest on this subject shall 
 appear in a future volume of my Proverbial Philosophy, by a 
 respectable old sage. The virtues can only be acquired when 
 there is a field for their exercise — show yourself brave as you are 
 all else that I seem to know you to be. [Here follows a long 
 description of certain social frivolities at Oxford in which B. R. 
 Wise was largely involved.] Good night, my dear old boy. " See 
 how long a letter ", and take it as a measure of my sympathy and 
 afEection. — Ever your friend, 
 
 E. T. Cook. 
 
 Cook keeps his invalid friend well posted up in Oxford 
 events. Another letter to Fox at Bristol may be given 
 as an average example of this interesting correspondence, 
 which in itself is evidence enough that Cook had the true 
 " genius for friendship " : 
 
26 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 New College, 
 
 April 24, 1879. 
 
 My dear Boy — I am so very sorry to see from your letter to 
 the Bloody One that you have not been so well again and that you 
 have had another of those miserable shivering fits. No doubt it 
 was one of those relapses which always come on in the course of 
 getting better. If you were only well it would not be so bad 
 loafing about " where now those nightingales are smging ", and 
 reading snatches of Ruskin, and rejoicing your people by staying 
 with them and amassing wealth by staying down, instead of 
 compiling statistics about iron and cotton, and doing divinity 
 papers, and going out to dismal luncheons and all the rest of it. 
 " Look at this picture and at that ", and don't " junk it over " 
 me too much, that's all. . . . 
 
 I lunched with the Bloody One to-day, to meet two 
 Australians, one a parson, one a banker. I liked the parson 
 best because he talked least. The Bloody One drew the banker 
 most cleverly on the depression of trade for me, and that was all 
 right. But after lunch the conversation took an aesthetic turn, 
 and the banker was invited to admire the architectural beauties 
 of the High. Well, he admitted that there were different styles ; 
 but for himself he saw nothing in Oxford to come up to a row of 
 fine American hotels. 
 
 He went to Thorold Rogers on Wednesday, but he did not 
 sport a single joke, indecent or profane. This was particularly 
 annoying because I had induced Freddy Baines to come with me, 
 promising him something racy ; however, he professed himself 
 satisfied and intends coming with me regularly. . . . 
 
 I have just met Germaine,i ^nd he has put his terminal 
 questions to me, such as " when are you going to send me your 
 photograph ? " and " when are you coming to see me ? " I have 
 been piling it on with my Essay lately and have quilled ^ the 
 Bloody One no end by putting in references in footnotes thus : 
 " For an able exposition of etc., etc., see Facts and Fallacies of 
 Modern Protection, by B. R. Wise (Trubner and Co.) ". I have 
 read nothing else but statistics and the newspaper since I last 
 
 1 R. A. Germaine, of Brasenose, President of the Union, Easter Term, 1878, 
 afterwards K.C., Recorder of Lichfield. 
 
 2 Winchester slang for " gratified ". 
 
OXFORD DAYS 27 
 
 saw you, and my stock of ideas greatly requires replenishing. 
 But I must now get to statistics again. 
 
 Here I was interrupted by Curzon, who had sat himself by 
 me and asked me to dinner. Go on getting well, and believe me, 
 — Yours very afiectionately, 
 
 E. T. Cook. 
 
 This last letter shows Cook involved in politico- 
 economical studies. Foreshado wings of all his future 
 interests occur in his correspondence and the glimpses 
 we get of him elsewhere. Dr. R. F. Horton, the dis- 
 tinguished Nonconformist preacher, gives us one of these 
 latter in his Autobiography (p. 41 ). The occasion was one 
 of the Saturday evening meetings of the New College 
 Essay Society : 
 
 I think I see Webbe (the University bat) start up in pious 
 horror, because Cook (now Sir Edward Cook) had compared 
 Shelley, for his passionate love of love and eagerness for truth, to 
 our Lord. 
 
 " The idea ", cried Webbe, " of likening an adulterer and a 
 suicide to Christ ". 
 
 " A suicide ! " retorted Cook, who had a curious acidulated 
 heat in debate ; "I know that Shelley was drowned by accident 
 in the Bay of Genoa, but this is the first time I ever heard of his 
 committing suicide ". 
 
 Then Webbe, hot and fuming : "I have no doubt that he 
 entered the boat with the intention of committing suicide ". 
 The session ended in convulsive laughter. 
 
 THs is one of the few and the latest occasions on 
 which Cook is reported as " airing " the independence 
 of his religious views. In these early days he seems 
 to have been interested in religious controversy, for he 
 tells Fox, November 16, 1879 : 
 
 I arranged a great theological gathering last night, at dinner 
 and at the Essay Society afterwards, to hear Margohouth read on 
 Pio Nono. The company included Mr. Shipley (Free Thinker), 
 
28 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 Mr. Mellie Graham (Anglican, and thought to be a likely convert 
 by) Mr. Vassall (Romanist), Mr. Grissell (ditto and Papal Chamber- 
 lain), Signor Tivoli (Italian democrat and anti-clerical), and Mr. 
 E. T. Cook (Non-Ascript). The essay, which was ridiculously 
 rancorous, proved too much for Grissell, who abruptly left the 
 room after a few sentences, but only served to loose Mr. Vassall's 
 tongue, and he really made an eloquent, moderate and sensible 
 speech. Old Tivoli was much delighted and also made a speech. 
 I pleased Vassall much by my defence of Pio Nono, for his early 
 life was really fine, I think. 
 
 Another letter three days later shows E. T. C.'s 
 early interest in literary criticism, on a subject which 
 has perhaps been over illustrated since those days : 
 
 Paton has lent me a French translation of Omar Khayyam, 
 which I want to compare with FitzGerald's English one, for I 
 read in some magazine article in the Vac. that the Enghsh version 
 is practically an original poem. If it was really Omar, it would 
 be very interesting (apart from its great beauty), for it is so 
 intensely modern. Swinburne sleeps with it under his pillow 
 and never goes about without it, some one told me, and I once 
 made a list of parallel passages from Faust. I like to beUeve that 
 the conception of Omar, suggested at the end of the Preface, is 
 the truth — that he took a half plaintive and half humorous 
 pleasure in exalting the gratification of sense above that of the 
 intellect. Such an idea exactly agrees with Matthew Arnold's 
 " Mycerinus " — the lines, I mean, in which he suggests that 
 
 It may be on that joyless feast his eye 
 Dwelt with mere outward seeming ; he within. 
 Took measure of his soul and knew its strength, 
 And by that silent knowledge, day by day, 
 Was calm'd, ennobled, comforted, sustain'd. 
 
 Cook's life at the University was indeed very full 
 and many-sided. In the midst of his formal studies and 
 his political and oratorical absorptions he was pursuing 
 his already pronounced taste for literary and artistic 
 criticism. I find that he contributed a long and still 
 very attractive paper on " The Connection between 
 
OXFORD DAYS 29 
 
 Poetry and Painting " to Temple Bar. Here, too, 
 we are struck with that early maturity of thought and 
 expression to which Lord Sumner makes allusion. Cook 
 had evidently given careful study to Lessing's Laocoon, 
 an " old-fashioned " book, as Cook calls it, but still 
 indispensable to every budding critic — the book of 
 which Macaulay said that he had learnt more about art 
 from half an hour's reading of it than from all he had 
 ever read or heard elsewhere. In this paper, however, 
 Cook stresses rather the affinities between literature and 
 fine art than the limits of their respective provinces.^ 
 A passage from this paper will show how early and 
 successfully Cook was cultivating fields from which he 
 was afterwards to reap so abundant a crop : 
 
 He (Wordsworth) would stop sometimes to do a little land- 
 surveying, and he has embodied the results which he thus obtained 
 on one occasion in a poem entitled "The Thorn " : 
 
 Not five yards from the mountain path, 
 This thorn you on your left espy ; 
 And to the left, three yards beyond, 
 You see a little muddy pond 
 Of water, never dry ; 
 Fve measured it from side to side, 
 'Tis three feet long and two feet wide. 
 And close beside this aged thorn 
 There is a fresh and lovely sight, 
 A beauteous heap, a hill of moss, 
 Just half a foot in height. 
 
 But very different is Wordsworth's method when he is at his 
 best. He does not then attempt to describe the various and 
 obvious features of the spot ; he gives us instead the spirit of it ; 
 he sees at once to its heart. It is indeed his power of doing this 
 that makes him worthy to rank with the great poets of all ages. 
 
 1 He superscribed his own copy of the Temple Bar Essay with a quotation 
 from Plutarch : " rd dpuXov/j-evov ^wypa(piav /j.h eluai (pdeyyoixivyjv ttjv irol-rjcnv, 
 irol-ricnv U ffiyQcrav ttjv ^uyypacpLav " {De aud. poetis, c. 3), " poetry, as the 
 saying goes, is vocal painting, and painting silent poetry ". 
 
30 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 For it is to be observed that what he describes is just as true as are 
 the points which the inferior artist would notice. The ordinary 
 man when the sun rises will see only a round disc of fire somewhat 
 like a guinea. But the poet-painter Blake saw more than this, 
 yet not less truly ; for he pierced through the sensible form to 
 the spiritual meaning, and detected in the radiant sky " an in- 
 numerable company of the heavenly host, crying, Holy, Holy, 
 Holy, is the Lord God Almighty ! " He questioned not his 
 corporeal eye any more than he would question a window con- 
 cerning a sight. He looked through it and not with it. Mr. 
 Ruskin drew attention to this distinction in the last course of 
 lectures he deUvered at Oxford. The food of Art, he said, is in 
 the ocular and passionate love of nature, not, as some would have 
 it, in the telescopic and dispassionate examination of her. The 
 true artist — be he painter or poet — if he wishes to draw a dog, 
 does not vivisect him, but looks at him and loves him. It is in 
 seizing the real spirit of what he is describing, in seeing what all 
 may see when he unfolds it to them, and in clothing the beautiful 
 vision in the beautiful form of indirect yet adequate expression, 
 that the method and genius of the poet consist. No elaborate 
 description, no accurate statement could bring before us those 
 wonderful Yew Trees in Borrowdale, with half the force and truth 
 and beauty which Wordsworth compresses in the few lines where 
 he speaks of the Fraternal Four, 
 
 beneath whose sable roof 
 Of boughs, as if for festal purpose decked 
 With unrej Dicing berries — ghostly shapes 
 May meet at noontide ; Fear and trembling Hope, 
 Silence and Foresight ; Death the skeleton, 
 And Time the shadow ; there to celebrate. 
 And in a natural temple scattered o'er 
 With altars undisturbed of mossy stone. 
 United worship ; or in mute repose 
 To lie and listen to the moimtain flood 
 Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves. 
 
 Cook's artistic and Ruskinian interest was early 
 manifested and was much stimulated by his successive 
 Continental tours. He writes to Fox from Oxford in 
 the autumn of 1881 : 
 
OXFORD DAYS 31 
 
 I have not seen you look so well for a long time as you did the 
 other morning in London. I wish you were up here : I have 
 never seen Oxford look so well either. It is profoundly quiet, 
 and this clear bright weather, with the turning leaves, too, makes 
 it very delightful. There is a great charm in it even when one 
 is fresh from Venice. I have been gloating over memories of 
 Venice with my photographs, for I got some new ones from 
 Ruskin's man this morning. The tiresome creature has just 
 brought out a guide-book to Amiens Cathedral. I wish he had 
 been just a month earlier with it : we wanted a clue to the 
 sculptures badly when we were there. There is a series of 
 Amiens photographs, too, but 5s. each is above my figure. Oh, 
 the usual price of a first edition copy of Stones of Venice is from 
 £16 to £20. I had an ofier the other day for £9 — if I were such 
 an one as you, I should snap it up at once. There are two new 
 architectural things in Oxford — Johns' new buildings and the 
 schools are now finished. I mean to make architecture my 
 recreation this term, and if I ever find myself with dibs enough, 
 I shall take an exeat to see some cathedrals. I want a good 
 photograph of Sahsbury to stick in my book opposite St. Mark's. 
 
 Cook won a First in Classical Moderations and 
 " Greats ". An incident occurred in connection with 
 the former examination about which there is still some 
 slight mystery. Cook failed in " Divvers ", that is, in 
 the Divinity part of Moderations. In those days the 
 University considered it essential that every aspirant to 
 her honours should know something of the history of the 
 kings of Israel and Judah as well as of the Articles of 
 Religion. Endless stories are told of this and similar 
 examinations. It is related that a certain undergraduate 
 in the viva voce part who was very much at sea was asked 
 
 at last by the Examiner, " Well, Mr. , can you tell 
 
 me what St. Paul's earlier name was ? " The examinee 
 returned no answer, but explained afterwards to a 
 friend that of course he knew it was Saul, but he was not 
 going to be such a fool as to lead up to the kings of Israel 
 and Judah. As for the Articles of Religion, the wise 
 
32 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 candidate who wished to avoid any suspicion of heresy 
 was well advised to commit them wholly to memory. 
 The futility of those conventional tests is illustrated by 
 a story told in Mr. R. F. Horton's Autobiography. 
 Professor Driver, the great Hebraist and Biblical scholar, 
 when about to be ordained, paced Mr. Horton's room 
 in nervous terror lest he should be ploughed in the 
 Bishop's examination. 
 
 Cook, it is certain, did not pass in his " Divvers ". 
 This was surprising as he had won the Divinity prize 
 before leaving Winchester — so surprising, indeed, that 
 some of his friends concluded he had " scratched " or 
 withdrawn his name with the object of having a " rag " 
 with the Dons. But this explanation in view of Cook's 
 prevailing conduct and character seems to need further 
 explaining. Cook was to " suffer " more than once for 
 political principle, but there is no evidence that he ever 
 aspired to a crown of religious martyrdom as well. 
 There is little doubt that his friend H. F. Fox is right in 
 believing Cook's to have been a genuine failure. But 
 the fine of £lO imposed by the College authorities was a 
 scandal. Cook remonstrated with the Warden, known 
 irreverently as the " shirt ", and was permitted after 
 a time to address the assembled Warden and Fellows, 
 but only two in that erudite tribunal, one of them an old 
 schoolfellow, took his side. Cook then appealed to the 
 visitor, a Bishop, who decided that he had no power. If 
 the authorities had deprived Cook of his scholarship, 
 his lordship might have intervened, but not in the case 
 of a small reduction. So the fine was exacted, though it 
 is certain no such treatment would be accorded to-day 
 to a First Class man. " It showed ", writes Mr. Fox, 
 " the most dreadful want of sympathy and understand- 
 ing to let a man like that get fined £lO. It shows that 
 nobody had taken the trouble to get to know him. The 
 
OXFORD DAYS 33 
 
 dons of those days must have taken a very different 
 view of their duties from what we do now ". 
 
 It has been suggested that this incident ultimately 
 barred Cook's chances of a Fellowship at New College. 
 But there are other reasons, as we shall see, which 
 account for that failure. Dr. Rashdall, the Dean of 
 Carlisle, one of Cook's contemporaries, in a letter from 
 which other quotations will shortly be made, dispels 
 all suspicion that the " Divvers " failure had anything 
 to do with the Fellowship. 
 
 Cook preserved two letters of congratulation he 
 received on his high degree. Mr. Alfred Robinson, 
 Fellow of New College and Tutor in " Greats " subjects, 
 wrote : "I congratulate you very much on your First — ■ 
 though of course it is only what I expected. The 
 examiners this time have been less favourable to the 
 College than usual — so it is all the more satisfactory 
 that no mistake should have been made about your 
 class." From the Hon. G, N. Curzon, his brilliant 
 political antagonist in the Union, he received a generous 
 felicitation : " It is a most remarkable feat in the midst 
 of so many other occupations to get a first in Greats, and 
 I hope it will prove the stepping-stone to new and speedy 
 successes." 
 
 In the summer of this same year (1880) Cook 
 announces with his usual sang-froid, from a weirdly- 
 named house near Bangor, that he had become engaged 
 to Miss Mary Vincent, " the lady of the place with the 
 unpronounceable name ", as Fox described her. This 
 match was broken off. Miss Vincent's brother, of 
 Winchester College and Christ Church, himself a dis- 
 tinguished journalist, and Chancellor of the Diocese of 
 Bangor, married in 1884 Mary Alexandra, Cook's younger 
 sister. 
 
 After taking his degree Cook sat for Fellowship 
 
 D 
 
34 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 examinations in several Colleges, but, for reasons best 
 known to his examiners, was not elected. At All Souls 
 his subjects were Law and History, which would suffi- 
 ciently explain his failure, as those were rather outside 
 his beat. He has himself left a humorous account of 
 his attempt at Exeter : 
 
 They badgered me (at viva voce) for 1^ hours — Nettle- 
 ship on Logic and Macan on Greek History. I got on fairly 
 well with N., but Macan was awful — an hour of it and he couldn't 
 find any question I could answer. " You give me all the philo- 
 sophy of the matter ", he pathetically exclaimed at the end, 
 " but I want facts " — want had to be his master. 
 
 Cook's failure at New College has been attributed 
 by a friend to the " Divvers " incident. The Dean of 
 Carlisle thinks this very unlikely. " I should imagine ", 
 he writes to Mr. A. M. Cook, " that your brother was 
 
 as able a man as M who got the Fellowship for 
 
 which he stood, but I can quite imagine that in the whole 
 range of work, knowledge of the subjects and particularly 
 
 scholarship, M quite fairly won his Fellowship. I 
 
 was myself a candidate and was told that the order was 
 
 1 , M ; 2, a non-New College man, I think Lindsay 
 
 of Balliol ; 3, four men almost equal, including your 
 brother ". On the whole, I think there is no doubt that 
 Cook, despite his conscientious devotion to his formal 
 studies, had to pay the penalty for having so many 
 irons in the fire, and was at some disadvantage in 
 academic competition with those whose time and atten- 
 tion had been less diffused over a variety of interests. 
 
 Mr. Alfred Robinson writes in the letter of congratula- 
 tion already quoted that he had been informed there 
 were at least five men who would have been placed before 
 Cook on the papers. " You might ", he continued, " be 
 the equal of any of them in ability, but their work was 
 very much fuller and more matured than yours " (it 
 
OXFORD DAYS 36 
 
 is strange that Cook should have been deficient in 
 " maturity "). " For example, in the Greek translation 
 paper you had omitted altogether the most testing 
 passage. From what you said the other day I conclude 
 that a Fellowship is important to you — so I hope you 
 will now set to work as steadily and systematically as 
 possible. I am sure you may have plenty of hope to 
 keep you going ". 
 
 Cook was naturally rather sore at these three failures. 
 He writes to a sister who, being of a saving disposition, 
 was collecting waste paper for sale : "I merely added to 
 their waste-paper basket. As it is I'm inclined to think 
 that collecting waste paper is the best thing a man in 
 my condition can turn himself to — there's no competition 
 there. I might invest my savings in a little donkey- 
 cart and go round all the Colleges every morning to sift 
 their rubbish. I'm sure I could get 9s. a day that way 
 which comes to £180 a year about — almost as good as a 
 Fellowship ". 
 
 Cook was thus reserved for other destinies, but what 
 they were must have seemed at this time very dubious. 
 He threw out feelers in several directions. He ate his 
 dinners in the Inner Temple, but was never called to the 
 Bar. He had also a narrow escape of the Civil Service, 
 as he passed tenth out of twelve in his examination and 
 was, accordingly, offered a place. The details of this 
 result, in view of Cook's future distinctions, are not 
 without interest. It should be premised that the 
 examiners for some reason deducted from the totals 125 
 marks before any marks were given to a candidate for 
 any subject. Edward Tyas Cook, then, obtained 403 
 and 460 marks respectively for Greek and Latin out of 
 nominal totals of 750. These were respectable figures, 
 and it is not surprising to find Cook at the head of the 
 twelve for composition and precis, truly journalistic 
 
36 LIFE OF SIE EDWARD COOK 
 
 subjects, with 314 marks out of 500. Only two candi- 
 dates seem to have taken German — Sidney James Webb, 
 who received 197 marks, and Cook, whose mark is a round 
 0. It is quite as surprising to find Cook receiving only 
 32 marks out of 500 in literature, which placed him the 
 penultimate of the twelve, and 87 out of 500 for history, 
 in which subject, however, he never seems to have 
 specialised. Probably Cook was only half-hearted in 
 this attempt. He certainly refused the place offered 
 to him, as it did not lead to a Treasury appointment. 
 Otherwise he might have been permanently excluded 
 from that political and party life in which he was to find 
 for thirty years his congenial field of service and dis- 
 tinction. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 EARLY JOURNALISM 
 
 Nul vent ne faict pour celuy qui n' appoint de port destin6 (" No wind 
 blows for him who has no destined port "). — Montaigne, after Seneca. 
 
 A MAN may win the highest academic and political 
 distinctions at Oxford or Cambridge and yet enter the 
 great world with the practical questions of employment 
 and livelihood quite unsettled. Cook left Oxford " for 
 good and all ", as he precisely tells us, on Wednesday 
 morning, December 14, 1881, and it was some years 
 before he found his true vocation. But he was already 
 thinking of journalism. He had contributed a little 
 to Mr. Labouchere's paper Truth and to Temple Bar. 
 Mr. John Morley was then editing the Pall Mall Gazette, 
 and Cook expresses a high admiration for his articles, 
 especially those on the Bradlaugh imbroglio. It ia rather 
 strange that Morley's name does not appear on the 
 records of the Union Society. He seems not to have 
 aspired to University distinction though he impressed 
 his own circle of friends with his great abilities. It was 
 not difficult for Cook to obtain an introduction to the 
 Editor from his Oxford friends, and he writes to Fox 
 just before going down : 
 
 I had a very satisfactory interview with Morley, although 
 nothing much has come of it except that I had an " occasional 
 note " in the other day. . . . He gave me a general LQvitation 
 to contribute to the Pall Mall, when I was settled in London. 
 
 37 
 
38 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 I wish you would come, too, for it's very cheap — 2-5 rooms for 
 £60 a year. 
 
 More than ten years later Cook wrote in the Young 
 Man : " When I got my introduction to Mr. John 
 Morley and first went to see him, he asked me if I was an 
 Oxford man. I said ' Yes ' ; and then he asked me 
 whether I was a very confirmed one — whether, for 
 instance, I was a Fellow of a College. When I said 
 ' No ', he said, ' Then there is some hope for you ' ". 
 
 There must be few callings more precarious and 
 wearing than that of a free-lance contributor to the 
 daily Press. Cook's personal introduction to Morley 
 was a great advantage and he proceeded to contribute 
 articles to the Pall Mall, which were accepted and 
 published in a steadily growing proportion.^ During 
 these years of probation Cook had also a little financial 
 stand-by, which saved him from a too complete depend- 
 ence on the editorial smile or frown, in the Secretaryship 
 of the London University Extension Lectures, which he 
 held from 1881 to 1885. 
 
 He was gradually learning the mysteries of his future 
 craft. He seems to have contributed his first formal 
 leading articles to the Oxford Chronicle. The earliest 
 of these, dated January 7, 1882, is the conventional 
 " three-decker " on the subject of Liberal organization 
 in Oxford city. One is struck on reading these articles 
 with the maturity of the writer's style. It is surprising 
 that so young a man, who had, moreover, taken as his 
 master and model an author so little distinguished for 
 an austere simplicity of style as John Ruskin, should 
 have written with so few symptoms of youthful exuber- 
 
 ^ Cook preserved the earliest of his contributions to the Pall Mall Gazette. 
 It was one of those paragraphs or " notes " which were so distinctive a feature 
 of the Pall Mall and afterwards of the Westminster Gazette. Its subject was a 
 lecture by the Warden of Merton on the Irish Land Act, and it is dated December 
 6, 1881. 
 
EARLY JOURNALISM 39 
 
 ance or of that malady which in his own sphere of fine 
 art Sir Hubert Herkomer described as " purplitis ". 
 There are no purple patches in these articles. They 
 show Cook already in possession of that effectual and 
 finely - tempered instrument which was so adequate 
 to his purposes, so free from mannerism and yet so 
 characteristic. The opening paragraph from a leading 
 article in the Oxford Chronicle in December 1882, on 
 "Mr. Gladstone's Jubilee", shows how early Cook had 
 developed a way of writing which disguises its art by its 
 own ease and naturalness : 
 
 On the thirteenth of December, 1832, Mr. Gladstone, then a 
 young man fresh from a brilliant University career at Oxford, was 
 returned to Parhament for the borough of Newark, A few days 
 later one of the Conservative journals, in commenting on his 
 election, predicted that he would Uve to be classed " amongst the 
 most able statesmen in the British senate." Fifty years have 
 passed, and ]VIr. Gladstone is at this moment the most popular 
 and powerful man in England. Here in Oxford the sentiments 
 of admiration and gratitude on the occasion of his pohtical jubilee 
 will not be less warm and sincere than elsewhere. It was at 
 Oxford that Mr. Gladstone developed the taste for study and the 
 passion for hard work which have distinguished him throughout 
 life ; and it was at the Oxford Union Society that he first learned 
 the arts of eloquence. For eighteen years Mr. Gladstone repre- 
 sented the University of Oxford in Parliament, and although the 
 University has long ago turned its back on one of the most dis- 
 tinguished of its sons, yet Mr. Gladstone's name will always be 
 associated with a place for which he has so often expressed his 
 interest and afiection. The citizens of Oxford, moreover, are 
 not likely soon to forget that it was in their Corn Exchange, some 
 five years ago, that Mr. Gladstone dedicated himself to that 
 political campaign which led to the renewed ascendancy of the 
 Liberal party. The feelings which that party entertain towards 
 their great leader are almost without parallel in EngUsh poUtics. 
 Mr. George Russell, the member for Aylesbury, was only speaking 
 truth when he said the other day that with nine-tenths of the 
 
40 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 Liberal members in the House of Commons Mr. Gladstone's will 
 was law. The constituencies are certainly not behind their 
 representatives in this confiding loyalty. It used to be the boast 
 of the French kings to be able to say " the State, it is I, and I am 
 the State ". So it is with Mr. Gladstone. He is the Liberal 
 party and the Liberal party is Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 Cook's work in connection with the Extension 
 Lectures was in the nature of a stop-gap. His duty was 
 to arrange centres and to develop and organize the 
 extension movement in the London area. It appears 
 that he did little lecturing at this time on his own 
 account. He alludes to this work in a letter to Fox 
 from Blackheath (April 1881) : 
 
 Here am I in biting East winds, traveUing about third class 
 from suburb to suburb and sufiering fools as gladly as may be. . . . 
 The chief advantage of my work is that it doesn't take up very 
 much time, hardly more than half, although not hving in London 
 makes me waste an awful lot of the other time. But then if I 
 did Uve in London, it would cost so much that it would hardly 
 be worth doing. ... I am writiug this in the British Museum, 
 as a short relaxation from the German editions of the Poetics. 
 The work is getting on a little now, but it grows dreadfully, and 
 I am awfully afraid I may get sick of it before it is done. 
 
 This projected edition of Aristotle's Poetics was never 
 completed. At this period Cook was waiting for the 
 emergence of his real Life's task, and engaged in vari- 
 ous feverish activities mostly leading no-whither. He 
 applied about this time for a professorship at Nottingham 
 in English Literature, and it is rather strange that a 
 candidate so well qualified and so strongly commended 
 should have been denied. The Destinies were evidently 
 determined that Cook should not enter the cloistered 
 walks of an academic profession. 
 
 It appears also from a testimonial supplied by 
 Mr. John Morley that there was some thought of 
 
EARLY JOURNALISM 41 
 
 Cook becoming private secretary to Mr. Carnegie. Mr. 
 Morley writes : 
 
 " Pall Mat.t. Gazette " , 
 June 8, 1883. 
 
 Dear Mr. Carnegie — The bearer of this is Mr. E. Cook — a 
 young Oxford man of great ability — a good past and a most 
 promising futmre. If you can persuade him to become your 
 secretary you will get a prize. — Yours faithfully, 
 
 J. M. 
 
 This proposal, too, surely one of the most attractive of 
 its kind, fell through, for reasons not now ascertainable. 
 
 But the suspense was not long. Cook was soon to 
 be established in a calling which with all its changes 
 and cataclysms held him without any long interruption 
 for a full thirty years. A letter from Mr. Alfred Milner, 
 who had no doubt, as assistant-editor, dealt with much 
 of Cook's " copy ", indicates the decisive event : 
 
 " Pall Mall Gazette ", 
 
 NORTHUMBEKLAND StREET, StRAND, 
 
 August 14, 1883. 
 
 My dear Cook — Stead, who is very busy, asks me to return 
 this. It is a good article but there is a squash just now of literary 
 articles. 
 
 Should you be prepared to consider the idea of coming on here 
 at a salary ? It is quite in the air as yet and I am not empowered 
 to make you any proposals, though Stead knows that I am 
 mentiomng the subject to you. The sort of notion is that you 
 should come here every morning with notes, if notes were wanted 
 — if not, be prepared to do any other work, middle articles on 
 general subjects or descriptive articles on anything that was 
 going on. It would not take your whole time or anything like 
 it, but would be a sort of first charge on it. Waste of time, like 
 that involved in your writing good articles which don't happen 
 to be wanted, would be avoided. Arrangements might be made 
 to prevent its conflicting with University Extension. 
 
 Think it over during your hohday. It would be nice to have 
 
42 LIFE OF Sm EDWARD COOK 
 
 the " P.M.G." manned by people one knew and believed in, and 
 left less and less at the mercy of casual contributors. — Yours ever, 
 
 A. M. 
 
 No mention of this matter has yet been made to Thompson, 
 so you see how tentative it all is. What one really wants to 
 know is whether it be of any use raising the question. 
 
 This is not the earliest letter in the life-long 
 correspondence between Cook and Milner. The latter 
 had left Oxford a few years before Cook, and the 
 first specimen in this collection dates from his early 
 experiences of London life. It has an interest as show- 
 ing the serious purpose and the touch of mature, or 
 premature, wisdom which marked Cook himself and 
 some of his friends : 
 
 54 Claverton Street, S.W., 
 October 31, 1880. 
 
 My deae Cook — If my recollections of Oxford are correct, 
 and they have hardly had time to fade, you are probably so busy 
 at this moment, that you will scarcely care to read this letter and 
 certainly be unable to devote much time to the enclosed list. 
 But perhaps, if you will keep it, it may be of a little use to you 
 some day. I have put a mark to the books which I know to be 
 good. The others are mere names to me. 
 
 I am sorry that we have so little opportunity of meeting. 
 You at Oxford can have little idea of the barrenness of a busy 
 life in London. For my own part I find I am doing hard dull 
 work all day with a view to a highly problematical supply of 
 bread and cheese in the future, and then in the evening I read — 
 the papers ! A man's mind, like his body, does not thrive on 
 even the most liberal allowance of bran, so after a while there 
 ensues a condition of mental feebleness hardly describable. 
 
 Perhaps you think our acquaintance is too slight to justify 
 so long an exposition of my personal feelings. The truth is I 
 can't regard any one whom I have met at those original little 
 gatherings of Toynbee's at the " Inns of Court " and elsewhere 
 as quite a stranger. That sort of discussion is invaluable to me 
 now. I only hope others find some good in it. If circumstances 
 
EARLY JOURNALISM 43 
 
 will ever allow it to lead to a vigorous and constant interchange 
 of ideas among men who have all a living interest in social and 
 political subjects, what an advantage it will be to all of us ! — 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 A. MiLNER. 
 
 In the last paragraph of this letter Milner refers to the 
 meetings of certain elect spirits with Arnold Toynbee, 
 with the object of promoting that millennium which 
 to-day seems as far of! as ever. Cook's correspond- 
 ence includes letters from Toynbee, and shows that he 
 was for a time in close and sympathetic touch with that 
 beautiful and unselfish spirit in those days. 
 
 Here we must say something about the great paper 
 on which Cook obtained his first regular journalistic 
 appointment and of which he was to become the Editor. 
 The influence and prestige of the Pall Mall Gazette now 
 stood very High. For nearly twenty years it had 
 exercised a powerful direction on the internal and 
 external policy of the country. It was once said without 
 gross exaggeration that " the Editor of the Pall Mall 
 Gazette came nearer ruling the British Empire than 
 any living man ". 
 
 The first number of the Pall Mall was published on 
 February 7, 1865. Its founder was Mr. George Smith 
 of the famous publishing firm of Smith, Elder and Co., 
 who owed the first suggestion of the paper to Mr. 
 Frederick Greenwood. The latter gentleman had come 
 across a bound volume of the Anti-Jacobin, a weekly 
 organ which flourished for a time at the close of the 
 eighteenth century and strangely anticipated some of the 
 most familiar features in print and arrangement of our 
 modern journals. Mr. Greenwood was much attracted 
 by the aspect of this weekly paper with its Canning 
 associations, and formed the idea of an evening journal 
 with columns of the same size and such features as 
 
44 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 " Notes of the Day ", familiar to readers of the Pall 
 Mall and Westminster Gazettes. 
 
 The Pall Mall had its Thackeray, as the Daily News 
 its Dickens, tradition. Though its true progenitor was 
 the old Anti- Jacobin, it derived its name from a 
 more modern source. All who have read Pendennis 
 remember how a paper called the " Pall Mall Gazette " 
 was started by Bungay, edited by Captain Shandon, 
 sub-edited by Jack Finucane, and counted among its 
 contributors Arthur Pendennis, George Warrington 
 and a large number of notables. " ' Pall Mall Gazette ! 
 Why Pall Mall Gazette ? ' asked Wagg. ' Because the 
 editor was born in Dublin, the sub-editor at Cork ; 
 because the proprietor lives in Paternoster Row and the 
 paper is published in Catherine Street, Strand. Won't 
 that reason suffice you, Wagg ? '" The phrases will be 
 recalled in which Captain Shandon invited contributions 
 from Pendennis : " ' You would be the very man to 
 help us with a genuine West End article — you under- 
 stand — dashing, trenchant, and d aristocratic ' ". 
 
 The flamboyant prospectus of this mythical journal 
 contains a passage which some people have seriously 
 thought to have been part of the origuial prospectus 
 of the actual Pall Mall : 
 
 " We address ourselves to the higher circles of society : we care 
 not to disown it — the Pall Mall Gazette is written by gentlemen 
 for gentlemen ; its conductors speak to the classes in which they 
 live and were born. The field-preacher has his journal, the 
 radical free-thinker has his journal ; why should the Gentlemen 
 of England be unrepresented in the Press ? " 
 
 Many people imagine that it was the Pall Mall 
 Gazette of fact and not fiction which claimed for itself the 
 character of a paper " written by gentlemen for gentle- 
 men ". 
 
 Mr. Frederick Greenwood, who had succeeded 
 
EAELY JOURNALISM 45 
 
 Thackeray as editor of the Cornhill, the famous magazine 
 published by Smith, Elder and Co., was not ambitious 
 to edit the paper whose foundation he had suggested. 
 But after he had vainly applied to Thomas Carlyle for an 
 editor from the philosopher's circle of friends, he was 
 obliged to consent. Then came the question of the 
 name. Mr. Greenwood was for " The Evening Review," 
 but Mr. Smith, when talking the subject over with 
 Miss Thackeray, half jokingly suggested that the paper 
 should be christened the " Pall Mall Gazette," like the 
 imaginary journal of her father's romance. Miss 
 Thackeray was delighted and so the new paper was 
 named, though it had no more to do with the Pall Mall 
 of London's clubland than the Dukes of Devonshire had 
 to do with Devonshire. 
 
 It is interesting to notice that the first article in the 
 first number of the new paper was a grave and respectful 
 appeal to Her Majesty to please her impatient sub- 
 jects by abandoning the retirement in which she had 
 lived since the death of the Prince Consort. The 
 paper consisted of eight pages, it cost twopence, and 
 it reproduced exactly many of the attributes of the 
 Anti- Jacobin, even the collections of paragraphs 
 headed respectively " Lies " and " Misrepresentations ". 
 Among its contributors were Mr, TroUope and Sir 
 Arthur Helps. Its printing office was at the end of one 
 of the long steep passages leading from the Strand to 
 the river. These were the days before the building of 
 the Thames Embankment, and the office was liable to 
 frequent inundation. The new infant was certainly 
 well christened with Thames water and mud. 
 
 Though Mr. Greenwood worked sixteen hours a 
 day, the paper had a hard struggle and probably never 
 exceeded a 1500 circulation for a year after its birth. 
 Then came a happy journalistic " hit " of the sort 
 
46 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 which was to be repeated more than once in the Gazette's 
 subsequent history. It is a well-known story how Mr. 
 James Greenwood, the Editor's brother, went disguised 
 with a friend to Lambeth Workhouse as a " casual 
 pauper ", spent a night in that squalor and misery and 
 then wrote an account of their experiences for the Pall 
 Mall. This was transcribed into hundreds of papers in 
 Great Britain and gave an immense " fillip " to the 
 fortunes of the new journal as well as a much-needed 
 impetus to workhouse reform. 
 
 How the Pall Mall became the inspiring organ of 
 British Jingoism and Mr. Gladstone's bitterest opponent, 
 how it secured the Suez Canal shares for England, how 
 it brought the Sepoys to the Mediterranean and sub- 
 stituted Lord Salisbury for Lord Derby at the Foreign 
 Office, how it backed the Turk and inflamed British 
 Russophobia, — these and other exploits of the new 
 journal, from its home in Northumberland Street, need 
 not be related in detail. Its high Tory policy was largely 
 inspired and expressed by the " ponderous Q.C. ", after- 
 wards a judge, Mr. Fitzjames Stephen, who at one time 
 contributed a series of letters to the paper in reply to 
 Mr. Mill's essay on " Liberty ". 
 
 The end of this first and not wholly edifying stage of 
 the paper's history came with the great Gladstonian 
 victory of 1880. Mr. Smith grew tired of owning a news- 
 paper. Like some other proprietors he found that most 
 of the political influence and the personal fame fell to 
 the editor and his staff, while he was left with the financial 
 responsibility. Moreover, the slow-dribbling profits of 
 even the most sparkling of daily papers had become less 
 attractive since he had acquired a monopoly in English- 
 speaking countries of the more paying effervescences of 
 the Apollinaris spring. Anyhow, Mr. Smith, who had 
 spent £25,000 in an attempt to found a morning, as well 
 
EAELY JOURNALISM 47 
 
 as an evening, Pall Mall, wearied of a thankless enter- 
 prise and handed over his paper to Mr. Henry Yates 
 Thompson, who in 1878 had married his daughter. 
 Now the most important point about this transaction, 
 a point perhaps inadequately considered by Mr. Smith, 
 was that his son-in-law was a Liberal and that the Tory 
 Pall Mall, the paper " written by gentlemen for gentle- 
 men ", would thus be transferred, lock, stock and barrel, 
 to the Liberal party. Mr. Thompson had served as Lord 
 Spencer's secretary when his lordship was Viceroy of 
 Ireland and had acquired a reputation for " imperturb- 
 able courage and self-possession ". He was also not 
 without ambitions which might perhaps be furthered 
 by the ownership of a famous and powerful journal. So 
 he accepted his father-in-law's handsome present, and 
 Mr. Frederick Greenwood, not willing to be sold literally 
 as well as metaphorically, went into the wilderness^ 
 whence, however, he soon returned with prospects of 
 unlimited finance. Without availing himself of these 
 offers, he started on his own account the St. James's 
 Gazette, whither he carried over most of his old staff. 
 
 The Pall Mall was, therefore, left without captain 
 and crew. How Mr. Thompson, " whose worst 
 flatterers ", said Mr. Stead, " never claimed for him the 
 pen of a ready writer ", managed to carry on during the 
 first weeks of his proprietorship, is still undivulged. 
 The accumulation of manuscript left in the pigeon-holes 
 by Mr. Greenwood no doubt filled a good many aching 
 voids. An editor had to be found who would repair the 
 severe loss of prestige due to Mr. Greenwood's departure. 
 The choice fell upon Mr. John Morley, who had served his 
 journalistic 'prenticehood on the Morning Star, had just 
 been defeated in the parliamentary election at West- 
 minster and was now editing the Fortnightly Review. 
 Mr. Morley had to be pressed to accept the offer, and 
 
48 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 he made his own terms, which included a substantial 
 salary of £2000 a year. 
 
 It speaks well for Mr. Morley's judgment of character 
 and ability that he at once appointed as his assistant 
 Mr. W. T. Stead, the fame of whose exploits as editor of 
 the Northern Echo at Darlington had spread to London. 
 All the same probably no two men more dissimilar in 
 temperament, and, though nominally belonging to the 
 same party, in opinion, were ever associated in one task. 
 Mr. Morley was austere and conventional : ]Mr. Stead 
 was emotional and Bohemian. Mr. Morley hated sensa- 
 tionalism : it was the breath of Mr. Stead's nostrils. Mr. 
 Morley was a convinced Little Englander : Mr. Stead 
 an equally convinced Imperialist. It was well that a 
 Morley regime of a few years should have been interposed 
 between the reigns of Greenwood and Stead. Morley 
 carried forward the tradition of dignity and decorum 
 with which Mr. Greenwood had invested the editorship, 
 and restored the prestige of the paper by his already 
 established personal distinction. A writer in The Times 
 described the Morley-Stead partnership as " a union of 
 classical severity with the rude vigour of a Goth". 
 But the tone of the paper during these few years shows 
 that " classical severity " was the dominant note, and 
 that the Gothic influence was kept under effectual 
 control. So much so indeed, that Mr. Stead is under- 
 stood to have painfully acquired " Morleyese " and to 
 have written it with submission and docility. 
 
 Cook tells an amusing story about this partnership in 
 his diary under date August 1892. Stead had been to 
 see John Morley at that time. Quoth the Irish Secre- 
 tary : " As I said to my wife, ' It's no joke in Ireland 
 with Redmondites, Ulster and all the rest of it. But as 
 I kept Stead in order for three years, I don't see why I 
 shouldn't govern Ireland ' ". 
 
EARLY JOURNALISM 49 
 
 We seem to be writing ancient history in recording 
 that Morley's editorship was remarkable, firstly for his 
 persistent support of Chamberlain before that formidable 
 Jacobin had as yet got his feet fairly into national 
 politics, and secondly for his advocacy of Parnell and 
 Parnellism as against Forster and Forsterism. Mr. 
 Morley was not by natural vocation a journalist. His 
 method of editing, Mr. Stead tells us, was to choose a 
 number of experts and get them to write articles when 
 their subjects turned up : a thoroughly bad policy, which 
 Stead challenged for reasons which every journalist 
 would endorse and which seem to have shaken even Mr. 
 Morley himself. 
 
 " Suppose ", said Mr. Morley, " you had to have an article, 
 say, on sun spots, would you get an astronomer to write it, who 
 knows everything about the subject, or a journalist who knows 
 nothing ? " " The journalist most assuredly," I (Stead) replied. 
 " If you get an astronomer to write the article he will write it 
 for astronomers, and use terms which your readers will not under- 
 stand, and his article will be full of allusions which can only be 
 appreciated by experts. The net effect of the article will be that 
 your reader will not learn what you want him to learn ". " But ", 
 said Mr. Morley, " is that not setting ignorance to instruct 
 ignorance ? " " By no means. It is setting a man who is in- 
 telligent to tap the brains of the specialist, and then to serve his 
 knowledge up so that it can be understood by the ordinary 
 reader ". 
 
 Mr. Morley left the Pall Mall Gazette in 1883, six 
 months after he had entered Parliament as Member 
 for Newcastle ; but it was not, as some people think, 
 from his editorial chair on that paper that he was 
 summoned by Mr, Gladstone to higher spheres. Cook 
 learnt the true facts from Mr. Morley himself when 
 lunching with him more than twelve years later : 
 
 J. M. described the only leaders he had written for the Daily 
 News. It was in 1886 by way of leading up to the Home Rule 
 
 E 
 
60 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 Bill. He went to the G.O.M. and said he would write leaders 
 turning the D.N. if he would tell him what was in his mind. 
 " He told me, and I wrote three. I was in the middle of the 
 fourth, when a note came from the G.O.M. asking me to call. I 
 went and he offered me the Irish Secretaryship. I was very- 
 much surprised. I said I must consult Jo (Chamberlain) first, 
 as I always did. Jo said, ' D — him ! I knew he would do it '. 
 I funked it, being entirely new to ofl&ce, but said I supposed I 
 shouldn't respect myself if I refused. Jo said, ' Oh, of course 
 you must take it '. I returned to the G.O.M., and finished the 
 leader — such is my devotion to editorial commands." 
 
 Mr. Morley was succeeded in the editorsliip by Mr. 
 Stead, and the paper soon began to move forward with 
 a speed which would have justified a respelling of its 
 title. " In the opinion both of friends and foes ", wrote 
 Mr. Stead very credibly in after days, " we made things 
 hum. Without ceasing to be strenuous the paper 
 became alive, and vigorously alive. No doubt we failed 
 and came far short of our ideal, but not even our bitterest 
 critics will deny that we struggled towards the ideal 
 which was set before us ". For spaciousness of idea and 
 outlook the writer has met no one who could be compared 
 with Stead, unless it were Cecil Rhodes. There were, 
 indeed, many affinities between these two men, and one 
 of the first things Rhodes used to do on his emergencies 
 in London from the desert and the jungle was to call on 
 Stead in his office in Mowbray House. It is said that 
 Rhodes had once had the intention of appointing Stead 
 his sole trustee under the famous testament. 
 
 And Stead had not only big ideas but inexhaustible 
 powers of expression. Few men were ever so copious 
 and at the same time so vigorous and original. Stead 
 could overflow into vast spaces of letterpress without 
 ever running thin and shallow. It would be hard to 
 overstate Stead's influence on British journalism. He 
 struck the " personal note ", introduced the interview 
 
EARLY JOURNALISM 61 
 
 and the daily illustration, lit up the page with the 
 eye-arresting headline and crosshead, and developed the 
 special article and the signed contribution. No man was 
 less mercenary or commercially - minded than Stead, 
 whose dominant motive in all his journalistic work was 
 the promotion of great moral and political purposes. 
 
 Cook, who of course knew Stead intimately, wrote 
 after the Titanic disaster : 
 
 Mr. Stead was of all men the most imworldly, and of editors 
 the least susceptible to the " business side ". But in another 
 sense he was a consummate master in the art of attracting " the 
 copper alms ". He knew, that is to say, that a newspaper in 
 order to have influence must be read, and that an editor's first 
 business, therefore, is to make his sheet readable. He must have 
 circulation — not by any means necessarily " the widest circula- 
 tion ", but circulation amongst the people in many spheres who 
 count for most. This was what Mr. Stead set himself to attract 
 to the Pall Mall Gazette, both when he was assistant-editor under 
 Lord Morley and during his own editorship. 
 
 Stead was not a " fee-first man ". In journalism 
 the essential thing for him, Cook tells us, was " to teach 
 and preach zealously for the love of God ". 
 
 Stead's name was for years so much associated with 
 aggressive pro-Boerism and extravagant spiritisms that 
 his services to the cause of a rational imperialism have 
 been overlaid with other impressions. Probably no man 
 did more in the dark days which preceded the dawn 
 of the modern Imperial ideas to resist the policy of 
 " scuttle " and to teach the meaning and mission of the 
 British Commonwealth. Mr. Stead's Imperialism was 
 very distinct in type from that of his predecessor, Mr. 
 Frederick Greenwood. Seeley's Expansion of England, 
 a book which has influenced political thought in this 
 country more than any other and did so much to purify 
 and enlighten the Briton's ideas about his Empire, was 
 published in the year in which Stead became editor of the 
 
62 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette. It gave to that Liberal Imperialism 
 which. Stead confessed and preached much of its inspira- 
 tion. Stead was a Home Ruler before Mr. Gladstone, 
 but his Irish views were conditioned by his Imperialism. 
 Home Rule was to be a step towards Imperial Federa- 
 tion, and when Mr. Gladstone showed his indifference to 
 Empire principles by excluding the Irish members from 
 Westminster in the 1886 Bill, Stead fell upon that ill- 
 conceived measure with fire and slaughter. 
 
 It was in these days that the creed of Liberal 
 Imperialism, Cook's political faith throughout his life, 
 was first formulated. Stead drew up for the members 
 of his stall a confession of faith which he called " the 
 Gospel according to the P.M.G." or "an imperfect out- 
 line of the things which are most surely received among 
 us ". This long but vigorous statement includes much 
 that is still sound doctrine, and it explains incidentally 
 why Stead was able to work with men like Milner and 
 Cook who differed so greatly from him in tradition and 
 temperament. Stead's creed opens with a long section 
 about the " kingdom of Heaven ", but it subsides after 
 a time on to more terrestrial and secular subjects. As 
 this confession embodies the policy of the Pall Mall 
 Gazette and as it coincided with Cook's own lifelong 
 principles, I will quote a paragraph which, dating from 
 the early eighties, before the first Jubilee Procession, 
 does credit to Stead's insight and foresight : 
 
 What is the greatest political phenomenon of our time ? It 
 is the multiplication and diffusion of the English race. In a 
 hundred years we have entered into possession of the world. 
 Including the United States, which is as English as Hampshire 
 although lying outside the Queen's dominions, we number close 
 upon a hundred millions of English-speaking men, ruling over 
 nearly three hundred millions of native subj ects. The sovereignty 
 of the sea is ours ; and ours are the multitude of the isles. One 
 
EARLY JOURNALISM 63 
 
 half of the New World is exclusively our own. So is the island- 
 continent of Australia, and well-nigh the whole of Southern Asia 
 and Southern Africa. Empire such as ours there is not in all the 
 world, nor ever has been. The peopling of the waste places with 
 men of our blood, of our race, of our religion and of our laws, 
 goes on without ceasing. Unless it is checked, the end of another 
 century will see the world divided into two halves — one half 
 speaking English as a native tongue, the other half learning it as 
 the lingua franca of the human race. Of all problems, therefore, 
 the most important is to keep these great and growing English- 
 speaking States in friendly alliance, if not in pohtical union. The 
 Federation of the British Empire is the condition of its survival. 
 As an Empire we must federate or perish. If our foreign policy 
 is to be one, one government must represent all. If all are to be 
 equally exposed to danger of attack, all must share equally in 
 providing for defence. No one proposes to attempt to wed 
 together the ocean-sundered free republics under the British 
 flag by the loose bonds of a centralized administration. There 
 should be the minimum control from the centre compatible with 
 the maximum of efficient co-operation in such afiairs as are 
 common to all parts of the Empire, and even this minimum can 
 only be safely exercised when the controlled are fully represented 
 at the centre of control. Nothing should be forced, but every- 
 thing fostered that makes for the enfranchisement of the English- 
 men beyond the sea at present without a voice in the government 
 of the Empire, the future of which they will some day control. 
 
 Stead was the sworn foe not only of the Little 
 Englander but of the Little Navyite. We are better 
 able to appreciate to-day, after the awful challenge of 
 1914r-18, our obligations to the men who helped to 
 keep the Empire together and to maintain our naval 
 strength against all insidious opposing forces in the 
 years that went before. Stead's Truth about the Navy, 
 and his persistent fostering of British sea-power in 
 the Press, followed by his insistence in later years on 
 the formula of " two keels to one " against Germany, ^ 
 
 ^ Lord Fisher wrote after Stead's death : " Stead was a missionary himself 
 all hia life. Fearless even when alone ; beUeving in his God — the God of truth — 
 
54 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 had their desired effect, and we reaped the fruits of these 
 and other similar efforts when the great struggle began. 
 
 Stead would have been a great power to-day behind 
 the League of Nations for which he did so much to pre- 
 pare the way. He laboured to improve Anglo-Russian 
 relations and was a constant advocate of Anglo-American 
 friendship. His " Peace Crusade " occupied much of his 
 later life, and he embarked on the ill-fated Titanic in 1912 
 in order to address a New York meeting on the " World's 
 Peace ", and to take part in the " Man and Religion 
 Forward Movement ". 
 
 It is w^orth noting that the modern newspaper in its 
 main attributes was created, not by those who claim to 
 have converted journalism from a profession to a business, 
 but by men Hke Cook and Stead, to whom the "com- 
 mercial spirit " was anathema, and who were at all times 
 ready to sacrifice position and livelihood to principle and 
 conscience. Strangely enough, it was Stead, the apostle 
 and martyr, who popularized and even sensationalized 
 the modern newspaper, but he was willing to leave 
 others to gather in the " copper alms ". Cook tells us 
 that in an account cabled to the Star of Mr. Stead's table- 
 talk on board the Titanic, he is reported as saying that 
 he had impressed on Mr. Hearst the importance of 
 giving a " soul " to " sensational journalism ". By a 
 soul, writes Cook, Stead meant " a definite moral purpose 
 in some social movement or political reform ". This 
 was indeed " the essence of Mr. Stead's own journalism ". 
 
 Not all the schemes of W. T. Stead matured success- 
 fully. For example, he bore the main responsibility 
 
 and his enemies always rued it when they fought him. He was an exploder of 
 ' gas-bags ' and the terror of liars. He was called a ' wild man ' because he 
 said, ' Two keels to one '. He was at Berlin — the High Personage said to him, 
 ' Don't be frightened ! ' Stead replied to the All Highest, ' Oh, no ! we won't ! 
 For every Dreadnought you build we will build twol^ That was the genesis of 
 the cry, ' Two keels to one '. I have a note of it made at the time for my 
 Reflectiona ". 
 
EAKLY JOURNALISM 56 
 
 for the despatch of Gordon into the Soudan. When 
 Cook joined the staff of the P.M.G. Stead was about 
 to drop his biggest and loudest bomb into London life 
 in the form of the revelations entitled " The Maiden 
 Tribute of Modern Babylon." Whether in this case the 
 end justified the means, or whether the end could not 
 have been attained by other means, was doubted then 
 and may still be doubted by many people. 
 
 When Cook joined the stafi of the Pall Mall Gazette 
 the assistant-editor under Mr. Stead was Mr. Alfred, 
 afterwards Viscount, Milner. It is rather singular that 
 Stead should have been associated in succession with 
 three very distinguished Oxford men, Morley, Milner 
 and E. T. Cook. In character, temperament and 
 tradition he bore little resemblance to any of these three. 
 The points of his dissimilarity to Mr. Morley have already 
 been mentioned. He was so much the reverse of 
 Alfred Milner also in many respects that one can scarcely 
 imagine the two as even temporary yoke-fellows. There 
 was nothing in Stead corresponding to Milner 's sang- 
 froid and enigmatic calm. It is related that when in the 
 Union debates members shouted to Milner, whose voice 
 was always rather subdued, to " speak up ", he would 
 wait until he had a more perfect silence and would then 
 deliberately speak lower. That was very characteristic 
 of Milner, but could never have been so of Stead, for he 
 never required any exhortation to speak up. 
 
 Stead wrote some humorous reminiscences of his 
 greatly-to-be-distinguished lieutenant in the Review of 
 Reviews for July 1899. A few passages may interest 
 and amuse : 
 
 When Milner was working with me at Northumberland Street 
 one of the things he did every day was to go through the proofs 
 of my leading articles before they were printed and " tone them 
 down ". He would squirm at an adjective here, reduce a super- 
 
56 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 lative there, and generally strike out anything that seemed 
 calculated needlessly to irritate or ofiend. He was always 
 putting water in my wine. He was always combing out the 
 knots in the tangled mane of the P.M.G., and when the Hon 
 opened his mouth Milner was always at hand to be consulted as 
 to the advisability of modulating the ferocity of its roar. That 
 is my abiding memory of Milner in the P.M.G. He stood as 
 guardian armed with ruthless pen ever on guard against any 
 expression that seemed strained or any utterance that rung false 
 by excess of vehemence. 
 
 When I started some new escapade M. entered thoroughly into 
 the fim of the thing. " What larks ! " he would frequently 
 exclaim. 
 
 Milner wrote a sketch of me once at the time of the " Maiden 
 Tribute " in some magazine. I think the unkindest thing he said 
 about me was that I was a kind of compound of Don Quixote and 
 Phineas T. Barnum. 
 
 Cook was even more unlike his chief. He was some- 
 what diffident in manner and disposition : Stead was 
 troubled with no such frailty. It is on record that 
 Stead the elder once remarked to his son : " You would 
 do much better, William, if you would occasionally 
 leave God to manage His universe in His own way ". 
 Cook was placid, deliberate, not easily moved : Stead 
 was tumultuous, impulsive and emotional. 
 
 Cook brought to his journalistic task the highest 
 culture of a great public school and of a great college in 
 an old university. Journalism is the least, as the Bar 
 is perhaps the most, protected of professions. Anybody 
 may be a journalist who can come by a pen and ink and 
 a sheet of paper. There are no examinations to pass, and 
 no fees to pay. It is in other respects a curious calling. 
 Sir Sidney Low once remarked that a man often begins 
 at the top and gradually but persistently descends the 
 rungs of the ladder. Some day we may have a biography 
 written with the title "From Editor to Office-boy." 
 
EARLY JOURNALISM 67 
 
 Cook, like Morley and Milner, entered journalism, so to 
 speak, " at the top ". Unlike them lie stayed in it, while 
 for them it was but a deversorium on the way to more 
 illustrious, though perhaps not more useful, employment. 
 
 Stead, on the other hand, was a self-made man. He 
 received his only formal education at a Nonconformist 
 school in Wakefield, and this lasted only until he was 
 fourteen years of age. Stead was earning his living in a 
 merchant's office at Newcastle at an age when Cook had 
 still some years of his Winchester life before him. It is 
 true Stead was unexpectedly summoned from his salaried 
 clerkship to become editor of the Northern Echo, but 
 this work on a provincial paper was a sort of apprentice- 
 ship " in the ranks " which Cook never served. 
 
 Cook, again, was a Churchman, though a Liberal 
 Churchman, by birth and education, while Stead was a 
 Nonconformist, the son of a Nonconformist minister, 
 with a strong Puritanic and Cromwellian tradition. 
 Stead brought with him into journalism no academic 
 or social distinction, nothing but his great abilities, 
 tremendous energy and ardent convictions. But Cook's 
 advantages had not made him an intellectual prig or 
 a social snob. He was far too broad-minded not to 
 appreciate Stead's great qualities and to recognize the 
 large field of opinion and purpose they held in common. 
 
 Stead and Cook were both Liberals by natural 
 instinct, both lovers of liberty, and believers in demo- 
 cratic progress. They were also both Liberal Im- 
 perialists — that is, they looked at political problems 
 from an Empire point of view. Stead, it is true, was 
 to become the most uncompromising of pro-Boers ; but 
 that was characteristic of his tangential mobilities, and 
 simply meant that a passion stronger than his Liberal 
 Imperialism had hold of him at the time — in this case 
 the fierce militancy of his Peace Crusade. 
 
58 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 It is doubtful whether Cook would have managed 
 much longer to pull in harness with Stead. We shall 
 see before long how difficult the position of a man hitched 
 to such a meteor was apt to become. But that they 
 should have managed, despite their differences, to work 
 together for six or seven years and continue a warm 
 friendship beyond the parting and to Stead's tragic end, 
 speaks well for the character of both men. After Cook 
 himself had left the editorship of the Pall Mall he wrote 
 an article at Stead's request giving his impressions of 
 the paper and some interesting reminiscences of his 
 early days thereon : 
 
 I hardly know where to begin my answer to your very large 
 question, " What I think the distinguishing features of the Pall 
 Mall as I have known it ? " I first took up with the Pall Mall 
 as a daily companion shortly after I left Oxford, and I have never 
 changed it for a day ever since. Its features must have changed 
 a great deal, and several times, during this period, but I suppose 
 daily companions are the last people in the world to notice changes 
 in the features of their friends. 
 
 The greatest change perceptible to me was when you became 
 editor. I didn't know much of the inside of the office during 
 Mr. Morley's time, but I well remember what seemed to me the 
 distinguishing features of the Pall Mall under him. It dehghted 
 us at Oxford with its grave, philosophic radicalism, its deliberate 
 and weighty reviews and its subdued style. It dealt with 
 practical politics, and, as we know, influenced them deeply. But 
 it did so, as it seemed to us outsiders, without any striving or 
 crying or bustling, by mere force of the apphcation of general 
 doctrines, philosophically arrived at, to particular questions. 
 
 Between the conception of journahsm which I had thus 
 formed and the reality as I found it when I joined the regular 
 stafl of the Pall Mall under Mr. Morley's successor, what a change ! 
 I found myself suddenly thrust into what Matthew Arnold called 
 " the new Journalism ", with its " novelty, variety, sensation, 
 sympathy and generous instincts ". The paper became a daily 
 incarnation of its editor — a demon for work, insatiable in 
 
EARLY JOURNALISM 69 
 
 curiosity and interest, and ceaseless in his interrogation of public 
 opinion. 
 
 Cook goes on to say how Stead made of the P.M.G. 
 during his own period of editorship " a kind of general 
 information and benevolence bureau " : 
 
 I remember, he continues, being very much struck with this 
 on the very first day after you left, when the callers at Northum- 
 berland Street included, in addition to the usual posse of political 
 and journalistic visitors, an old Yorkshireman who had a doctrine 
 to preach on the sinfulness of soft mattresses ; an Irish peer who 
 wanted to ascertain some facts about rent reduction ; a dis- 
 appointed legacy -hunter who had been " defrauded of his just 
 rights " ; and finally a little girl whose mother was in distress 
 and had been assured that the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette 
 would tell her how to dispose of her sewing-machine to the best 
 advantage. I'm quite sure you would have done so. You would 
 have found time for that and for anything that the caprice or 
 necessity of anybody had added to your day's work. Besides 
 this was all part, and only a very trivial illustration, of your 
 general theory of a newspaper as an active and governing force, 
 rather than merely a critical and reflecting medium. And that, 
 I suppose, was the broadest of the features which distinguished 
 the Pall Mall as I knew it during those years. 
 
 In these last sentences Cook clearly elicits the spirit 
 of the Stead regime on the Pall Mall. It was significant 
 that Stead adopted " Vatican " as his telegraphic address. 
 He himself proposed to set up as a sort of secular Pope, 
 adjudicating infallibly and irresistibly on all manner of 
 questions, and his paper was to be almost an organ 
 of government, not merely British but oecumenical. 
 Cook could express more freely in private his general 
 impressions of the Pall Mall Gazette during his early 
 connection therewith. To his dear friend, Fox, he 
 writes (April 21, 1884) : 
 
 The P.M.G. is rather a different thiag from what it was 
 in Motley's time, and a strange mixture of good and bad. . .. . 
 
60 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 Whatever else you may say, I really don't think there's any other 
 paper with such lots of interesting stuff in it as the P.M.G. 
 And then what a storehouse of surprises it is ! You never know 
 whether you will hear the voice of culture (that's me, you know, 
 and Milner), or the blatantest vulgarity. 
 
 It has been mentioned that the personal " inter- 
 view " was one of the features of the " New Journalism " 
 introduced by Stead into the Pall Mall. This useful 
 (and inexpensive) method of eliciting opinion and 
 information is now so familiar that we forget that it 
 was once a novelty. Any professional journalist would 
 to-day interview the Archbishop of Canterbury or even 
 the bon Dieu himself without any of the tremors felt 
 and described by Cook : 
 
 Never shall I forget my consternation when as a first job 
 whereon to try my 'prentice hand you ordered me off to interview 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury— on anythmg and everything; 
 nor my surprised relief when his Grace received me unmediately 
 as your representative, and half humorously but wholly good- 
 naturedly submitted himself to half an hour's catechism in his 
 room at the House of Lords. I thought it a great catch, and I 
 remember being rather disappomted that you didn't prmt it as 
 a " follower ". But we were prodigal of " copy " in those days ; 
 and as for an archbishop consenting to be interviewed, that 
 seemed almost a matter of course. 
 
 On entering the Pall Mall Gazette office Cook threw 
 in his lot once for all with professional journalism. We 
 have seen how he had qualified himself for other walks in 
 life and how easily he might have been diverted into 
 some other calling. But having once entered journalism 
 he was true to it as long as it was true to him. Some 
 surprise has been expressed that Cook never entered 
 Parliament. He would no doubt have been a success 
 in the House of Commons as he would have been at the 
 Bar. He had a range of practical and available ability, 
 apart from his literary genius, which would have given 
 
EARLY JOURNALISM 61 
 
 him success in almost any vocation. A parliamentary- 
 seat, moreover, would have been a natural sequel of his 
 political distinction at Oxford. As early as 1880 he had 
 been approached by Mr. (afterwards Sir) Robert Buckell 
 with a view to his becoming candidate for Oxford city. 
 *' It would be to me a great pleasure to see you in Parlia- 
 ment and on the road to that success which I have in my 
 own mind marked out for you." Cook, indeed, became 
 one of the selected candidates with Sir E. Wood and Sir 
 U. K. Shuttle worth. But the money question was a 
 difficulty. A considerable expense fell on to the candi- 
 date, unless his charges were paid from the party-funds, 
 which meant necessarily a sacrifice in independence. 
 The final choice of a candidate was, however, post- 
 poned owing to the difficulties arising from a Parlia- 
 mentary Petition and a temporary disfranchisement of 
 the borough. 
 
 But Cook was to be tempted into parliamentary 
 life on more than one future occasion. In June 1886 
 he received the following letter from Mr. Alfred IMilner : 
 
 My dear Cook — I don't know whether you are back yet or 
 not. If you are, and hear from (Lord) Dalhousie, as you may do, 
 about a " safe Liverpool seat ", will you think twice before 
 refusing it ? I take the hberty of an old friend to urge this on 
 you. It wUl not interfere with your journalism — rather increase 
 your value (I don't mean in a pecuniary sense) as a journahst, 
 and open a wider career for which you are naturally fitted. I 
 would not say one word about it, if you would not conscientiously 
 stand as a Government candidate, but, if I remember rightly, 
 you always have been and are a Home Ruler, and for able men 
 of that persuasion the present seems to be an unparalleled chance. 
 It is the only question before the country. 
 
 I write in ignorance, not knowing whether the ofier has been, 
 or will be, made to you, but thinking it so great a likelihood, that 
 it is well worth while to throw the modest weight of my advice 
 into the scales, should you happen to be balancing them. 
 
62 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 I don't write a long letter full of reasons, but you will give me 
 credit for having them. It is not merely fidgety eagerness to 
 give thoughtless advice. Every man of sense is the best judge 
 of his own afiairs, but then the opinions of friends are part of the 
 material of such judgment. Please regard my intrusion in that 
 light. I do feel very strongly about it. — Yours ever, 
 
 A. M. 
 
 Milner was one of Cook's contemporaries whom 
 lie persistently regarded, whether justly or not, as his 
 superior in wisdom and ability, and he cannot have 
 lightly regarded a letter such as this, so sincere in thought 
 and feeling and so admirable in expression. But he had 
 his own definite ideas about the attempt to serve two 
 masters, Parliament and Press. When he left the Pall 
 Mall he was succeeded by Mr. H. J. C. Cust, who at the 
 time was a Member of Parliament. Of Mr. Cust Cook 
 wrote in the above -quoted article written at Stead's 
 request: "He is at present attempting to do two 
 incompatible things — to sit in the House of Commons 
 and to edit the Pall Mall Gazette. Mr. Morley tried it, 
 under circumstances much more favourable than those 
 under which Mr. Cust is making the attempt, and Mr. 
 Morley found it impossible. Mr. Cust will have to choose 
 between the House of Commons and the editorial 
 sanctum. If he has any journalistic instinct in him, he 
 will not hesitate a moment as to which course he will 
 pursue ". 
 
 The cost of a parliamentary candidature was now a 
 still more important consideration, for in the meantime 
 Cook had become a married man. His wife, whom he 
 had married in 1884, was Emily Constance Baird, the 
 daughter of J. Forster Baird of Northumberland. The 
 eldest of the seven daughters is Mrs. Lionel Smith, wife 
 of the present Master of Balliol; another is Dorothea 
 Baird, who became the wife of the actor, Mr. H. B. 
 
EARLY JOURNALISM 03 
 
 Irving, son of Sir Henry Irving, and won for herself a 
 great reputation on the stage in the part of the bare- 
 footed Trilby. Cook's marriage was a true and happy 
 companionship. Mrs. Cook was a lady of literary taste 
 and joint-author with her husband of a very charming 
 guide to London. 1 Her early death in 1903 was a blow 
 from which Cook never completely rallied. 
 
 Cook had later offers of parliamentary constituencies, 
 among them another from Oxford. But at this time he 
 was probably right in resisting the proposal. He was 
 now getting " settled " in life, married and in an absorb- 
 ing and congenial profession. He was indeed putting 
 off distractions rather than seeking new ones. In the 
 autumn of 1885 he had written to Mr. (afterwards Vis- 
 count) Goschen, resigning his position as Secretary of 
 the London Society for the Extension of University 
 Teaching which he had held for nearly four years, with 
 full satisfaction to the society, as is evident from Mr. 
 Goschen's regretful acceptance of his resignation. Cook 
 had then a clear course before him for his journalistic 
 work and for those literary and artistic pursuits which, 
 though independent interests, also fed and enriched his 
 journaUsm. 
 
 ^ Highways and Byways of London. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 EAELY DAYS ON THE " PALL MALL " 
 
 Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer (" Tireless, irritable, inexorable, 
 impetuous"). — Hoe. De arte poet. 121. 
 
 Cook must have known when he took a position on the 
 Pall Mall Gazette that he was joining hands with an 
 incalculable force. But Stead had not as yet fully 
 revealed himself. It was in 1885 that he achieved his 
 opus magnum in those shock-tactics which figured so 
 largely in his strategy. The history of that famous 
 apocalypse of evil known as " The Maiden Tribute of 
 Modern Babylon " belongs to Stead's life rather than to 
 Cook's. But Cook had to live through the tempest and 
 indeed to stand at the helm during its later stages. 
 Stead's object in launching this campaign was wholly 
 commendable. It was to give a lift to a Criminal 
 Law Amendment Bill for the better protection of young 
 girls, whose chances of becoming law during the session 
 appeared to be small. With this object he collected and 
 pubHshed in the Pall Mall his " revelations ", which ran 
 into fifty-seven columns before they ended, and while 
 they shocked and scandalized the pure-minded, provided 
 prurient people with an incomparable feast of garbage. 
 No one can believe that the additional 80,000 per day of 
 circulation which the "Maiden Tribute " brought to the 
 Pall Mall was in any large proportion attracted by a 
 genuine indignation at a social abuse. 
 
 64 
 
EARLY DAYS ON THE " PALL MALL " G5 
 
 Stead seems to have thought that any methods 
 
 and sacrijfices were justified by his moral object. One 
 
 wonders if he ever recalled a certain scene in As You 
 
 Like It, where Shakespeare has a decisive word on this 
 
 subject. Says the melancholy Jaques : 
 
 Give me leave 
 To speak my mind, and I will through and through 
 Cleanse the foul body of the infected world, 
 If they will patiently receive my medicine. 
 
 Duke S. Fie on thee ! I can tell what thou wouldst do. 
 
 Jaq. What, for a counter, would I do but good ? 
 
 Duke S. Most mischievous foul sin in chiding sin. 
 
 " Foul sin in chiding sin " — no one who reads any 
 description of London streets in these days when Stead 
 had turned the moral sewers into them can entirely 
 acquit him of such transgression. 
 
 Cook has not left us any expression of his own private 
 feeling during this experience. It is impossible that he 
 should have wholly approved Stead's methods. He has 
 left in the early pages of his diary a disgustful account of 
 a wild expedition in which he was whirled over London 
 by " three ghouls " of the social purity brigade, one of 
 whom, he remarks, was " as strong as a horse ". There 
 must have been much in the accessories and personnel 
 of this drama very uncongenial to a man of Cook's 
 temperament. His position was difficult. From some 
 of his friends he was receiving letters of strong disappro- 
 bation of the campaign. Mr. Lyttelton Gell, who writes 
 from Balliol College, is among these. Cook had evidently 
 asked his friend's opinion. Mr. Gell writes : 
 
 You put me in a very difficult position and I scarcely know 
 how to answer your letter. Stead says, " Every decent clean- 
 living Englishman " who admits the truth of his facts, the 
 enormity of the evU, the need of legislation, therefore approves 
 the conduct of the " P.M.G." in his method of publication. I 
 emphatically do not. The best men I know agree with me, when 
 
 F 
 
66 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 it is all over, the Pall Mall will be found to have lost caste and 
 influence, which I, out of respect for Stead, for yourself and the 
 independence of the paper, deeply regret. 
 
 I need not say again what I said before that we applaud Stead 
 for the marvellous investigation. What we condemn is the 
 outrage of publication in this form, the brutality of detail, the 
 beastly placards in the streets. I was in London on Tuesday 
 week and saw the foul canaille who sell " Towntalk " pushing this 
 under every nose all along the Strand, and the same foul canaille 
 buying it. I saw speculators iu bawdy literature shouting out 
 the details of the placards iuto the ears of women and children. 
 I saw the boys buyiug and gloating ; and in Whitechapel, where 
 the paper generally is not for sale, there was a roaring trade 
 amongst the class whose morals you know as well as I. . . . 
 
 I think that in a fortnight the " P.M.G. " has perceptibly 
 lowered the tone of sexual refinement and of modesty throughout 
 English society. The corrupt gloat over the paper for its spice ; 
 the innocent might have been moved to right indignation by a 
 treatment far more reverent and reserved. 
 
 On the other hand Cook received letters of equally 
 strong approbation. " I am not vain enough of my 
 order ", writes one of these, " to suppose that the 
 ' P.M.G.' wants the congratulation of country curates, 
 but I want liberare animam meam by thanking you for 
 waking myself with a host of others to the existence of a 
 state of things which might have horrified Juvenal. I 
 don't know how far you personally have done it : but I 
 want to thank some one ". Nonconformity and active 
 philanthropy were generally ranged on Stead's side. 
 Toynbee HaU, where Barnett preached on the " Revela- 
 tions ", was enthusiastic. Stead himself was in his 
 element. He rode the tempest with complete satisfac- 
 tion, though in the end he failed to control the storm. 
 
 Alfred Milner, like Cook, had to undergo experiences 
 for which he was in no way responsible. By this time 
 he was sitting rather light in journalism. For twelve 
 
EARLY DAYS ON THE " PALL MALL " 67 
 
 months he had been considering whether he should 
 resign his assistant-editorship. " I really cannot give 
 the paper the time which it requires ", he wrote to Cook 
 during a temporary absence in July 1885 ; " and, even 
 if I could, I am no longer prepared to accept the embar- 
 rassments which its sayings and doings cause me. It 
 was bad enough while one agreed more or less with 
 Stead, but when one differs violently about three things 
 out of every four, it is rather too much to suffer for one's 
 supposed approval of what one hates ". Later in the 
 month, when the storm still blew, Cook was absent, and 
 Milner informs him about the happenings in Northumber- 
 land Street. " Stead talks, writes and thinks of nothing 
 else but his virgins, past or present (the Criminal Law 
 Amendment Bill being at present before the Commons, 
 they are perhaps more exacting than usual), and I do 
 comfortably and with ease what little reference to the 
 world in general the paper still condescends to make ". 
 Milner then gives an account of the scenes in London 
 which fully bears out Mr. Gell's description. There was 
 some hope that Stead would be entrapped on the spur of 
 the moment into taking a holiday. " Sooner or later 
 he will get bored with all this and then will allow himself 
 to be despatched and lie hj for a week, evolving in his 
 great mind the germs of another sensation ". 
 
 The sequel of the affair for Stead is well known. One 
 of the most shocking of the revelations had been the 
 story of a little girl (Eliza Armstrong), who, it was 
 alleged, had been sold by her parents. It was dis- 
 covered by Lloyd's News that the child had in fact been 
 procured by an agent of Stead's without the connivance 
 of her parents. Stead had been deceived by his agent 
 and rendered himself liable to an indictment for abduc- 
 tion. He was sentenced in November at the Central 
 Criminal Court to three months' imprisonment, becoming 
 
68 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 a few days later a first-class misdemeanant and continu- 
 ing to conduct his paper from '' a not incommodious 
 cell " in Hollo way Gaol. 
 
 It is a tribute to the sterling qualities of Stead's 
 character that even the experiences of the " Maiden 
 Tribute " crusade did not alienate the loyalty of his staff, 
 including that of Milner and Cook. Before the date of 
 Stead's prosecution Milner had left the Pall Mall Gazette. 
 He joined in the rally of Stead's friends around him at 
 that trying moment. On October 6, 1885, he wrote to 
 Cook : 
 
 Any man who wishes Stead well should not hang back now. 
 Personally I wish one could do something practical to show one's 
 sjrmpathy with him, and if anything is being done I should be 
 very glad to co-operate. You know how little I liked the Revela- 
 tions, and that I never said one word about the whole hubbub 
 at a time it was the fashion to win cheers by references to " The 
 New Crusade ". But this persecution has raised an entirely new 
 issue, and I shall certainly take every opportunity to say what I 
 think about the Armstrong case. 
 
 Cook in the meantime had succeeded Milner as 
 assistant-editor, and well indeed it was for Stead and for 
 the Pall Mall that so trustworthy a helmsman was 
 available in the then prevailing weather. Cook's leading 
 article on the morrow of Stead's conviction, entitled 
 " The Sentence, and After ", was a model of dignified 
 restraint, which, by its revelation of a new and cooler 
 hand in the direction of the paper, must have done much 
 to restore its prestige and to win back many an alienated 
 friend. 
 
 As for Stead, was he not emulating in modern 
 London the fortunes of many an early Christian martyr ? 
 Was he not in the true apostoUc succession ? We may 
 imagine the inner glow of self-approving emotion with 
 which he dated his first letter to his assistant-editor 
 
EARLY DAYS ON THE " PALL MALL " 69 
 
 from the prison. Like St. Paul at Philippi lie made 
 friends with his fellow-prisoners and with his gaoler, 
 the governor, who presented him with the prison clothes 
 he had first worn at Coldbath Fields. That uniform, 
 his " Order of the Broad Arrow ", he wore at the recep- 
 tions he always gave his friends on future anniversaries 
 of his conviction. Stead would often refer to his im- 
 prisonment in after days in some such subordinate 
 phrase as " When I was in gaol ", uttered without a 
 tremor or a smile, as if going to gaol were as ordinary an 
 event in a respectable person's lifetime as going to bed 
 or to the seaside. On New Year's Eve he writes to Cook 
 from Holloway : 
 
 I wish you a very happy New Year, and I am sufficiently un- 
 selfish to wish that you may be in gaol next New Year's Eve 
 instead of me. I can wish you no happier fate. I have had a 
 glorious time and feel hke the Apostles on the Mount of Trans- 
 figuration when they thought they would like to stop there for 
 ever.i 
 
 Certainly Stead had little reason to worry about his 
 paper. He was indeed quite alive to his good fortune in 
 having such a lieutenant as Cook, a good fortune of which 
 he took full advantage in many subsequent absences 
 on his business as vice-gerent of the Universe. The 
 foUomng letter gives a glimpse of Cook's efficiency in 
 the responsible position so suddenly thrust upon him : 
 
 Holloway Peison, London, 
 December 19, 1885. 
 
 Dear Mr. Cook — I have this afternoon received a copy of 
 your Election Extra, and I hasten to write you my very hearty 
 
 ^ Stead's New Year's card of greeting displayed a portrait of himself with 
 the legend, " God, even my God, hath anointed me with the oil of gladness above 
 my fellows ", and a picture of the towers and battlements of Holloway, more 
 like a castle of romance meet for the captivity of a knight-errant than a modem 
 gaol. 
 
70 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 congratulations upon the admirable way in which you and your 
 staff have turned out much the heaviest piece of work that has 
 ever been done in the way of political and statistical Extras at 
 our office or indeed at any other. 
 
 You have not only succeeded in producing the earliest and 
 most complete of all manuals to the General Election of 1885, 
 but you have accomplished what has never been achieved before. 
 You have made the biographies of members readable by others 
 than themselves and the scribes who do these obituary notices. 
 
 As I survey the enormous amount of work that there has been 
 done in getting up this mass of statistical and biographical infor- 
 mation I am more than ever inclined to bless Lopes, Poland, 
 Lloyd's, etc. It is now quite clear to me that I was sentenced to 
 imprisonment chiefly in order that I might avoid the hard labour 
 which was waiting the unfortunate unconvicted members of the 
 staff at Northumberland Street. 
 
 The above of course applies to all those who worked with you, 
 but I wish especially to express to you personally the very high 
 sense which I have learned to entertain during these last months 
 of your journalistic capacity, your judgment, your industry and 
 your tact. I know no similar instance of so young a man so 
 suddenly entrusted with the conduct of a London paper at such 
 a critical time, and I know no one, old or young, who could have 
 come better through the ordeal. Again congratulating you very 
 sincerely, — I am yours gratefully, 
 
 W. T. Stead. 
 
 Just after his release, Stead writes again to Cook : 
 " I cannot express to you my sincere thankfulness that 
 you were in charge of the ' P.M.O.' when I was in Hollo- 
 way. Otherwise I fear I should have been miserable 
 indeed ". 
 
 Whatever we may think of the sacrifices involved, 
 Stead's campaign did achieve its original object. Not 
 only was the Criminal Law Amendment Act passed into 
 law but an impulse which might otherwise not have been 
 set in motion was given to the international efforts to 
 deal with the abuses of the " White Slave Trade ". 
 
EARLY DAYS ON THE " PALL MALL " 71 
 
 " The justification of the unofficial apocalypse of evil ", 
 wrote Cook in his leading article, " was that the official 
 one {i.e. the Report of the Lords' Committee) had fallen 
 on deaf ears ". The reader must judge for himself 
 whether in this case the desired end justified the un- 
 desirable means. 
 
 Mr. Stead, it will have been noticed, alludes to one 
 of those " Extras " which were a characteristic feature 
 of the Pall Mall Gazette. That entitled Mems. of 
 Members or Guide to the House of Commons was Cook's 
 own idea and largely his own work. Edition after 
 edition was brought out, and it became as indispensable 
 as Dodd and Debrett, and much cheaper and more 
 readable. Cook's guides, whether political or artistic, 
 were never lifeless catalogues. About these Mems. of 
 Members, as originally published in the columns of the 
 Pall Mall Gazette, he used to tell an amusing story. The 
 authors discovered about one blameless member the 
 equally blameless fact that he was once the super- 
 intendent of a Sunday school. They set it down, and by 
 the next post there came an indignant protest and a 
 request that the " mem." should be expunged — for, 
 said the irate M.P., " don't you know I now represent a 
 sporting constituency ? " Next day came another letter 
 from another M.P. saying, " May I ask why you have not 
 stated that I also was once a Sunday school teacher ? 
 Do you not know that I represent a Nonconformist 
 constituency ? " So difficult was it. Cook would say, 
 for journals, with the best intentions, to please every- 
 body. 
 
 The Art Extra, with its reproductions of Academy 
 pictures, became, thanks also to E. T. Cook, very popular 
 and profitable, and it is necessary only to mention 
 The Truth about the Navy and the Coaling Stations, Too 
 Late or the Story of General Gordon, Fifty Years of the 
 
72 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 House of Lords, A Home Rule Catechism and others on 
 special political questions. From the point of sale 
 the most successful was that entitled The Langworthy 
 Marriage, now almost forgotten. Under Cook's own 
 editorship the most important were Mr. Garrett's Letters 
 from South Africa and The Fall of Mr. Parnell. Mention 
 must also be made of the Pall Mall Budget, which under 
 the editorship of Mr. Charles Morley, the statesman's 
 nephew, became a popular illustrated weekly and 
 reproduced itself afterwards in the Westminster Budget. 
 The Pall Mall was, indeed, a very live and prolific 
 institution. Cook's mind was fertile in suggestion of 
 new features. These were the great days of literary 
 appreciation. Culture was in the air. The whole of 
 English literature was being illustrated and annotated 
 and made available to the many by cheap edition and re- 
 print. For example, that admirable series of monographs 
 entitled The English Men of Letters Series was appear- 
 ing under Mr. John Morley 's editorship. There was 
 movement in every department of life and thought. 
 The new doctrine of organic evolution was fighting for 
 recognition and capturing many a religious and philo- 
 sophic stronghold. Controversial combats were fought 
 out between opposites of such calibre as Gladstone and 
 Huxley, Swinburne and Matthew Arnold. Meantime 
 the whole face of politics was being charged by the strong 
 emergence of a new sense of Empire citizenship, the 
 result of many converging influences, but chiefly of the 
 great mechanical inventions and the bridging of space 
 and time whose effects were now beginning to be felt 
 in the political field. Henceforth Burke's Opposuit 
 Natura, " a great flood stops me ", the physical argu- 
 ment against closer union between England and her 
 daughters over the seas, was to have an ever-diminishing 
 force. 
 
EARLY DAYS ON THE " PALL MALL " 73 
 
 The problems of the day were big and generous. 
 And the race of the Lapithae was not yet extinct. Glad- 
 stone, the greatest among many great, still strode " at 
 a swinging pace ", as Cook records having seen him one 
 November morning in 1888, through the London streets. 
 
 The days of Queen Victoria had indeed become 
 spacious, and Cook was well qualified to see that the 
 spirit of the age was reflected in the columns of the 
 Pall Mall Gazette. In 1886 he organized the famous 
 symposium on the Best Hundred Books. Those recom- 
 mended by Sir John Lubbock " as necessary for a liberal 
 education " soon became the canonical list. Eminent 
 persons in every walk of life were invited to send sug- 
 gestions or competing lists, one of the results being a 
 boxful of some eighty letters carefully preserved by Sir 
 Edward Cook, and forming perhaps one of the most 
 comprehensive treasuries of shining autographs now in 
 existence. The reader may perhaps like to glance at 
 a few of these replies. The Lord Chief Justice of 
 England, Lord Coleridge, found time to write from 
 Judges' Lodgings, Carmarthen : 
 
 Jamuiry 22, 1886. 
 
 Sir — It is impossible for me in the time now at my disposal 
 to attempt an answer to your very interesting letter. Indeed if 
 I had abimdance of time my reading has been so desultory and 
 superficial ever since I left the University, its course has been so 
 much guided by wayward and passing fancies that I should be 
 sorry to suggest to any one else the books which happen to have 
 delighted me. Generally speaking, I think Sir John Lubbock's 
 list a very good one, as far as I know the books which compose it. 
 But I know nothing of Chinese and Sanscrit, and have no opinion 
 whatever of the Chinese and Sanscrit works he refers to. To the 
 Classics I should add CatuUus, Propertius and Ovid (in selections), 
 Pindar and the pastoral writers, Theocritus, Bion and Moschus, 
 
 I should find a place among epic poets for Tasso, Ariosto and 
 I should suppose Camoens, though I know him only in translation. 
 
74 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 With the poems of Malory on the Morte d'Arthur I am quite un- 
 acquainted ; Malory's prose romance under that title is familiar 
 to many readers from Southey's reprint of (I thiak) Caxton's 
 edition of it. 
 
 Among the Greek Dramatists I should give a more prominent 
 place to Euripides, the friend of Socrates, the idol of Menander, 
 the admiration of Milton and Charles Fox, and I should exclude 
 Aristophanes, whose splendid genius does not seem to me to atone 
 for the baseness and vulgarity of his mind. 
 
 In History I should exclude Hume as mere waste of time now 
 to read, and include Tacitus and Lord Clarendon and Sismondi. 
 
 I do not know enough about Philosophy to offer any opinion. 
 
 In Poetry and General Literature I should certainly include 
 Dryden and some plays of Ben Jonson and Ford and Massinger 
 and Shirley and Webster ; Gray, Collins, Coleridge, Charles Lamb, 
 De Quincey, Bolingbroke, Sterne ; 1 should substitute Bryant 
 for Longfellow, and most certainly I should add Cowper. 
 
 In Fiction I should add Miss Austen, Clarissa, Tom Jones, 
 Humphry Clinker, and certainly include Kingsley. 
 
 But I am writing away from all books and with no time for 
 reflection, and though courtesy leads me to reply to a very 
 courteous letter I have no wish that a hasty and imperfect note 
 such as this should be taken as representing a considered and 
 deliberate opinion. — I am, sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 Coleridge. 
 
 Sir Henry Irving's list was brief and portable : 
 
 Lyceitm Theatre, 
 January 13, 1886. 
 
 In reply to your courteous request, I should say : Before a 
 hundred books commend me first to the study of two — the Bible 
 and Shakespeare. 
 
 General Wolseley records that during the Indian 
 Mutiny and China War he carried with him a Testament 
 and two volumes of Shakespeare containing the best 
 plays, and since then had always carried a Book of 
 Common Prayer, Thomas a Kernpis and the Soldiers' 
 
EARLY DAYS ON THE " PALL MALL " 75 
 
 Pocket Book. The book he liked reading at odd moments 
 was the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius ; and if going 
 on any distant expedition he would add to all these— in 
 history, Creasy's Decisive Battles, Plutarch's Lives, 
 Caesar, Voltaire's Charles XII., Caesar by Froude, 
 Hume's England, and in fiction, he wickedly adds, 
 Macaulay's History of England and his Essays. 
 
 Mr. Jowett of Balliol thought Lubbock's a good list, 
 its chief fault being that it was too long. Mr. Henry 
 James's letter was more original, and ran thus : 
 
 3 Bolton Street, W., 
 January 21. 
 
 I must beg you to excuse me from sending you, as you do 
 me the honour to propose, a list of the hundred best books. I 
 have but few convictions on this subject, and they may indeed 
 be resolved into a single one, which, however, may not decently 
 be reproduced in the columns of a newspaper, which for reasons 
 apart from its intrinsic value (be that great or small) I do not 
 desire to see made public. It is simply that the reading of the 
 newspapers is tJw pernicious habit and the father of all idleness 
 and levity. 
 
 This is not, however, an opinion that I should have ventured 
 to thrust upon you, without the pretext that you have been so 
 rash as to offer to, etc. 
 
 Mr. James, to " his great alarm and surprise ", 
 received a proof of this letter the following day, and had 
 to appeal to the editor's " fine sense of honour " not to 
 let it appear. Oderint dum metuant might well have 
 been the editor's reflection. 
 
 Cook always kept going by the side of his professional 
 labour some literary work of his own. During these 
 busy days his leisure time was absorbed in preparing 
 his Guide to the National Gallery, and in the cultivation 
 of his Ruskin enthusiasms. Stead has recorded how 
 Ruskin wrote to him during his editorship of the Pall 
 
76 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 Mall, saying, " You have a man on your staff who knows 
 more about my works than I do myself ". That was 
 scarcely an exaggeration. We have seen how Cook's 
 Ruskinian proclivities began as early as his Winchester 
 days, and they had been fostered ever since. Ruskin 
 was no admirer of British journahsm. He had gone 
 so far as to describe the newspaper press as "so many 
 square leagues of dirtily-printed falsehood." Yet he 
 was destined to find in a British journalist by far his 
 ablest exponent, a more wholly efficient editor and 
 interpreter, perhaps, than has ever fallen to the lot of 
 any great master in philosophy or literature. 
 
 Ruskin was still living but suffering from those suc- 
 cessive mental failures which darkened and afflicted his 
 later years. Cook's first interview with the Master 
 was due to some excellent summaries which he did at 
 Stead's request of the famous Lectures in Oxford. These 
 reports Cook afterwards embodied in his Studies of 
 Ruskin, published at Orpington in 1890. Ruskin was 
 struck with their abihty and asked to be introduced. 
 The Ruskin interviews form the earliest entries in the 
 Diary which he now began and continued, with varying 
 fulness and regularity, to within a few weeks of his death. 
 
 October 28, 1887. — Spielmann came to tell me yesterday 
 afternoon that Ruskin was staying at Morley's Hotel, having 
 come up from Folkestone to see the doctors for rupture. So this 
 morning I went, sent up card and a note and was at once shown 
 to his little bedroom on the second floor with a biggish window 
 overlooking the square. He was dressed in his usual style — blue 
 frockcoat over brown homespun, double-breasted waistcoat, with 
 the untidy cufis (of " Hortus "), and slippers. He rose to receive 
 me — " I am so glad to see you " — and asked to be allowed to 
 take the invalid chair. He had been writing at a little table 
 before the fire to Mrs. Arthur Severn,^ and had a volume of the 
 
 ^ Joan Ruskin Agnew, John Ruskin's cousin and ward, who had married 
 Arthur Severn, R.I., son of Joseph Severn, the friend of Keats the poet. 
 
EARLY DAYS ON THE " PALL MALL " 77 
 
 Magazine of Art open before him. I asked him if he was better 
 for the sea-air. " I hardly know ", he said ; " I was much better, 
 but the sea-air acted like champagne ". 
 
 Then I said we (" P.M.G.") had had some old letters of his 
 offered us by Mr. Stronach. Had he any objection to our publish- 
 ing them 1 " Not the least. All the world may read any letters 
 I ever wrote ". They covered all sorts of subjects, I said, from 
 the " Romish Church " to " In Praise of Bottled Stout ". " Well, 
 I quite stick to that ; I have been taking too much of it lately ". 
 
 Then I asked him about the National Gallery, recapitulating 
 his own permission, and asking if he would write a preface for me 
 (that is, for the Guide). Certainly he would. He had been to 
 the Gallery lately. " And it is now a beautiful collection — the 
 new rooms and the hanging — quite a beautiful piece of work. I 
 don't like Raphael, but certainly it is lovely, quite the loveliest 
 Raphael in the world — the San Sisto is dark and brown beside 
 it, and then the St. Catherine comes in so beautifully beside it. 
 More than ever have I been impressed with the exhaustless beauty 
 and industry of the Italian pictures. Botticelli's circles of Angels 
 is most lovely — and what an amount of work in it ! With most 
 painters you see at once the pains they were at, but here it is not 
 obvious. I was in a very humble mood when I went and found 
 myself actually admiring Canaletto ". " That must have been 
 because you have not lately been to Venice ". " Yes, so it must, 
 but it was his good workmanship I admired. After all he was a 
 good oil painter, and I was so disgusted and saddened to think 
 how all Turner's work has gone to rack and ruin, and even Sir 
 Joshua's too. The ' Three Graces ' is quite melancholy now ". 
 I told him about the Holy Family which had gone so much that 
 it had to be removed downstairs. "It is very curious how it 
 must have gone all at once ; that the five angels are still quite 
 perfect. The contrast between the Italians and the littleness 
 and bad workmanship of the English struck me more than ever. 
 It is exactly contrary to what we imagine the national characters 
 to be. Certainly you shall have your preface, but you must let 
 me see your book so that I may know what line to take. 
 
 " And now let me in return ask you something about the 
 Pall Mall Gazette. You are the only paper with a conscience, I 
 always say. But why do you disfigure your paper with such 
 
78 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 ugly things. There was a horrid thing about being buried alive 
 not long ago : it could do no good, and it made me wretched for 
 a month. And I do wish, as I wrote to you, that you would 
 sometimes find out things to praise. I am quite out of the world 
 now, all my beautiful places are destroyed, and I am preparing, 
 as you see, to live in a single bedroom. But there are so many 
 noble works going on. Why can't you praise. . . ." He went 
 on to complain of the vulgarizing of the " P.M.G." by our illustra- 
 tions, which I could only defend by saying they were so often the 
 best way of giving a piece of news, and that in the Budget printed 
 on the flat they were not always so vile. He complained of the 
 disgraceful state of the streets. Any one coming up, as he did, 
 from the country could not fail to be struck with the number of 
 loose women and men and the indecent photographs. A street 
 like Kegent Street should not be like that. " The terrible 
 ugliness of London is very painful ". 
 
 I asked him if he was going on with Praeterita. " Well, I don't 
 know ", he said. " I had meant in the third volume to make it 
 domestic and to touch on various matters of sentiment in my life, 
 but the present generation is too coarse to understand it. Then 
 I decided to make it more a record of my artistic life. But now 
 I don't know. I do not get crazy and see visions now. I almost 
 wish I did. They were mostly visions of hell, it is true, but some- 
 times visions of heaven, and one was almost recompensed. But 
 now my illness takes the form of intense dejection, and looking 
 back becomes painful. Yet there are some things which I am 
 anxious to say about myself, which if I do not say no one else 
 will say for me — especially why I changed from artistic to political 
 writing. For though I dislike my work more than most authors, 
 yet I am convinced that the teaching of Unto this Last and Munera 
 Pulveris is entirely true, and the world will come to discover yet 
 that they cannot live on gunpowder and iron, but only on corn ; 
 and that the only way to deal with this sort of thing (looking out 
 at the unemployed in the square) is not by mere giving, not by 
 charity at so much per cent ransom, but by personal service ". 
 
 I told him how many signs there were of people beginning to 
 see this, but though they accepted his teaching they abuse him, 
 " Ah, I am glad to hear you say that. I've thought no one cared 
 even to abuse me now. The Pall Mall sticks to me, I say to my 
 
EARLY DAYS ON THE " PALL MALL " 79 
 
 friends, but even they will drop me soon ". Then he went on to 
 say how touched he had been by hearing of three workmen in the 
 (real) wild West who had written to ask after him. 
 
 I asked him if he had heard of the University Settlements in 
 East London. " Yes, they are very beautiful efforts, but they 
 go dead against all my teaching. It is useless to work in big 
 cities. Go back to the country ; save what there is still to be 
 saved there. All that work in London is like working at the 
 bottom of a coal mine ". I said something about the saving 
 remnant, even in London. " Don't think I despise the lowest 
 orders of London — God knows I know of their virtues ". I told 
 him that we were applying Ruskin in the " P.M.G." " But you 
 don't apply Carlyle's and my Toryism, I am afraid ". 
 
 He talked a good deal about theatres — had been to see Thome 
 (" I always go to see him ") in Sophia, but Thome hadn't a good 
 enough part. Maud Millett was good, and there was some lovely 
 dancing. " Most of it nowadays is not art but mere posturing, 
 especially in pantomines. I shall never see another pantomime 
 now that Payne has gone. Why don't they in plays and novels 
 give us more of when it all comes right again ? There was 
 wretchedly little of that in Sophia : they hurry over it as if they 
 didn't care for it. The first thing I did at Folkestone was to go 
 to Sanger's Circus, but there wasn't half enough clown. And 
 the elephants were shown off too much : the real charm in an 
 elephant is to watch his native sagacity. And the chariot race 
 was terrible — the vulgarization of the noblest thing, I suppose, 
 in Greece. 
 
 " And how is your principal, Mr. Stead ? " I said he had 
 been overworked and away recruiting. " Then you have been 
 virtually editor lately. Well, I have enjoyed your visit. Good- 
 bye, it was kind of you to come to my sick-room. Good-bye." 
 
 He has lost some more teeth. Cook is careful to observe, and 
 looks physically weaker than when I saw him last, and far more 
 melancholy. Very bright in conversation, but in momentary 
 pauses a weary look in his eyes. 
 
 December 9, 1887. — Found a letter from Ruskin to the 
 " P.M.G." from Morley's Hotel. Called at 5 and was with him 
 for a little over an hour. He was in a comfortable sitting-room 
 this time, and said as I came in that he was never more glad to 
 
80 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 see any one in his life. We sat down and he damned the " P.M.G." 
 for not having inserted his two former letters from Sandgate. 
 He was damned if he was going to write to us any more on those 
 terms. I said we didn't know that he meant them for pubhcation. 
 He replied that he had written the first one with extreme care 
 and had sent his man up to London specially to deliver it. It 
 was quite a monstrous thing interfering with the Trafalgar Square 
 meetings.^ When he was up here last he had gone about the 
 Square and talked to some of the Black Flag people — very nice 
 fellows they were, and quite right, too, in demanding bread. He 
 was all for stealing, as he had said once in a former letter to the 
 " P.M.G." — for Orlando's style of stealing as shown in the grand 
 passage in As You Like It,^ which he recited to me and begged 
 me to quote. 
 
 Then he went on to abuse the " P.M.G." — after saying he 
 couldn't understand our not using those two letters, and had 
 supposed the paper was under different management — for its 
 horrible things : putting in all sorts of abominations which ought 
 to be kept for hospital rooms or criminal records — quite loath- 
 some it was becoming. 
 
 April 19, 1888. — Went to see J. R. at his suggestion, at 
 Morley's Hotel (5-6 p.m.). Found him in the old poky little bed- 
 room — " Only to see you, so I've no sitting-room this time — and 
 will the preface really do ? " . . . I was to alter it as I liked. 
 Then he said complimentary things about the Guide — it was the 
 best ever done and would be seen to be so, not for this Gallery 
 alone, but for all Galleries. But I was to cut out as much of him 
 as I liked, for there was decidedly too much. 
 
 Then he went on telling me about himself. " I have been 
 going on in this egotistic way ", he said, " because you sometimes 
 say things about me, and I should like you to know just how 
 things are. I have been having a very bad time indeed — deep 
 depression, etc., but I am cheerful again now. All my illnesses 
 have been the result, so far as I can see, either of vexation and 
 anger or of eating things that did not agree with me. Mrs. 
 
 1 The right of pubHc meeting question was at this time acute. It had come 
 up a month previously in connection with the meetings of the Unemployed. 
 The " P.M.G.", alone of the London papers, took the side of the demonstrators. 
 Cook being responsible for that policy in Stead's absence. 
 
 2 Act II. Scene 7. 
 
EARLY DAYS ON THE " PALL MALL " 81 
 
 Severn and I love one another as much as ever, but we are con- 
 stantly falling out and then eating our hearts out with grief for 
 doing so — oh, it's been a very poignant business. Then Arthur 
 Severn is a good fellow enough, but utterly out of sympathy with 
 me. And the villagers at Coniston, very naturally, go with the 
 Severns. The result is that I have made over Brantwood to them 
 by a deed of gift, for fear of the place being broken up. And 
 have to find a new home, which isn't easy at seventy." [Euskin 
 then intimates his intention of going to Switzerland, first to 
 Sallanches, " where there is the best view of the Alps ".] " I still 
 find great great pleasure in my old studies of trees, stones, etc. — 
 want to resume my old geologizing there, if I find I can walk ". . . . 
 I asked him about the Rhone description which Waldstein read 
 at his Royal Institute Lecture — " Was that written lately ? " 
 " Yes, and I feel I can write as well as ever I could, now ". Then 
 he told me about the poems, including some rhyming letters to 
 his father, which he was going to bring out. 
 
 He said he hadn't read the Turner part of my catalogue. For 
 the last part of Turner's life no excuse could be made ; and if he 
 had read it, he would have been obliged to cut out all his praises, 
 for it was too sad the way all Turner's best work had gone, e.g. 
 the horses in the Ulysses — ^their heads, which were once exquisitely 
 beautiful, now invisible. It was blind madness. " When I am 
 crazy and think I am being buried or damned I know that I'm 
 crazy ; but Turner never saw the madness of his passion for light 
 which made him fling the chalk- white on by palette-fuls ". 
 
 He was more than ever impressed with the misery of London 
 — harlots with red veils now in the Strand, double-painted — not 
 a face of repose or contentment. And at Folkestone not much 
 better — the old Town gone, the poor living in misery (gave an 
 amusing account of his visit to an old boatman — all the neigh- 
 bours " suspected " him, and he had to tip 2s. 6d. to find out the 
 man's house, a wretched room), the rich in a quarter apart. 
 But good stuff still : his outing with three girls, whom he set to 
 play with the lambs. 
 
 A year later Mr. and Mrs. Cook were visiting Mr. 
 Albert Fleming at Ambleside and were driven over to 
 Brantwood where they were able to see only Mrs. Severn, 
 
 G 
 
82 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 as Ruskin was afficted with one of his recurring attacks. 
 Cook has left no record of any further personal interviews 
 with the great writer whose life-work he was to enshrine 
 in a magnificent edition, the product of ten long years 
 of unsparing industry. 
 
 Cook's Popular Handbook to the National Gallery was 
 pubHshed in September 1888. For several years he had 
 edited the catalogue of the annual exhibition organized 
 by Mr. (afterwards Canon) Barnett at St. Jude's, White- 
 chapel, and from this sprang the suggestion for the 
 more ambitious work. Cook's Handbook was something 
 very different from a dry official catalogue. It was a 
 perfect treasury of historic reference, poetic excerpt and 
 artistic appreciation. Not only was the author widely 
 and deeply read, but he knew books by the same sort 
 of special sense as some people know horses. He was 
 acquainted with every track and by-path of Bookland 
 and could usually walk without much hesitation to any 
 passage he required. His Handbook was a marvel not only 
 of knowledge but of the marshalling and mobilization 
 of knowledge. It not only served its immediate purpose 
 but was a genuine book to be taken up at pleasure and 
 read with unfailing profit and delight. " So far as I 
 know ", wrote Ruskin in the preface, " there has never 
 yet been compiled for the illustration of any collection 
 cf paintings whatever a series of notes at once so copious, 
 carefully chosen and usefully arranged as this which has 
 been prepared by the industry and good sense of Mr. 
 Edward T. Cook, to be our companion through the 
 magnificent rooms of our own National Gallery ". "As 
 a collection of critical remarks by esteemed judges and of 
 clearly formed opinions by earnest lovers of art, the little 
 book possesses a metaphysical interest quite as great as 
 its historical one ". Ruskin had given Cook permission 
 to use his writings to any extent for illustration and 
 
EARLY DAYS ON THE " PALL MALL " 83 
 
 criticism, so that the Handbook supplies incidentally 
 a fairly complete conspectus of the Master's own art 
 teaching. It is not surprising that the first edition of 
 1500 copies was quickly sold and that Cook in two 
 months' time was preparing a second. The Popular 
 Handbook of the Tate Gallery, published ten years later, 
 reproduced all the excellences of the earlier work. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 POLITICS IN THE EIGHTIES 
 
 A man's nature is best perceived in privateness, for there is no affecta- 
 tion. — Bacon. 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette played a decisive and consistent 
 part during the Home Rule agitations of 1886. The 
 paper had been for Home Rule even before Chamberlain 
 and claimed to have " pioneered " Mr. Gladstone into 
 that policy. But the Pall Mall approached the question 
 from an Imperial point of view. Home Rule for Ireland 
 was to be a step in advance towards an ultimate Federa- 
 tion of the Empire. The Gladstonian Bill of 1886 was 
 different in conception. By excluding Irish members 
 from the Imperial Parliament it practically threw 
 Ireland out of the Empire, broke up the unity of the 
 three kingdoms and became a measure of disruption 
 rather than of consolidation. Mr. Gladstone never 
 lived into a really sympathetic understanding of the 
 new Empire or Commonwealth sentiments and was not 
 able to appreciate the full strength of this opposition to 
 his measure. But the Pall Mall left nobody in any doubt 
 as to its opinion. When the Bill was introduced in 
 April 1886, it wrote : 
 
 From the very first we have opposed the ejection of the Irish 
 members from the House of Commons as involving a disruption 
 of the organic unity of the three kingdoms for which the British 
 public was not prepared. We still take our stand on that point 
 
 84 
 
POLITICS IN THE EIGHTIES 85 
 
 as essential. If Mr. Gladstone makes their exclusion a vital 
 portion of his scheme we shall have no option but to oppose it. . . . 
 The retention of the Irish representatives as fully qualified 
 members of the Imperial legislature is an essential condition of 
 the provisional interregnum that must prevail until the evolution 
 of an Imperial Senate composed of delegations from the Home 
 Rule Parliaments of the three kingdoms and the colonies is 
 complete. 
 
 Again two days later : 
 
 The exclusion of the Irish members from Westminster is not 
 only serious ; it is vital. It makes all the difference between the 
 disruption and the maintenance of the unity of the Empire. As 
 long as that is a central and vital feature of the Bill we have no 
 option but to offer it the strenuous opposition with which we 
 would confront any other attempt to dismember or curtail our 
 Imperial heritage. 
 
 Was it argued that Ireland without representation 
 at Westminster would simply be in the position of an 
 oversea self-governing colony, the Pall Mall had its 
 answer ready and irrefutable : 
 
 The colonial constitutions were avowedly framed to prepare 
 them for separation. That the colonies in spite of this unnatural 
 treatment have clung to the mother country is due to causes 
 which do not exist in Ireland. The colonists were intensely loyal 
 and their loyalty was sustained by the material consideration of 
 Imperial protection extended gratis. The Irish are by no means 
 loyal and the new scheme puts an annual premium of £3,600,000 
 on separation. Is there any colony, no matter how loyal it may 
 be, which would be content to contribute 40 per cent of its gross 
 revenue to the Imperial Exchequer and at the same time have 
 no voice in the control of Imperial policy ? How then can we 
 expect such a miracle in Ireland ? 
 
 It was no doubt largely due to this steady pressure 
 from the Pall Mall, by this time one of the most in- 
 fluential Liberal organs in the country, that Mr. Glad- 
 stone found himself compelled to compromise on thi^ 
 
86 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 point. The Irish members were to be excluded except 
 — and the exception was wider than the rule — when 
 questions of taxation or Imperial poUcy were under 
 discussion. Whether in practice such a system could 
 have been worked may be doubted, but the concession 
 satisfied the Pall Mall so far as the second reading was 
 concerned. On the eve of the fatal division in the House 
 (June 7) the journal spoke a last word to the Liberal 
 members : 
 
 The fundamental error of the Home Rule Bill was the exclusion 
 of the Irish members from the House of Commons. This made 
 aU the difierence between a Home Rule Bill that binds the Empire 
 together and a Home Rule Bill that is the thin end of the wedge 
 that splits it asunder. . . . Had Ministers stuck to their guns 
 and insisted on pressiug it forward hotfoot as it stood, we should 
 never have hesitated for a moment about giving it the coup de 
 grace on the second reading, although in so doing we destroyed 
 the Ministry, spht the party and precipitated an appeal to the 
 country, which would Inevitably have resulted in the return of 
 a Cabinet of coercion. But Ministers recognized their blunder. 
 The Irish members are to have an indefeasible right to sit in the 
 House of Commons whenever Imperial questions and questions 
 of taxation are under discussion — that is to say, practically that 
 they are never to be excluded at all — the Bill is to be withdra\\Ti 
 in order to be recast in accordance with this fundamental and 
 organic change, and Mr. Gladstone will to-night assure the House 
 that the vote on the second reading of the Bill will simply and 
 solely be a vote for the abstract principle of Home Rule. Under 
 these circumstances the duty of every member who accepts the 
 principle of Home Rule is plain and unmistakable. He must vote 
 for the second reading, secure the principle of Home Rule and 
 then direct all his energies in the next few months to render it 
 impossible for the Ministry to propose again the wrong kind of 
 Home Rule. 
 
 But the Bill was past salvation. The second reading 
 was negatived by a majority of 30, and the Liberal 
 party started those wanderings in the wilderness which, 
 
POLITICS IN THE EIGHTIES 87 
 
 with one brief return, were to last for a full twenty 
 years. 
 
 Cook has left us notes of a large number of conversa- 
 tions he had with political leaders during the eventful 
 and confusing years 1885 to 1887. Between June 1885 
 and July 1886 there were four changes of Government 
 and two General Elections, Mr. Gladstone and Lord 
 Salisbury alternating with one another like the in-and- 
 out figures in an old weather-box. During the spring 
 of 1885 Mr. Gladstone's Administration was labouring 
 heavily. The Liberal party was divided on such ques- 
 tions as the Soudan and Irish Coercion and credited 
 with the intention of running the vessel deliberately on 
 to any convenient rock. It was in June that the oppor- 
 tunity or the disaster came. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach 
 moved an amendment to the Budget, condemning certain 
 financial proposals, which was carried against the 
 Government by 264 to 252 votes. From this division 
 there were 76 Liberal absentees, which fortified the 
 suspicions that the Government had actually courted 
 defeat. Mr. Gladstone resigned and long negotiations 
 ensued before Lord Salisbury finally took his place. 
 Dissolution, it should be mentioned, was impossible 
 because great changes were to be wrought in the con- 
 stituencies by the Redistribution Bill then before Parlia- 
 ment. Lord Salisbury had difl&culty in obtaining from 
 Mr. Gladstone the specific assurances of support he 
 required before taking office with a majority in the House 
 of Commons against him. In the end, largely, it would 
 seem, through the influence of the Queen, Salisbury 
 undertook the Government. 
 
 Lord Randolph Churchill, the leader of the Tory 
 Democrat group, was very popular in the country and 
 a necessary member of the new Government. But he 
 steadily refused to join so long as Sir Stafford Northcote, 
 
88 . LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 who, in his opinion, " had been playing hell with the 
 Conservative party for the last five years ", continued 
 to lead in the House of Commons. Lord Randolph, in 
 an interview he gave to Cook on May 21, 1885, said : 
 
 " I am inclined to think that there is a good deal in the general 
 rumour this morning that the Government will not hang together 
 long after Whitsuntide. Gladstone is undoubtedly much worn. 
 His reply to me on Monday was absolutely wandering and in- 
 coherent. And no wonder, said an intimate friend of his to me, 
 considering that he spends three hours every night with skittles. 
 It's funny, but so it is. And a few days ago I had a very con- 
 fidential communication from a quarter which I am not at liberty 
 to mention, but to which I attach great weight, assuring me that 
 the Government would be out by Whitsuntide. However, I'm 
 not at all anxious for it and shall not go out of my way to bring 
 it about. I would much rather wait for the General Election ; 
 for there would be great difficulties now in framing any Tory 
 Government that would have any chance of getting on. After 
 the General Election, however we fare, we shall at any rate be a 
 better party and more compact. The shelving of Northcote is 
 one difficulty now. We shall have to be very careful how we 
 do it, for he has a great many friends on both sides. Personally 
 I should not see any great objection to leaving bi'm nominal leader 
 in the Commons." 
 
 " With you at his side to run pins into him ? " 
 
 " Well, you know I have always found him very reasonable 
 when left to me. We've never had much difficulty in screwing him 
 up to the striking point. But he's an undecided man by nature, 
 and then other people get at him, and by the time we leave him 
 all his go has gone out of him again. But after the General 
 Election the difficulty may solve itself ; for he has a very stiff 
 contest before him, and I'm told it's very hkely indeed he won't 
 get in. The truth is he hasn't the physique any longer for a hard 
 election. But whether we make him a peer, or whatever the form 
 is, there won't be any difficulty I feel sure in disposing of him ". 
 
 " If you are compelled to come in this Parliament, what wiU 
 your party do ? " 
 
 " As for the party I can't say. I merely give you my opinions. 
 
POLITICS IN THE EIGHTIES 89 
 
 You must estimate what they are worth and what influence they 
 would have on the party. As to Ireland you saw what I said last 
 night (at the St. Stephen's Club). I certainly would not join any 
 Conservative Cabinet which brought in a new Coercion Bill in this 
 Parliament : in a new Parliament the question would have to be 
 considered afresh." 
 
 " And if the Irish are not content with ' no coercion ', what 
 more will you give them ? " 
 
 " Well, it would be no good trying local government ; you 
 Liberals could always outbid us there ; but we are not tied at all 
 as to land purchase. Large public expenditure for Irish purposes 
 — that, I am afraid, is the Tory policy in Ireland." 
 
 " And as to Egypt it's now annex or internationalize. That's 
 Bismarck's alternative, and France won't allow the former. What 
 will you do ? " 
 
 ' ' Not annex perhaps, but protect certainly. Withdraw from the 
 Soudan — any one may have the damned railway who likes — hold 
 Suakin I suppose, hold the Wady Haifa line and protect Egypt ". 
 
 " Then you will have to square Germany ". 
 
 " Yes, we'll give Bismarck anything he likes in S. Africa. 
 He might have the whole place, bar the Cape, so far as I care — 
 but Zanzibar certainly. I was talking to Salisbury about this 
 only the other day and he agreed. A year ago if we had come in, 
 we might have got better terms." 
 
 " And as to Russia ? " 
 
 " We should carry on the negotiations certainly, and the 
 chances of war would, I beheve, be less. How can you expect 
 the Russians not to go on making fresh demands every day now, 
 when they've only got to ask and have ". 
 
 " And the Budget ? " 
 
 " We should raise the whole on loan and leave the new 
 electorate to decide what form the new taxation should take ". 
 
 " At the next election " 
 
 " Well, I agree with the ' P.M.G.' that our prospects are not 
 so bad as people think ; we shall at least hold our own ". 
 
 On June 9 Cook had another talk with Lord Randolph : 
 
 " So you've done the trick at last ? " 
 
 " Yes, we've run the fox to ground. It began to be known 
 
90 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 at dinner time what was going to happen. Henry Fowler told 
 me we were going to win, and Winn and I made out that we should 
 have a majority of one [actually 252-264]. The absentees were 
 so many [76 Liberals] that I really believe the whole thing was a 
 plant. Chamberlain was dehghted. I've tried every form of 
 excitement in my time from tip-cat to tiger-shooting, but there's 
 nothing like an exciting division in the House. I'm quite hoarse 
 this morning from my last night's shouting. Fancy poor old 
 Gladstone having to take that horrid long journey to Balmoral, 
 knowing well all the time how delighted the Queen will be at his 
 errand : it wUl be the happiest moment in her life. 
 
 " Decidedly we oughtn't to take office. We've got them and 
 we'll kick 'em. They must remodel their Budget to suit us. 
 How they're to do it, though, I'm sure I can't say. They won't 
 tax tea or sugar. I suppose they would have to leave it all over 
 and raise a loan, and that would be quite reasonable. If it had 
 been a vote of censure, a case where we were clearly called on to 
 come in, things would have been different ". 
 
 " We're delighted to hear that you don't want to come in, for 
 Stead believes things are by no means through at St. Petersburg 
 yet". 
 
 " Well, I was assured yesterday by a very good authority (I'm 
 not at liberty to mention his name) that thmgs were completely 
 settled ; he was congratulating me on our victory having come 
 after that." 
 
 " Did you see many people in Paris : Clemenceau, e.g. ? " 
 
 " No, I don't know him. I knew Gambetta very well, but 
 I don't know any of the political people now. However, I saw 
 the Rothschilds and Rivers Wilson and a lot of other people, and 
 they all told me exactly the same thing — nous ne sommes pas 
 libres : it's impossible to imagine how much under Bismarck's 
 thimib they are. ' If B. ordered a monarchy ', one of them said, 
 ' to-morrow it would be done ' ". 
 
 " Then there's nothing to be feared from France and it's more 
 than ever a matter of squaring Bismarck 1 " 
 
 " Yes, the French have no army worth anything ; that's the 
 reason of it. So Gallifiet told me ; there's no discipline in it ". 
 
 Cook continues : 
 From Randolph I went to Arthur Balfour and philosophic 
 
POLITICS IN THE EIGHTIES 91 
 
 doubt — had seen no one, in fact was only just up — strong feeling 
 amongst our fellows in favour of going in — for himself didn't 
 profess to have weighed the matter properly, but was inclined 
 to be against going in — would always be glad to be of any help 
 he could to Stead — hoped he would come and have a talk soon. 
 
 The issue between the " old gang " and the young 
 bloods of the Fourth Party was clinched by an incident 
 in the House of Commons on Monday, June 15, 1885. 
 It had been agreed between Lord Salisbury and Mr. 
 Gladstone that the House should adjourn until Friday, 
 but should consider at once, before adjourning, the Lords' 
 amendments to the Redistribution Bill. Sir Stafford 
 Northcote, the official leader of the Conservative party 
 in the House of Commons, of course supported this 
 procedure. But he was opposed by the Fourth Party. 
 The adjournment of the debate was moved by Sir Henry 
 Wolff, on the ostensible ground that such questions as 
 were involved in the Lords' amendments could not be 
 discussed in the absence of a responsible Government. 
 Thirty-five of that group, with Sir Henry and Mr. Gorst 
 as tellers, went into the lobby against their official chief, 
 " This ", as Mr. Winston Churchill writes, " was the 
 end ". ^ It was formally announced two days later that 
 Sir Stafford Northcote would retire to the House of 
 Lords and that Sir Michael Hicks-Beach would lead in 
 the House of Commons. The next day (June 16) Cook 
 saw Lord Randolph Churchill in a dressing-room in the 
 basement of the Carlton Club : 
 
 " What would he teU us of last night's business ? " 
 
 " I can't tell you much and what I do say must be in the 
 strictest confidence ; you mustn't commit me in any way ". 
 
 " Certainly not : only last time you put me on the wrong 
 scent ". 
 
 " No, my dear sir, I tell you it's been the toss of a penny all 
 
 ^ See for this incident the account in his Life of Lord Randolph Churchill, 
 vol. i. pp. 416-18. 
 
92 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 the time. Some sort of Conservative Govermnent ever since 
 Lord S. went to Balmoral, for he has the most exaggerated 
 notions, like Lord Beaconsfield, of loyalty to the Queen ; and of 
 course any one could form a Conservative Government to carry 
 on just the necessary business — the waiters at this Club would 
 do for that. But up to last night the chances were 100 to 1 
 against a Conservative Government that would command your 
 support or any support in the country, or have any chance of 
 making a good show when the elections came. This morning 
 the chances are in favour of it ". 
 
 " Last night, I take it, was a demonstration in force in favour 
 of that : only there were two possible solutions — a Cabinet with 
 half of you left out, or with all of you in ". 
 
 " Exactly so ; that is just what was at issue, and very curi- 
 ously at issue, up to last night ". 
 
 " And how do you like our nomination of you to Ireland ? " ^ 
 
 " I can't say anything about that " (but he seemed to Hke 
 it, though) : " indeed I've gone further than I meant already. 
 However, I shall always be glad to give you hints as to facts, so 
 long as you don't commit me ". 
 
 He had been at Sahsbury's for an hour before this. 
 
 On June 18 Cook records very vividly a talk he had 
 with Mr. W. H. Smith, about to become Secretary of 
 State for War in the new Cabinet. The Minister began : 
 
 " Mx. Stead tells me I may speak to you in perfect confidence. 
 Let me tell you then that if the Government goes on (and I have 
 no information about that) I go to the War Ofl&ce with six 
 months' very heavy work indeed before me. If I had only con- 
 sulted my own inclination I should certainly have cut the whole 
 concern. I am sick of public life and very nearly despair of it. 
 But great pressure was brought to bear on me ; and as you and 
 Mr. Stead will, I know, put party feeling away for the moment, 
 you will beheve me that, like others, I desire to serve our country. 
 And I beheve that I can do good at the War Office. Certainly I 
 should have preferred to go back to the Admiralty ; and no doubt 
 I might have insisted on it, but there are some things which one 
 can do but should not do. Lord G. Hamilton is quite the most 
 
 ^ Lord Randolph became Secretary of State for India. 
 
POLITICS IN THE EIGHTIES 93 
 
 promising of the younger men, and he will come to the work with 
 a perfectly open and unprejudiced mind ". 
 
 " But unfortunately by the time he's learnt the work, he may 
 be out again ". 
 
 " Well, he will have all the help I can give him. In fact (but 
 you mustn't make mischief out of this) he will be under my 
 tutelage. And, after all, the greatest efficiency of the Navy is 
 guns, and that comes under my department ". 
 
 " And why did they want you so much to go to the War 
 Office ? " 
 
 " Because (here again this is all, remember, in the strictest 
 confidence) they thought I should be able to take decisions when 
 they were wanted, to say ' Yes ' or ' No '. You see I have no 
 royal connections, no family interests. I haven't a single male 
 relative alive except my own boy. I am completely unprejudiced 
 
 and unfettered. Now no mischief must be made, or but I 
 
 needn't threaten ". 
 
 " No, if Mr. Stead ever makes any improper use of information 
 you give us, why, of course, there will be an end of it ". 
 
 " Yes, exactly so — an end that minute ". 
 
 Wherewith W. H. S. shook hands and returned to his desk 
 as though he had on his shoulders the cares of a hundred War 
 Offices and Admiralties. 
 
 On the same day Cook saw Lord Randolph again 
 with regard to certain articles which had appeared in 
 the Pall Mall on the Russian question. The danger of 
 war with Russia had by that time almost disappeared 
 o\\ing to the previous agreement of May 4. But the 
 Russo-Afghan frontier had still to be delimited, and the 
 new Government took on the game from its predecessors 
 at a rather difficult " bunker ", namely, the Zulficar 
 Pass. Lord Randolph had earlier in the year taken 
 a strong anti-Russian line and had resented the agree- 
 ment of May 4 as a surrender under the disguise of 
 arbitration. Cook thus records the interview of June 18 : 
 
 " Well, these are nice articles you've been writing in the 
 ' P.M.G.' " 
 
94 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 " I'm glad you've seen the articles : that was what Mr. Stead 
 wanted me to come for, to call your attention to them ". 
 
 " Seen them ? Good God, I should think I had seen them ". 
 
 " And they really meant what they said — Mr. Stead wanted 
 you to know — and were written with authority ". 
 
 " Oh, you're not going to frighten me, you know. You may 
 go and put all those ideas into Russia's head if you like, but she 
 will have no reason as far as we are concerned for any offence. 
 Of course if she wants war she can have it. But I don't believe 
 she does. She will snarl, no doubt, but not fight. We shall take 
 up the negotiations where they are and make the best of it. You 
 should remember too that the negotiations are not carried on by 
 the Indian Secretary, but by the Foreign Secretary. The Indian 
 Secretary only has to do with Indian home affairs ". 
 
 I told him Stead thought of publishing all his anti-Russian 
 speeches. 
 
 " Quite a fair move : I've no objection ". 
 
 " And wUl you recant ? " 
 
 " Recant, good heavens, no ! not even if Salisbury asked me 
 to. I only spoke of the Khiva business and said what hundreds 
 said and what is quite true too. And as to recanting, one of 
 the shrewdest diplomats in London was saying to me only the 
 other day it was not Gladstone's insult to Austria that damaged 
 him so much in Europe, but his apology ". 
 
 Then I began asking him about the new Cabinet — was he 
 satisfied ? 
 
 " Pretty well ; one can't have one's own way in everything, 
 of course. There are more of the old lot than I should have 
 liked ". But here Lord R. Cecil came in with a note from 
 Salisbury and I departed. 
 
 Mr. Reginald Brett, who afterwards became Viscount 
 Esher, informed Mr. Stead that Lord Randolph Churchill 
 had told Lord Salisbury he must take office, assurances 
 or no assurances. There was probably some truth in 
 this story. The shelving of Sir Stafford Northcote 
 may well have led Lord Randolph to change his \aew 
 on the subject, and he seems now to have been in favour 
 of Lord Salisbury assuming office without negotiations 
 
POLITICS IN THE EIGHTIES 95 
 
 with Gladstone, who was a past master at that sort of 
 thing and would be sure to get the better of Salisbury. 
 " If I had to tackle him ", said Lord Randolph, " I 
 shouldn't be so afraid. When he smiles he's dangerous ; 
 he's all right when he's angry ". 
 
 On this news coming to Stead Cook called on Mr. 
 Balfour to find out if it was true. " Not a word of 
 truth in it ", said the new President of the Local 
 Government Board. " You mustn't say so, but it was 
 all the Queen. Salisbury had practically no choice. The 
 assurances have been amplified, but I confess I should 
 have wanted better ones ". 
 
 During 1885 and 1886 Greece was much to the fore 
 in international politics. The junction of Eastern 
 Roumelia with Bulgaria had taken place in September 
 of the former year. This union afiected many Greeks, 
 and Greece thought the opportunity favourable for the 
 assertion against Turkey of claims in Macedonia which 
 were in themselves perfectly just. The Powers, however, 
 at Lord Salisbury's instigation, interfered to prevent 
 Greece going to war and probably rushing on her own 
 destruction. Lord Rosebery enforced this policy in 
 the following May (1886) by blockading the Greek ports. 
 A record made by Cook under date January 26, 1886, the 
 day before the fall of the short-lived Salisbury Govern- 
 ment, refers to these events. Mr. Brett was indefatig- 
 able then and always in keeping his friend abreast of the 
 latest information : 
 
 On Saturday, January 23, I got a letter from Brett saying : 
 " Leave Ireland and H.R. alone and write on Greece, if you take 
 my view : if you don't I rely on you to say nothing about it. 
 Servia will not attack Turkey without Greece. If she does Bizzy ^ 
 thinks whole Eastern Question will be reopened in a very dis- 
 astrous way. He proposes that three Northern Powers should 
 
 ^ Prince Bismarck. 
 
96 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 force Greece to disarm. She is behaving very badly, relying on 
 Powers not to let her be beaten too badly. If she fights, Russia 
 and Austria will be drawn in — there's the danger ". I wrote 
 leader accordingly. Brett was on the spot, for to-day it appears 
 that on January 23 Salisbury telegraphed to our Minister at 
 Athens as follows : " Inform the Premier of Greece that war with 
 Turkey being unjustifiable and threatening the interests of other 
 nations, England has already received the consent of most of the 
 Great Powers, especially Germany, to prevent by her fleets all 
 action on the part of Greece by sea ". 
 
 This morning all the London papers, barring Daily News, take 
 my line. Brett writes : "Of course no one can help feeling some 
 sympathy with Greece even in her mistake. But the ' D.N.' 
 appears to think that we ought to allow Greece to run on to her 
 own destruction and entail that of others. If Greece and Servia 
 attack, what happens ? Austria absorbs Servia, Russia Bulgaria, 
 And Turkey will undoubtedly defend herself successfully against 
 Greece. What does the ' D.N.' propose then ? That we should 
 go to war with Russia or Austria or both ? " 
 
 Stead wrote to me in morning : " I fear this coercion of 
 Greece. It's too much against the traditions of our party and 
 line of growth. But si peccas pecca fortiter, and if you feel in- 
 clined to coerce again, suppress my leader, and ' Go it, Ned ' ". 
 So I went it. 
 
 Sent Norman to interview Gennadius.^ He said he still told 
 his Government that England would never stand coercion of 
 Greece, 
 
 January 27, Herbert Gladstone came down to the office with 
 telegram from Mayor of Athens and W. E, G,'s reply : "I earnestly 
 hope that Greece will pause before placing herself on this occasion 
 in conflict with the deliberate and united recommendation of the 
 Powers ". 
 
 It is not necessary to rehearse the events which led 
 lip to Lord Randolph Churchill's self-immolation on the 
 altar of national economy. The following letter addressed 
 to Stead or to Cook at the " P.M.G." has not yet seen 
 daylight : 
 
 ^ The Greek Minister in London. 
 
POLITICS IN THE EIGHTIES 97 
 
 Hatfield House, 
 December 24, 1886. 
 
 Dear Sir — I only got your note late last night. I fear I shall 
 not be in town for some days. 
 
 The cause of Lord Randolph Churchill's resignation is simply 
 as stated. Rather more than a week ago he informed me that 
 unless the total of the Army and Navy estimates was very con- 
 siderably below the total of last year, he would not continue to be 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer. After considerable discussion with 
 the departments he resigned his o£&ce in a letter I received on 
 Tuesday. I answered his argimients and said that I could not 
 take the responsibility of refusing the Heads of the War Depart- 
 ment and the Admiralty the sums which after prolonged con- 
 sideration they thought necessary for the defence of the country. 
 Least of all could I refuse the funds necessary for defending our 
 ports and coaling stations, which was the point to which Lord 
 Randolph Churchill had taken the most objection. He replied 
 by a letter which I received here after one o'clock on Wednesday 
 night or Thursday morning, in which he confirmed his intention 
 of resigning and mentioned, much in the language used in the 
 communique to The Times, his dissatisfaction with our legislative 
 intentions. He had not before alluded to this subject to me in 
 connection with his resignation. A few hours later I saw the 
 announcement in The Times. 
 
 It is not the case that the estimates proposed by the War 
 Office and Admkalty were very large. My only fear on hearing 
 of them was that they were insufficient. 
 
 Nothing that I have said here is confidential, but do not say 
 or let it be seen that I have been in communication with you. — 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Salisbury. 
 
 Cook called on Lord Randolph without result. Then 
 came this letter : 
 
 December 27, 1886. 
 
 My dear Sir — In your letter of to-day's date you say that 
 
 Mr. Stead " is now in possession of Lord Sahsbury's version " of 
 
 the causes which led to my resignation. I feel sure Mr. Stead 
 
 must have been misinformed by some ill-disposed person, because 
 
 H 
 
98 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 Lord Salisbury has rigorously prohibited me from giving any 
 explanation to the public, stipulating that any such explanations 
 must be reserved for Parliament when it meets. That being so, 
 I feel sure that he would not violate for his own advantage a rule 
 he has imposed on a former colleague. — I am, yours faithfully, 
 
 Randolph S. Churchill. 
 
 As a matter of fact Lord Salisbury had stated hardly 
 anything but what had appeared in The Times of 
 December 23, clearly from Lord Randolph himself. 
 
 A few other Diary notes recall vividly the events of 
 those days : 
 
 January 1, 1887. — I sent Norman to Goschen to hear whether 
 he had accepted Randolph's place. He brought back written 
 message : " If I accept it wUl be at urgent wish of Hartington. 
 I should not do so otherwise ". 
 
 January 12. — Iddesleigh's death. The news came just as I 
 was leaving the oflS.ce about 4 ; and Stead beiag away, I stopped 
 till 8 to do the special editions — sending C. Morley and Hill in aU 
 directions for news. C. M. found Stead at Carnarvon's and told 
 them the news. " Murdered " was Carnarvon's exclamation. 
 
 On January 24 the Daily News published a para- 
 graph and leading article saying that the English Cabinet 
 knew war between France and Germany to be a matter 
 of — it was afraid to say how short a time. Cook there- 
 f^ upon sought interviews with Lord Granville and others. 
 
 Lord Granville said : "I should think there is no one in 
 the Cabinet likely to communicate with the ' D.N.' As 
 to Belgium it is a mistake — though it is not a thing to 
 be said — that we are under obligation to defend it. 
 There was such an obligation, but it was altered by 
 Palmerston. I don't say that it may not be our interest 
 to defend it, but there is no obligation ". Thence to 
 Lord Randolph, who said he didn't believe it a bit — it was 
 no doubt a Stock Exchange canard. Cook asked him 
 about Belgium : "I don't care a damn about Belgium. 
 
POLITICS IN THE EIGHTIES 99 
 
 The only danger to England from a Franco-German 
 war would be if France won and wanted to annex 
 Belgium ". . . . 
 
 There were many more interviews with Lord Ran- 
 dolph Churchill, between whom and the assistant-editor 
 of the Pall Mall a real personal liking seems to have 
 arisen. Space forbids further transcriptions, but one 
 good remark of the Tory Democratic leader may be 
 fished up from oblivion. Lord Randolph was talking 
 of the disadvantage of Salisbury being at once Prime 
 Minister and Foreign Secretary. " The P.M.", said Lord 
 Randolph, " ought to be Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 — it is a light office ". There were many differences in 
 tradition and character between Lord Randolph Churchill 
 and Edward Cook ; but they resembled one another at 
 any rate in this, that they were both prepared at any 
 time to make any sacrifice of place and salary for what 
 they deemed to be right and true. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 EDITOR OF THE " PALL MALL " 
 
 The ideal editor would, I suppose, always be a voice, not an echo ; a 
 source, not a conduit ; the master, not the servant. — E. T. Cook. 
 
 Stead's absences during these years on his visits to his 
 friends, the Popes and Emperors of Europe, must have 
 been a reHef to the Pall Mall office, and perhaps not 
 altogether a disadvantage to the paper, as Cook's vice- 
 gerencies had always a sedative and moderating effect. 
 But in 1888 one of these occasions resulted in a temporary 
 crisis. Stead was on his first visit to Russia in further- 
 ance of his great idea of Anglo - Russian friendship. 
 He had fought against war with Russia over the Penjdeh 
 incident in 1885, and in his Truth about Russia (1888) 
 sought to remove many causes of hostility. Stead was 
 more like a stormy petrel than the symbolical bird 
 of peace, but his pacifism was a genuine emotion and 
 largely explains his violent pro-Boerism during the 
 South African War. His letters to Cook from Russia 
 are as boyish in spirit as in handwriting : 
 
 I am having a great time. The British Ambassador gave 
 me a tremendously swell dinner at the Embassy last night — two 
 countesses, a count with breast blazing with stars, and the 
 Austrian ambassador, and then I stayed behind till three o'clock 
 in the morning. 
 
 Later he writes : 
 
 I have just received the formal notification of my reception 
 by the Emperor on Thursday. I leave St. Petersburg at 9 and 
 
 100 
 
EDITOR OF THE " PALL MALL " 101 
 
 return at 3. In those fateful hours I shall either crown the 
 edifice or come a final cropper. Up to now I have had a brilliant 
 success without a single break. I really begin to believe that 
 when I come back I shall have to go out in my swallow-tail into 
 Society [here follow many notes of exclamation]. 
 
 Stead was no doubt apt to overestimate the import- 
 ance of his unofficial interviews with European magnates, 
 most of whom under their trappings seem to have been 
 very ordinary people. He reports to Cook concerning 
 his reception by Tsar Alexander III. : 
 
 May 25, 1888. — I had a good time with the Emperor yesterday. 
 I have it all written out, but of course it is all a deadly secret, so 
 we cannot pubhsh. I kept him twenty minutes late for lunch, 
 no doubt to the Empress's and children's disgust. But I think 
 he liked me. He thought he would just shake hands and have a 
 few minutes' talk, whereas we had three-quarters of an hour hard 
 political talk. I cannot say anything in the paper about what 
 he said. But this you must know and can act upon with the 
 utmost confidence — that as to the policy of Russia it is exactly 
 that which the " P.M.G." has in season and out of season advo- 
 cated. The Emperor is profoundly peaceful. There will be 
 peace, he said, for years, and I believe him absolutely. . . . 
 Russia friends with Germany and England friends of both — that 
 is the old " P.M.G." doctrine, and yesterday I had it confirmed 
 absolutely by the Emperor. Russia, Germany and England, 
 said he — if these three hold together we shall have no war. 
 
 Stead had dreamed during his absence of the im- 
 mense impression his Continental articles, sent on in 
 advance, must be making in London. But Cook had 
 exercised an editorial discretion, as Stead discovered to 
 his wrathful indignation on stepping ashore in England. 
 Cook writes in his Diary : 
 
 June 25, 1888.— Crisis at " P.M.G." begms. Stead back on 
 Saturday. Travelling straight through had seen nothing of the 
 way we dished up his articles till he arrived at Queenborough. 
 
102 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 Blackguarded me strongly — disobeyed his express orders — 
 equivalent to dismissing him from editorship — was he editor or 
 not, etc. ? He had written a leader and a statement explaining 
 that the whole would be begun de novo. That afternoon I sent 
 him the following letter : 
 
 Dear Mr. Stead — There is one point in what you said this 
 morning about my conduct which if you do not mind I should Uke 
 cleared up. You left me full discretion, you said, i.e. left me as 
 editor in your absence — with one exception, namely, the treat- 
 ment of your letters from Russia. But Mr. Thompson assured 
 me most positively and categorically that on this very matter he 
 had arranged with you that full discretion was to be retained by 
 the office at home. As a matter of fact, you had left me no 
 instructions whatever ; and I had therefore to gather my position 
 from what Mr. Thompson told me had passed between you and 
 him. In order that there might be no doubt about it I showed 
 Mr. Thompson, before we decided on the matter, your letters to 
 me from St. Petersburg, as well as your endorsement of the copy. 
 He read the letters and said there was nothing in them to over- 
 ride the arrangement he had made with you. I am sending a 
 copy of this letter to Mr. Thompson, in order that he may confirm 
 my version of what passed. Should he do so, I hope that on re- 
 consideration you will be able to withdraw the rebuke to me that 
 I broke faith to you and usurped powers with which I was not 
 entrusted. You will see that there is a wide distinction between 
 quarrelling with my use of discretion and denying that I had any 
 right to use discretion at all. — Yours truly, 
 
 E. T. C. 
 Cook adds : 
 
 Soon after this letter was posted Mr. Yates Thompson called, 
 having come direct from Paris, and having first seen his paper at 
 Dover. He was very angry and walked about the room swearing, 
 wishing to God he had been back — why in the world couldn't 
 Stead have waited, instead of being so utterly discourteous and 
 lacking in consideration ? 
 
 Indeed, the regular reader who took his seat in the 
 homeward train on the evening of Monday, June 25, 
 1888, may have been surprised and perplexed when he 
 
EDITOR OF THE " PALL MALL " 103 
 
 opened Ms Pall Mall to find at the beginning of the 
 leading article : 
 
 We have been publishing from day to day last week more or 
 less snippety instalments of our Special Commissioner's Report 
 from St. Petersburg upon the prospects of war or peace in Europe, 
 Our Special Commissioner arrived himself from the Russian 
 capital on Saturday night, and his personal report as to the 
 sources of his information and the nature of the communications 
 on the strength of which his estimate of the future outlook in 
 Europe was based has necessitated our immediate adoption of a 
 course which, though absolutely unprecedented in journalism, 
 is fully justified by the unique nature and signal success of his 
 Commission. We shall to-morrow begin the pubhcation de novo 
 of the whole of his report on " War or Peace ? " — presenting to 
 the readers instalments sufficiently lengthy to enable them to 
 follow the drift of his argument, etc. 
 
 As a matter of fact Stead's articles had been 
 published not in a " snippety " but in a very complete 
 way. Cook had placed them each day at the foot of the 
 leader page and continued them in the corresponding 
 place on the following pages — a convenient and not 
 inconspicuous position. The reader just mentioned 
 must have been even more surprised when on the 26th 
 he found colunms and pages of his Pall Mall occupied 
 with articles verbally identical with those with which be 
 had been edified the previous week. Stead's conduct on 
 this occasion was unpardonable. He inflicted a sort of 
 public reprimand on his lieutenant, and sacrificed the 
 interests of his paper and its readers for a rather petty 
 revenge. Cook's editing of his articles was much more 
 rational, and surely more acceptable to the general 
 reader, who does not care to have too much of his paper 
 occupied with a subject in which he may not himself 
 be especially interested. 
 
 So the incident ended, but it perceptibly loosened 
 Stead's roots in the Pall Mall Gazette. Cook's Diary 
 
104 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 gives us glimpses of him hankering after other sensa- 
 tions, aspiring to another martyrdom and landing the 
 paper in libel suits. In the spring of 1889 he had formed 
 a project for a " new Times ", and one of his " sign- 
 posts ", alias his demon or familiar spirit, had announced 
 to him that he would leave the Pall Mall on June 30. 
 These mysterious intimations were awkward, because 
 Stead was inclined to justify them, even at the expense 
 of his own and other people's interests. On this occasion 
 the fatal date was successfully weathered and that par- 
 ticular sign-post discredited. But though the chronology 
 proved inaccurate the presentiment of a severance from 
 the Pall Mall was well grounded. 
 
 Cook's entry in his Diary for December 12 and Satur- 
 day December 14 opens with the words, " in full crisis " : 
 
 Stead, saying nothing to H. Y. T., concludes an arrangement 
 with Newnes of Tit-Bits to edit the Sixpenny Monthly, a monthly 
 " Tit-Bits " of the magazines,^ having been hurried on and en- 
 couraged by very favourable letters from Balfour and some twenty 
 other big people to whom he had written about it. He then writes 
 to H. Y. T. saying : " You will be interested to hear, etc. etc. ". 
 H. Y. T. writes back saying : " I am open to conviction on this 
 or any other subject, but 1 may say at once that I regard the 
 editorship of Mr, Newnes's magazine as incompatible with that 
 of the ' P.M.G.'. I have no intention of going halves in my 
 editor with Mr. Newnes ". Stead replies : "I accept your 
 decision ", and announces to us all that he is going to leave. 
 That was on Thursday morning. 
 
 H. Y. T. took me to lunch on Thursday, read me the whole 
 correspondence and sounded me provisionally as to accepting 
 the editorship in succession to Stead. 1 said I would, but that 
 1 was sincerely anxious to see a truce with Stead arranged. 
 
 On Friday H. Y. T. and Stead had a long meeting. Leslie 
 and Charles ^ told me it was all over, interview had been very 
 stormy, breach widened, etc. 
 
 ^ Afterwards the Review of Reviews. 
 * Mr. Henry Leslie, the manager, and Mr. Charles Morley. 
 
EDITOR OF THE " PALL MALL " 105 
 
 On Thursday morning, Friday afternoon and twice to-day 
 (Saturday) I had long talks with Stead. He was very kind to 
 me, said I had worked with him as pleasantly as was possible, but 
 ever since Russian crisis had felt it was all over with him — his 
 work at the " P.M.G." was over — it was not his paper, but 
 Thompson's and mine — that I had had most work and really 
 edited the paper — that he had a presentiment that he should 
 leave by December 31 — couldn't make out why it didn't come 
 true — had no idea when he entered into Newnes's business that 
 it would lead to a final split (his idea being that H. Y. T. 
 would agree subject to a reduction of salary, putting him 
 and me on an equality, and letting him be free at the end of 
 months), but that when he found it was going to lead to split 
 his chief feeling was intense exultation that the sign-post was 
 true ! 
 
 I combated all this, saying he was fulfilliiig his own prophecies, 
 but in a very foolish way. We all knew he would pass sooner or 
 later to his big paper, but let hiui pass to it direct, not fall from 
 " P.M.G." to monthly " Tit-Bits." 
 
 Cook was obviously in no hurry to step into Stead's 
 editorial shoes. His relations with his chief had not 
 always been comfortable, but it again illustrates the 
 justice and detachment of his mind that he allowed no 
 personal feelings to affect his estimate of Stead's genius. 
 He strongly urged Mr. Thompson to leave the door open, 
 and he even suggested to a common friend that she 
 should appeal to Cardinal Manning to bring his influence 
 to bear upon Stead. He reasoned continually with 
 Stead, and on one of these occasions the latter became 
 reminiscent : 
 
 I saw Stead again. He said he must go and his only desire 
 was to leave no ragged edge. Told me story of his first resigna- 
 tion in 1882 re an atheistic article by Fitzjames Stephen ^ which 
 Morley said he meant to put in. Morley caved in. " Ah ", said 
 
 ^ Afterwards Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., Judge of the High Court. 
 See page 46. 
 
106 LIFE OF Sm EDWARD COOK 
 
 Canon Liddon to Stead, " that was worth living for ". " Yes ", 
 I said to Stead, " but you were fighting for somethiag then, but 
 for nothing now ". " Ah ", rejoined Stead, " that depends on 
 whether anything is worth fighting for ", and went over his old 
 arguments again. " But I'm very sorry ", he said in parting, " to 
 have given you so much bother in the business ". 
 
 In the end Cook was formally installed as editor of 
 the Pall Mall Gazette as from January 1, 1890. But 
 Stead's position was undetermined. He still hovered 
 spectrally on the borderland, coming daily to the ofifice, 
 " not writing ", Cook tells us, " though giving me very 
 useful hints, but seeing people, making appointments? 
 using big room, etc., and also colloguing with Leslie on 
 the irreparable loss he would be to the paper ". Then 
 we read of a sentimental letter Stead writes to Mrs. 
 Thompson, his very good friend, which results in a 
 suggestion from Mr. Thompson that Cook should engage 
 Stead as a writer on salary under his editorship. " I 
 objected to this ", says Cook with some reason, " as 
 putting me into a false position, since my long sub- 
 ordinate position and Stead's intrinsic weight would 
 virtually make him editor ". Mr. Thompson agreed 
 that the arrangement was not an ideal one, but in the 
 end Cook acquiesced for the sake of peace at any price. 
 " So there, thank goodness ", he writes on January 9, 
 1890, "is an end to the bother. I remain nominal 
 editor, with Stead as political director. A bad plan, I 
 think, and an unpleasant, but I must do my best to give 
 it a fair trial ". 
 
 The trial was not a long one, for on February 1 Stead 
 made no appearance. Mr, Thompson had taken excep- 
 tion to some passages relating to the Pall Mall Gazette 
 in an interview Stead had accorded to the Star. Thus 
 Cook's kingdom was no longer divided, and he became 
 solely responsible for an organ of opinion which wielded 
 
EDITOR OF THE " PALL MALL " 107 
 
 an immense influence on government and policy — a 
 responsibility on which a serious call was about to be 
 made. 
 
 Cook had not been long in the editorship when the 
 floodgates of political excitement were thrown open in 
 the famous, or rather infamous Parnell-O'Shea affair. 
 It is not necessary to rewrite the history of that sordid 
 drama, but the main facts must be recalled. Captain 
 O'Shea obtained his divorce from his wife on the ground 
 of her adultery with Mr. Parnell on November 17, 1890. 
 On November 24 Mr. Gladstone wrote to Mr. Morley his 
 decisive letter about the Irish leadership, the purport of 
 which was to be communicated to Parnell. If Parnell 
 had had any trace in his constitution of disinterested 
 patriotism, not to mention any spark of gratitude to a 
 great statesman and to a great Party which at heavy 
 sacrifices had espoused his country's cause, he would 
 have resigned his leadership after the divorce trial. 
 But the baseness of the man was manifest throughout 
 the whole transaction. Cook had many visits after the 
 trial from Captain O'Shea, and he records the conversa- 
 tions in his Diary. There is no reason to dispute the 
 truth of the Captain's revelations. " But really ", asks 
 Cook on one occasion, " weren't you too trustful and 
 confiding for anything ? " 
 
 " Well ", he repHed, " I did trust the man implicitly, Hke a 
 father trusts a son. You must remember I had taken him up 
 when he was a pariah and none of his own class would have a 
 word to say to him. The treachery of that man passes beUef. 
 Often we would dine together at club at his uivitation, and he 
 would leave me at 11 and go down to my wife. Then on Sunday 
 morrdng 1 would go down to Eltham, and his hat, coat and 
 stick would be arranged in the hall to look as if he had just 
 come ". 
 
108 LIFE OF SIR EDWAED COOK 
 
 Parnell's treachery to his country was just as gross. 
 Instead of resigning and removing the stigma of the 
 divorce scandal from the national cause, he chose to 
 fight for his own selfish ends. On November 29 he 
 turned on the best friend Ireland ever had, and charged 
 Mr. Gladstone with having stated during his visit to 
 Hawarden in the previous December that in any future 
 scheme of Home Rule the Irish members would be 
 reduced from 103 to 32, land would be withdra\\Ti 
 from the purview of the Irish Parliament and the con- 
 stabulary would be retained under Imperial control, 
 though paid for by Irish funds. Moreover, Mr. Morley 
 had endeavoured to corrupt the Irish party by offers of 
 place in a Liberal Government. 
 
 It was natural to ask, if this story was true, why 
 Mr. Parnell had suppressed these facts for a whole year ; 
 and why after the said interview at Hawarden Mr. 
 Parnell, speaking at Liverpool, had called on Lancashire 
 to rally to its " grand old leader ". " My countrymen, 
 rejoice ", he had cried, " for we are on the safe path 
 to our legitimate freedom and our future prosperity ". 
 But Mr. Gladstone's reply disposed of Parnell's insidious 
 manoeuvre. The whole discussion, he said, had been 
 one of those informal exchanges of view which go to all 
 political action and in which men feel the ground and 
 discover the leanings of one another's minds. No single 
 proposal had been made, no proposition mentioned to 
 which a binding assent was sought. Points of possible 
 improvement in the Bill of 1886 had been named as 
 having risen in Mr. Gladstone's mind, or been suggested 
 by others, but no positive conclusions were asked for 
 or were expected or were possible. As regards the 
 allegations of political seduction, Mr. Morley's emphatic 
 denials were rightly regarded as final. 
 
 The policy of the Pall Mall during these excitements 
 
EDITOR OF THE " PALL MALL " 109 
 
 was again decisive. The day after the divorce proceed- 
 ings ended Cook wrote in his leading article : 
 
 Rightly or wrongly the Irish will let things be. But this fact 
 does not for a moment relieve Mr. Parnell of his duty. On the 
 contrary it gives him an opportunity, which we live in hope that 
 he will seize, of doing an act of spontaneous reparation, of making 
 almost a virtue, in fact, of what might have been a necessity. It 
 is Mr. Parnell's clear duty to send in his resignation to his con- 
 stituents. . . . Can any sane man believe that the Home 
 Rule cause will benefit during the next six months by the hero of 
 the many aliases being retained as one of the twin commander-- 
 in-chief, or that the fire-escape ^ will be the golden bridge to con- 
 duct the waverers back to Liberal fealty. 
 
 Cook reinforced this policy, which was quite in the 
 line of the " P.M.G.'s " moral tradition, in subsequent 
 leading articles. Ten years later he wrote some remi- 
 niscences in the Universal Magazine in which he recalls 
 these incidents : 
 
 One of the most exciting mornings in my editorial experience 
 was that on which Mr. Parnell's manifesto was published after 
 the revelations in the O'Shea Divorce Case. The whole crisis was 
 one of the most dramatic in modern politics. The Home Rule 
 cause had been steadily gaining ground in England. Mr. Glad- 
 stone's unceasing efiorts seemed on the eve of success. The 
 Pigott Commission had strengthened Mr. Parnell's position. An 
 alliance with the Liberal Party had been formed. There was a 
 banquet to Mr. ParneU at the Eighty Club, and a reception at the 
 Grosvenor Gallery. Cold, impassive and inscrutable, he had 
 moved through the rooms, the object of universal curiosity, and 
 of some enthusiasm. Then, unexpectedly to most people, and 
 with results expected only by a very few, had come the O'Shea 
 Divorce Case. It was a poHtical bombshell. Enthusiasm was 
 chiUed on the instant. Home Rulers, who knew not Parnell, were 
 aghast at the cold selfishness of a man who could have endangered 
 so much for what seemed to them so little. Colleagues who 
 followed but feared him began to whisper against him. In this 
 
 1 A certain fire-escape figured prominently in the incidents of the adultery. 
 
110 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 country the Nonconformist conscience was deeply stirred. Mr. 
 Schnadhorst began to shake his head : an incalculable factor had 
 been introduced into all our essays in political meteorology. Mr. 
 Gladstone, after a short period of hesitation, had written his 
 famous Letter, declaring that if Parnell remained at the head 
 of the Irish Party his own retention of the leadership of the 
 Liberal Party would be rendered " almost a nullity ". 
 
 There were a few days of great tension in the political world ; 
 and then on the morning of Saturday, November 29, 1890, 
 appeared Mr. Parnell's manifesto giving a garbled version of 
 confidential interviews with Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Morley, 
 brushing aside the whole divorce case scandal as a pretext too 
 thin even to be mentioned, and calling on the Irish people not 
 to " throw me to the English wolves now howling for my destruc- 
 tion ". The tone and text of this manifesto were alike of the 
 utmost importance. It was obvious that the Home Rule question, 
 and with it the whole aspect of domestic politics at that time, 
 were profoundly affected by Mr. Parnell's action. After writing 
 my leader on the manifesto, I went off to see Mr. Gladstone. 
 He spoke alike of the manifesto and of Parnell personally in 
 terms of far less restraint than those which he subsequently put 
 on paper. He was intensely indignant with the perfidy, as it 
 seemed to him, of the whole proceeding. He must have felt 
 profoundly the perils of the situation. But for the moment he 
 seemed rather to be drinking delight of battle with his peers ; 
 his manner was brisk and lively, and in his eye there gleamed a 
 fire that I shall never forget. Mr. Gladstone had already com- 
 posed a reply to the manifesto. It was written on his favourite 
 unruled quarto paper and showed very few erasures. None of 
 his colleagues were consulted before it was written, though one 
 of his principal lieutenants afterwards made two or three trifling 
 suggestions which were adopted in the text as revised later in the 
 day for the Press. Before sending it to the Press, Mr. Gladstone 
 allowed me to peruse it, and I hurried back to the ofl&ce with 
 that peculiar alacrity and self-satisfaction which steal over the 
 journalist who supposes himself to have got a start, no matter 
 how trifling, over his rivals. 
 
 Cook duly chronicled in his Diary his interview with 
 Mr. Gladstone on that memorable November 29. It 
 
EDITOR OF THE " PALL MALL " 111 
 
 was a busy morning at 1 Carlton Gardens. Cook met 
 Herbert Gladstone on the doorstep and was in due course 
 taken down to the library (Ripon's old study). 
 
 Here were also Mrs, Gladstone, Arnold Morley, Carmichael, 
 Spencer Lyttelton and Stuart (Harcourt afterwards coming in 
 and going to G. 0. M. with a dreary smUe : " Well, Mr. Gladstone, 
 what times we are having ! " ). G. at once came up to me, looked 
 very brisk and flowing over with a kind of battle glee. Took my 
 hand firmly and held it while he said : "I must apologise to you, 
 Mr. Cook, for keeping you knocking about and treating you so 
 cavalierly. And next let me pay you a compliment— I must do 
 so for it is a well-deserved compliment — on your paper under your 
 management : the conduct of it has been good, so far as I 
 can judge, very good. And now ", turning to Stuart, " what I 
 propose is this : I have committed to writing what I have to say 
 in reply to Mr. Parnell, and I have sent for the Central News and 
 the Press Association to communicate it to the papers generally. 
 But I suggest that you and Mr. Stuart should read it jointly first 
 for your respective papers ". Stuart and I began to read accord- 
 ingly standing. " No, sit down ", said Mr. G. ; " don't mind 
 me. For one thing my deafness is beginning to help me m that 
 way and you won't inconvenience me at all ". W. E. G. then 
 went to a writing-table in one of the windows and stood reading 
 letters, being presently joined by Harcourt. Mrs. Gladstone was 
 writing at a table in another window — a curious omnium gatherum 
 mise-en-scene. 
 
 Cook's editorial period on the Pall Mall was otherwise 
 rather a slack time in political happenings. These were 
 the closing years of a Unionist Administration when 
 General Elections seemed to indicate some reflux of the 
 tide in the Liberal favour. But the flow was too shallow 
 and languid, as it proved, to carry the Liberal ship into 
 really navigable water. Turning over the files we are 
 struck with the evidences of able and careful editor- 
 ship, with a high and sustained literary standard and 
 with a complete freedom from dulness and monotony. 
 Cook made every number as interesting as possible. 
 
112 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 He would send up to tlie printer's room any little 
 paragraph of incident or comment or gossip which might 
 lighten or brighten his columns. Cook was an excellent 
 listener as well as talker, and many a neighbour at 
 luncheon or dinner has been surprised to find in the paper 
 next day some story or comment that had fallen from 
 him in the course of conversation. Cook was indeed the 
 " chiel takin' notes ", and might be always trusted to 
 "prent it ". He was happy, it should be added, in his 
 helpers. On succeeding to the editorship he appointed 
 as his assistant Mr. Edmund Garrett, whose ill-health 
 soon caused the substitution of Mr. J. A. Spender, Cook's 
 successor in the editorship of the Westminster Gazette. 
 
 It is not surprising that Mr. Thompson should have 
 been well satisfied with his paper and his editor. " The 
 reign of Mr. Cook ", wrote Stead, just after the cata- 
 strophe, " was one of untroubled placidity. The last 
 time I saw Mr. Thompson he emphasized his satisfac- 
 tion at the way in which things were going. He said 
 that Cook was the best editor he had ever had ". This 
 halcyon calm was to be rudely interrupted by a storm 
 which swooped with little warning from a blue sky. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 FROM " PALL MALL " TO " WESTMINSTER " 
 My ambition is character, not office. — William Pitt, the Younger. 
 
 An entry in Cook's Diary under May 1892 reads rather 
 ominously. " This summer ", he writes, " H. Y. T. 
 was approached by some la^vyers, on behalf, I beheve, 
 of the Polish Jew who is Kops Ale, to sell ' P.M.G.'. 
 They ultimately made a firm offer of £50,000. One 
 Sunday at Ringsall H. Y. T. told me all this, and asked 
 what my intentions were as to the future. I said I had 
 no desire to leave the Pall Mall Gazette. Then that 
 settled him, he said ; and two days later he told me h3 
 had written finally declining. He had been tempted to 
 sell, he said ; and if I had any idea of leaving he should 
 have done so. He got on with me but might not with 
 another ". 
 
 Cook seems to have given no further thought to this 
 incident. He carried his paper through the General 
 Election of the summer which resulted in a great Liberal 
 disappointment. He had developed a gift for political 
 meteorology. Indeed he had few equals in the manage- 
 ment and interpretation of electoral figures, and the 
 Pall Mall had the full benefit of this editorial talent 
 in the elections of 1892. Then Cook " downed tools " 
 and started for his usual Continental tour. He was 
 through two-thirds of a delightful holiday when the blow 
 
 113 I 
 
114 LIFE OF Sm EDWARD COOK 
 
 fell. Many years afterwards (1914) he told the story 
 in the Westminster Gazette : 
 
 There is a courtyard of an old Italian inn which is impressed 
 indelibly on my memory. Do any of my readers know the little 
 town of Biella ? It is now, I believe, much " industrialized ", 
 and I am not aware that it contains any notable works of art ; 
 but it is a convenient centre from which to visit many of the 
 Sanctuaries described enticingly by the author of Erewhon, and 
 it stands in that beautiful region where the Alps meet the plain in 
 softest harmony. In the late summer of 1892 I was taking a 
 holiday in that region, and on a sparkling morning in September 
 we were setting out to drive from Biella to Varallo. The horses' 
 heads were just emerging from the courtyard of the Testa Grigia 
 when the landlord came running after us with a telegram. It 
 contained the words : " Letter of importance posted to-day to 
 Biella. Await receipt ". We were in hoKday mood and the 
 telegram cast no shadow. Varallo could wait. The day's delay 
 would enable us to take a shorter excursion and visit yet another 
 Sanctuary, one which is left undescribed in Butler's book. It 
 was a delicious drive up the Val Andorno, and then through 
 beech woods to San Giovanni. It commands an entrancing view ; 
 the air is invigorating. The founders of these Alpine pilgrimage- 
 places had a happy instinct, and the health-cures, to which 
 innumerable Ex Votos attest, need not be attributed wholly to 
 miraculous intervention. Next morning came the letter ; and 
 with it the holiday and the holiday mood were ended. The letter 
 suggested that my immediate return was desirable, as the Pall 
 Mall Gazette, with which I had been connected for ten years, 
 during the last three of them as editor, had been sold over my 
 head to a new proprietor. I received the letter on September 22, 
 and two days later I reached London. 
 
 Cook found the office in a state of clamant protest, 
 this callous transference of the whole staff to a new and 
 unknown master savouring rather of the cattle-market. 
 The emotions on both sides seem rather extravagant in 
 these days of a " commercialized Press ", when such 
 buyings and sellings are more frequent. But Cook 
 
FROM " FALL MALL " TO " WESTMINSTER " 115 
 
 points out what an exceptionally happy comradeship 
 prevailed in Northumberland Street. " Never was 
 there a more united or a more hard-working staff than 
 that of the Pall Mall in the days which I remember. 
 With my former assistant-editor, the late Edmund 
 Garrett, and with his successor, the present editor of the 
 Westminster, I was on terms not only of the closest co- 
 operation but also of personal affection. And then, too, 
 we were all young in those days. We were proud of our 
 positions, glad of our opportunities and devoted to what 
 we always called fondly ' the old Pall Mall ', in which 
 our ambitions and ideals were centred ". 
 
 Cook found Mr. Thompson at their first meeting 
 " very much engrossed with his excellent bargain and 
 wanting my opinion thereon. He had put £20,000 into 
 the paper and now had a chance of selling at £50,000, 
 besides the profits he had recently drawn out and avoid- 
 ing heavy capital expenditure that would shortly be 
 necessary for new machinery and the enlargement of 
 premises, etc. ". Mr. Thompson then went on to speak 
 of the less ponderable interests involved. It is sad 
 work, as Lord Byron remarked, to analyse motives. No 
 doubt the personal benefits to Mr. Yates Thompson 
 derived from ten years' newspaper proprietorship had 
 not been very substantial. For example, Mr. Thompson 
 was still plain Mr. Thompson, though, to judge from 
 analogy, it would have been simple enough to acquire 
 for him some titular suj0&x as a reward for his services to 
 Liberalism. What he said to his editor on this occasion 
 is carefully set out in Cook's Diary : 
 
 As for the Party I feel no compunctions at all. They have 
 never done anything for me, though I did a real service to them 
 in 1880 by turning the paper round. They despise the Press. 
 Mr. Gladstone might easily have kept the Chronicle and probably 
 the Telegraph if he had baroneted Lloyd and Lawson ; and if 
 
116 LIFE OF Sm EDWARD COOK 
 
 they had ever done anything for me I don't suppose I should be 
 selling now. But think of Harcourt's insolent remark to a 
 meeting of new M.P.'s after the election : " A majority of 40 
 is a great thing to have won in spite of the opposition of The 
 Times and the support of the Daily News ". I regret the appear- 
 ance of desertion to you, Leslie and Morley (to which I assented 
 by silence). But the arrangements I propose will leave every- 
 body free financially to look round them, and these shufflings of 
 cards often turn out well. 
 
 Mr. Thompson was unable, or unwilling, to inform 
 even Lis responsible editor who was the real purchaser 
 of the paper. Mr. Keighley " of the National Liberal 
 Club ", who was conducting the business, was obviously 
 only a phantasm, the principals remaining in the back- 
 ground. All Mr. Thompson would vouchsafe was that 
 the purchaser was a rich man of business, much in the 
 same position as Mr. Steinkopf when he bought the St. 
 James's Gazette, and IVIr. Thompson's theory was that he 
 merely wanted a paper " as a man might want a pony ". 
 It turned out, however, that even Mr. Lowenfeld, " a 
 gentleman Polish by birth, Jewish by race and Roman 
 Catholic by rehgion ", who was obviously qualified to 
 control a great organ of opinion by his o^vnership of a 
 non-exhilarating beverage known as Kops Ale, was not 
 himself the ultimate bidder. Various were the rumours 
 as to the identity of the real purchaser, the conjectures 
 ranging from Lord Randolph Churchill to the German 
 Emperor. He materialized later into ^Ir. William 
 Waldorf Astor, an American of the Astor clan who, 
 after representing his country at the Court of Italy for 
 some time, was now settled in Berkeley Square. 
 
 On September 30 at 5.30 Mr. Thompson who, we are 
 told, had previously wept in IVIr. Charles Morley's room, 
 assembled the office in Cook's sanctum, and "in semi- 
 darkness ", writes Cook, " made his speech, hardly 
 
FROM " PALL MALL " TO " WESTMINSTER " 117 
 
 keeping up and big tears on his cheeks ". Cook had 
 placed a reporter in the room so that Mr. Thompson's 
 speech has been preserved verbatim. He said : 
 
 The gist of my communication is that I have to-day, from 
 private reasons I need not go into for sufficient reasons, contracted 
 for the sale of my interest in these two newspapers, the Pall Mall 
 Gazette and the Pall Mall Budget, to Mr. T. Dove Keighley, a 
 gentleman whose name, I suspect, you are not acquainted with. 
 I know him as a man with the command of considerable money, 
 and as a member of the National Liberal Club. He tells me he 
 is of Liberal politics, and he intends to conduct the papers on very 
 much the same lines as they have been conducted during my time 
 here. You see this is a serious announcement personally, because 
 it puts an end to our connection, or will do so when the contract 
 takes effect and the papers pass over to this gentleman, which 
 will be some time in the course of next month. This is a painful 
 separation to me in some ways, and I flatter myself none of you 
 will rejoice at it. I do not think that likely. What I regret is 
 the suddenness of it, and the selling the papers over your heads. 
 In extenuation I want you to take into consideration the nature 
 of newspaper property. It is such that the sale cannot be other- 
 wise than sudden, for had I made it known that the paper was 
 for sale it is quite certain it would not have been sold. It would 
 have depreciated, and the only way to deal with newspaper 
 property is to take the opportunity and deal with the man who 
 is willing, when he comes, and that was the case on this occasion. 
 
 It is not without a pang that I make this announcement. 
 Since I have had to do with the paper now for over twelve years, 
 it has imdergone great changes — almost entirely, I think, for the 
 better. I think the paper deserves very well both of you — and if 
 I may say it — of myself. We have made it a very different thing 
 to what it was. I have told Mr. Keighley, with perfect truth, 
 that the paper was never so efficiently manned in every depart- 
 ment as it is now. We have had, as you know, able men as editors, 
 though none other so able an editor as our present one. The paper 
 has made enormous advances lately, and that, in short, is owing 
 to Mr. Charles Morley and to Mr, Leslie as well. As Mr. Leslie got 
 accustomed to his duties, he showed exceptional ability as manager, 
 while all the other departments are thoroughly well equipped. 
 
118 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 I do not believe Mr. Keighley purposes making any changes ; 
 he intends to carry out the present lines, and he will be very 
 unwise, I think, if he does not. While I have had personal rela- 
 tions with this stafi, besides I have had business relations, and 
 your best services you have always unsparingly rendered. In 
 suddenly ending our connection, I propose to give no notice of 
 any sort. In selling over your heads and breaking any contract, 
 you have a right legally to claim compensation that may be due 
 from breakage of contract ; but for my part I intend in every 
 case to make such payment to each member of the staff with 
 whom I have had such contract, as will be very considerably 
 above what he could have got under any legal contract. That, I 
 think, is the least I can do. I feel great sorrow on the termina- 
 tion of our contract, and I sometimes doubt the reasons, good as 
 they were, that induced me to make this change. I do not think 
 I have anything more to say. 
 
 Mr. Thompson knew that Mr. Keighley of the 
 National Liberal Club (the emphasis on this address as 
 a guarantee of orthodoxy and financial solidarity is 
 frequent and noticeable) was not the principal, but 
 apparently he did not know who was the real " man of 
 substance " in the far background. It is almost in- 
 credible, but he seems to have been at no adequate 
 pains to discover to whom he was actually selling. At 
 the close of this valedictory oration Cook tells us there 
 was a painful silence. He himself moved to the door, 
 but the aching void was filled by Mr. William Hill, 
 the news-editor, who spoke in kindly terms of past 
 relationships—" so ingrained ", remarks Cook, " is respect 
 for capitalism even in its slaves ". 
 
 It would have been a great convenience to the new 
 proprietors to continue the existing staff, including the 
 editor, over the period of transition from Liberalism 
 to Conservatism. Cook was to be a " stop-gap ", and 
 an accessory to the betrayal of the fortress to the enemy. 
 His own account of his conversation with the agents on 
 
FROM " PALL MALL " TO " WESTMINSTER " 119 
 
 this point is entertaining. He easily takes the measure 
 of the gentlemen with whom he was dealing, quite sees 
 through them and pours successive cold douches over 
 their ingenious and hopeful heads. 
 
 At 2.30 (October 3) Thompson introduced me to Keighley 
 (" Well, Mr. Cook, we are resuming an acquaintance "), and 
 Adams, sohcitor, and left me to discuss with them. K. said, 
 " We are anxious to retain your services. I don't know any man 
 in London whom I would rather see in the editor's chair, and we 
 want to know your views ". [Mr. Keighley could scarcely have 
 begun more inauspiciously. He invited the first bucketful.] I 
 said (continues Cook), " I am In the position of a listener. I 
 understand from Mr. Thompson that on October 15 he proposes 
 to dismiss me by selling the paper over my head. On that day, 
 then, I shall leave the office, and I await any proposals with 
 interest ". " We are very anxious to secure your continuance 
 and desire to hear your views ". " WeU, first, I must know with 
 whom I am dealing — they would know that statements had been 
 made, etc., etc. ". Adams then said they were in no way re- 
 sponsible for any such statements. They did not deny that 
 Lowenfeld was the proprietor, but it was Keighley with whom I 
 had to deal. " Yes ", struck in K., " with me and me alone. A 
 newspaper may be divided into two branches : (1) commercial : 
 for that Mr. Lowenfeld, represented here by Mr. Adams, has 
 provided, and we may dismiss it entirely from our consideration ; 
 (2) hterary, political, social and artistic, and for that I alone am 
 to be dealt with ". 
 
 I wanted to know exactly where I was. K. seemed to speak 
 of himself as proprietor, but I thought A. called L. so. " Excuse 
 me ", said A., " we don't deny that L. is the proprietor ; but 
 neither do we afl5rm it ". " Then, pray explain ". And A. set 
 forth how the thing was K.'s idea, but " any one who knows Mr. 
 K. knows he has not the money ", " and how L. found most of 
 it ". " Then I understand the facts to be these : that Mr. K. 
 is the legal and actual proprietor, but that behind Mr. K. is 
 Mr. L., who finds the money. That is the state of facts on 
 which one must form one's opinions ". " That is so ". 
 
 Messrs. Keighley and Adams were obviously receiving 
 
120 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 a salutary lesson in clearness of thought and expression. 
 It is noticeable, too, that Cook had quietly reversed the 
 roles of examiner and examinee. 
 
 Then we started again, K. reiterating their desire to retain my 
 services. I said they must put any proposals they have to make 
 in writing ; but with a view to enabling them to see whether it 
 was worth while to make any proposals, and, if so, what, I would 
 discuss matters. I then laid down as essential prelimuiaries (1) 
 absolute control over the whole sheet ; (2) appointment of 
 editorial staff ; (3) assurance of harmonious relations with 
 manager ; (4) a year's engagement. They let (1), (2) and (3) 
 pass without remark, but on (4) we came to loggerheads. Adams 
 assumed I would take the same terms as now, viz. £1200 and 
 three months' notice. I said we should not be likely to quarrel 
 about salary, but the three months was quite impossible. Didn't 
 he know that a year was the legally established custom of the 
 trade for editors ? Only my intimate relations with and con- 
 fidence in Mr. Thompson had induced me to accept three months 
 with him — very foohshly, I added, as it now turned out. Let 
 them enquire what conditions John Morley made.^ No : my 
 view of the equity of the situation was an engagement for a year 
 on their side, with power to break on mine at three months. I, 
 qua editor, was a known factor, with experience to put at their 
 disposal. They were entirely unknown to me. 
 
 " Quite monstrous, most inequitable ", said Adams. " And 
 suppose we differed ", said K. " Until Parliament meets— that 
 is why we suggest the shorter period — we are sure to agree ; but 
 when the session begins our views might diverge [Cook, of 
 course, seeing through all this]. The Liberal majority is small ; 
 no one agrees as to what it means, or as to what the Home Rule 
 Bill will be ; the ' P.M.G.' has never been a slavish party organ 
 like the Daily News. Now, if we differed, would it not be in- 
 tolerable to you as a man of honour to continue on the paper ". 
 " Not at all, so long as I was able to say what I liked ". [This 
 thrust of Cook's logical rapier must have been a staggerer for Mr. 
 Keighley.] " In fact, Mr. K. is to pay you £1200 ", interposed 
 
 ^ These were certainly very stiff. Mr. Morley had successive arrangements 
 with his proprietor. They were for one or two years at £2000 a year, with no 
 notice or a very short notice to be given by him for determination. 
 
FROM " PALL MALL " TO " WESTMINSTER " 121 
 
 A., "if he difEers ". Would I not accept a larger salary for a 
 shorter period ? " No, that would not suit my views at all. 
 Was this final ? Yes. " Well, I'm sorry, Mr. Cook, very 
 sorry ", said K. " Oh, don't be sorry ", I replied ; " I quite 
 understand your views, and I daresay if I were in your place, I 
 should take the same ; but they don't suit my views ". 
 
 Cook's interlocutors in this and other occasions must 
 have realized the truth of Mr. J. A. Spender's remark 
 that " to get into controversy with Cook was a dangerous 
 adventure for the oldest hand, for it was impossible to 
 catch him tripping in any matter of fact or to beat him 
 at the game of verbal retort ".^ 
 
 The difference between the two parties to the con- 
 troversy is clear. The purchasers wanted Cook as a 
 convenient stepping-stone to effect the transition from 
 the one camp to the other. A Unionist friend of Cook's 
 who came on behalf of the purchasers urged him to 
 remain on their terms. " The buyer was making heavy 
 pecuniary sacrifices for his political convictions, and 
 naturally could not give unfettered control for a year ; 
 but the curve was to be gradual. There would be no idea, 
 of course, of asking me to write a word of which I dis- 
 approved. But why should I not write on more or less 
 neutral subjects, such as recent leaders ? Would I do so 
 for a few months at £200 a month or any other sum I 
 liked ? I told Maxse I was sure he would see, if he 
 put himself into my place, that I could not agree to be 
 used thus as a stop-gap ". 
 
 Cook might have had no objection to prolong the 
 Liberal life of the paper for a year or longer, if he had had 
 complete control. The new Parliament was to meet on 
 January 31 of the next year, and the Liberal party, with 
 its precarious majority, would need the best support 
 obtainable. Cook might have been willing to carry on 
 
 ^ See Appendix to The Press in War Time (E. T. Cook). 
 
122 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 for these purposes and on his own terms, but a bouche- 
 trou for the convenience of the incoming enemy he was 
 immovably determined never to be. 
 
 In fact there were big moral issues at stake. The 
 general public were under an impression that writers 
 on newspapers believed what they wrote. Cook (and in 
 all this he was strongly backed by J. A. Spender and 
 Edmund Garrett) was determined that, so far as his 
 influence went, this should remain true. But that was 
 not all. He was determined to show that, as he put it, 
 newspaper men might be sold, but they could not be 
 bought. They were not hirelings, to be transferred at 
 pleasure from one master to another, from one political 
 confession to another. On the " commercial " principle 
 there was no reason why conscience should thus inter- 
 vene, or why a man should not sell his pen and his talent, 
 as Captain Dalgetty sold his sword, to the highest bidder. 
 But Cook abominated this spirit, and he was destined 
 ten years later to testify against it once more. He was 
 not to be talked or tempted out of obeying what he con- 
 ceived to be the clear promptings of duty. On October 
 7 he had two more interviews with " K " ; " very 
 vague and wordy, but as he made no advance on the 
 six months, I told him definitely that I should go, as the 
 general tone of his conversations seemed unsatisfactory ". 
 Let us hear Cook's later recollection of these events : 
 
 There ensued a course of mystification which was teasing at 
 the time, but which, in retrospect, is richly comic. There were 
 ostensible proprietors in various degrees. There were dark inter- 
 mediaries and secret emissaries. A stage-army of transient and 
 embarrassed phantoms appeared and disappeared. If the men 
 of straw inclined to be communicative, the men of law interposed 
 with oracular caution, " neither denying nor affirming ". I 
 cherish only one grievance against those responsible for this 
 superfluous mystery. They professed a high regard for my 
 
FROM " PALL MALL " TO " WESTMINSTER " 123 
 
 intellectual equipment. It was obvious that in reality they 
 had the lowest opinion of it ; the taradiddles were so trans- 
 parent, the equivocations so obvious, as to be calculated to 
 deceive only a babe or a man who wished to be deceived. Within 
 a very few days it was clear that none of the ostensible pur- 
 chasers was the real purchaser ; and that the intention of the 
 real purchaser was to change the politics of the paper. We 
 broke off negotiations forthwith and prepared to go forth into 
 the wilderness. 
 
 Cook was not alone : with him into the wilderness 
 went J. A. Spender, assistant-editor ; Edmund Garrett ; 
 IVIr. WiUiam Hill, news editor, loyal and irreproachable 
 in character ; Miss Friederichs, chief interviewer ; Mr. 
 Charles Morley, who passed from Budget to Budget, 
 and last but not least the invaluable political cartoonist, 
 Mr. F. Carruthers Gould. I do not wish to make too 
 tragic a business of these happenings, but this little 
 company must have the credit of having thrown up 
 work and wage rather than turn their coats and sell 
 their souls. 
 
 Financially Mr. Thompson treated the staff with a 
 generosity which far outpassed his strict legal obligations. 
 To Cook, though bound only for three months, he paid 
 a full year's salary (£1200). The rest were proportion- 
 ately paid off, and an equitable arrangement was made 
 with regard to vested interests in the " Extras ". 
 
 The gravamen of the complaints against Mr. 
 Thompson, it should be noted, was not that he sold his 
 paper, but that he sold it without sufi&cient assurance 
 that it would not be transferred to the enemy. " The 
 statement was made to him, but of course this was not 
 binding, that the purchaser was a Liberal and intended 
 to carry on the paper as at present ". So Cook reports 
 Mr. Thompson as saying, and Mr. Thompson made a 
 similar intimation to the stafi on September 30. The 
 whole transaction of the sale was wrapped in mystery. 
 
124 LIFE OF SIR EDWAED COOK 
 
 Two conclusions seem at any rate to be well justified : 
 that Mr. Thompson made no sufficient effort to arrive 
 at the real purchaser and that he equally failed to obtain 
 any positive guarantee that the policy of the paper 
 would not be changed. 
 
 The reader may object that Mr. Thompson owned the 
 paper and was therefore free to do as he liked with it. 
 Yet even to-day one may be permitted to make a dis- 
 tinction between the ownership of an established news- 
 paper and the ownership of a house or a motor-car. The 
 newspaper proprietor gathers obligations to a large body 
 of readers, who have grown accustomed to rely on the 
 paper for the expression and defence of certain political 
 principles. He has to consider the interest of a political 
 party, and to sell the paper witlessly of its future destinies 
 is like betraying a powerful and well-equipped fortress 
 to the enemy. Then there is the staff of the paper, a 
 body of men who may have given of their best, perhaps 
 more than they were paid for, to a paper in which they 
 were morally and politically, as well as materially, 
 interested. " The reader ", writes Cook in his Edmund 
 Garrett (p. 67), "can have no knowledge of the amount 
 of labour, zeal and enthusiasm thrown into what we 
 always fondly called ' the old Pall Mall ', or of the 
 hopes, ambitions, ideals which centred in it". News- 
 paper-owning has something of the character of a trust. 
 Mr. Thompson told Cook, as already recorded, that his 
 intended buyer was a rich man " who merely wanted 
 a paper as a man might want a pony ". We are assured 
 that journalism is now a business and not a profession ; 
 but some old-fashioned persons may still doubt whether 
 Mr. Thompson was morally justified in selling to a buyer 
 whose motive and object he knew to be such. 
 
 Mr. Thompson sold the body of the Pall Mall Gazette 
 but not its spirit. The sacred fires were carried away 
 
FROM " PALL MALL " TO " WESTMINSTER " 125 
 
 from the old hearth and fostered in a new home. The 
 Pall Mall staff had shown that there were still some 
 things that could not be priced and paid for, that Rome 
 was not entirely venal ; and the worth of this testimony 
 was generally recognized. At a complimentary' dinner 
 given to Cook and his assistants in London, attended by 
 a large representation of the Press, Metropolitan and pro- 
 vincial, this significance of the event was clearly brought 
 out by Mr. E. R. Russell, Mr. Alfred Miner, then chair- 
 man of the Board of Inland Revenue, and other speakers. 
 Cook alluded without bitterness to his recent experiences : 
 " He did not object to be a humble penny-a-Hner if 
 the hue was straight, but would not consent to be a 
 ' mercenary curvilineator ' ". 
 
 To an interviewer from the Daily Chronicle who 
 put to him the question, " Practically, then, Mr. Cook, 
 the attempt to re-enlist you under Tory colours has failed 
 all round ? " Cook replied : 
 
 Yes, And very satisfactory has it been from the journaHst's 
 point of view to know that we can hang together sufficiently to 
 defeat the notion that we can be sold by a proprietor as if we 
 were the " live stock " of a business, to be disposed of to the 
 highest bidder. At first it was disturbing enough to find the 
 owner of an important paper selling a political organ with no 
 guarantee against its falling into the hands of his opponents. 
 But the action of my colleagues has entirely neutraUzed the blow 
 to the profession. 
 
 It is not surprising to find the Liberal leaders condol- 
 ing with Cook over the loss of this Liberal stronghold. 
 Mr. Gladstone writes from Ha warden Castle, October 16 
 (1892) : 
 
 One word only to say it is with the most sincere regret that I 
 receive both branches of your intimation. 
 
 From the Chief Secretary's Lodge, Phoenix Park, on 
 the same day, comes Mr. Morley's sympathy : 
 
126 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 I have read your letter with lively interest and very painful 
 interest as you may well believe. I regard it, as I have told 
 everybody in our party, as a most disagreeable and damaging 
 blow — all the more so as coming at a most critical time, just 
 when we shall stand in most need of a friend in the press so 
 acute, vigilant and judicious as the " P.M.G." has been in your 
 hands. 
 
 I cannot doubt what the answer will be to your questions, or 
 that a new paper on the lines of the " P.M.G." would certainly 
 receive all the support that is practicable from the Liberal party 
 and its chief men. This is assured, speaking generally. But 
 you must add particulars. I will promptly answer any of these 
 particular questions that you may choose to put to me, and I 
 shall be glad to serve you, at this vexatious moment, by any 
 means in my power. 
 
 Lord Rosebery writes from the Durdans, Epsom, 
 on October 21 : 
 
 It is indeed difficult to say what I feel in the loss of the Pall 
 Mall, for loss I fear it must be counted. Just before I received 
 your note I took up the evening's issue and said with a groan, 
 " Cook's last number ". 
 
 And the next day, with an invitation to dinner : 
 
 It is not very easy to express in words what I feel about the 
 disestablishment of the " P.M.G." ; but it is a great loss and 
 blank. 
 
 Mr. Haldane, Mr. Bryce, Lord Aberdeen write in terms 
 equally solicitous. 
 
 But in the meantime wonderful things were happen- 
 ing. The little company of sufferers for conscience' 
 sake had scarcely advanced a day's march into the 
 wilderness when they were recalled. Mr. George Newnes, 
 who had joined hands with an editor of the " P.M.G." 
 three years before, now approached another at a more 
 poignant crisis. He wrote to Cook on October 8 : 
 
FROM " PALL MALL " TO " WESTMINSTER " 127 
 
 I have heard that the " P.M.G." is to become a Unionist 
 organ. If so, would you be disposed to enter into an arrangement 
 to start another penny evening on the old lines of the " P.M.G." ? 
 A scheme of this kind has been running through my head, and I 
 think would find favour with some of the leading men in the party. 
 
 I should like to talk it over with you. Could you see me at 
 my offices in Southampton Row on Tuesday afternoon, or suggest 
 some other appointment ? 
 
 The meeting took place and a single interview sufficed 
 for a settlement. Cook's terms must have been antici- 
 pated by Mr. Newnes. The editor was to have " full 
 discretion as to the political policy of the paper and 
 general control over the contents of the sheet on the 
 understanding that the new paper will be conducted on 
 the same general lines as those of the ' P.M.G.' during 
 my editorship thereof ". In view of what had happened 
 on the " P.M.G.", " before any offer for the purchase of 
 the paper be accepted, the purchase to be open to me 
 (Cook), during the editorship, for 14 days on the same 
 terms ". And " the engagement to be for 3 years, but 
 after the first year with option on my part to terminate 
 the agreement at 3 months' notice ". Mr. Newnes, 
 Cook tells us, accepted these terms without delay, 
 except that he said " You could turn it into a Tory 
 organ ". " That was governed ", Cook replied, " by 
 ' on the understanding ' ". He didn't want to be a 
 " mere ' D.N.' ", he explained, for " independent support 
 was really the best support ". 
 
 Thus the soul of the old Pall Mall was re-embodied, 
 and a happy comradeship renewed under another name 
 and in a new abode, but otherwise in an atmosphere 
 scarcely distinguishable from the old. Such was the 
 first chapter in the genesis of the Westminster Gazette, 
 a paper which was to replace, and more than replace, 
 the old Pall Mall as a Liberal organ. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE " WESTMINSTER GAZETTE " 
 
 A Preaching Friar settles himself in every village ; and builds a pulpit 
 which he calls a newspaper. Therefrom he preaches what most momentous 
 doctrine is in him, for man's salvation. . . . Look well thou seest every- 
 where a new Clergy of the Mendicant Orders, some bare-footed, some almost 
 bare-backed, fashion itself into shape, and teach and preach, zealously 
 enough, for copper alms and the love of God. — Carlyle. 
 
 During the Pythagorean process of migration from 
 Pall Mall to Westminster, and during his editorship of 
 the latter, Cook was much in political society. He was 
 an inimitable reporter and he faithfully recorded what 
 he heard and saw in his own private daily chronicle. On 
 October 14 (1892) he writes a vivid little note on a 
 luncheon at the " Metropole " with the Carnegies. Lord 
 Tennyson's death had left the poetic laurel vacant, and 
 there was a good deal of competition among minor 
 British bards for the succession. Mr. Swinburne, the 
 greatest living poet and the obvious successor, was for 
 political reasons hors concurrence. Cook writes : 
 
 Sir Edwin Arnold promptly turned the conversation on his 
 chances as Poet Laureate, and ran down Lewis Morris. Talked, 
 to the delight of the American women, about " we poets ". 
 " You abuse us and maltreat us in our lives, and only give us the 
 laurels when we are dead. But we do not complain, for you are 
 right. It is so high a calling and those who venture to climb the 
 sacred Hill of Parnassus must expect to be wounded on the 
 way ". Enlarged on his motto never to say anything against 
 anybody. " Yes ", said Carnegie, " and that's why you say 
 
 12S 
 
THE " WESTMINSTER GAZETTE " 129 
 
 nothing worth saying ". And he told the story of the Scotsman 
 who recounted his successes in life to his son. " And how, my 
 lad, do you suppose I did it ? " " By your abilities ". " Don't 
 be a fool, lad. I got on by bowing. I've never been able to 
 remain covered in the presence of powers that be ". 
 
 At this time Mr. Gladstone had just formed his 
 fourth Administration at the age of 83, Lord Rosebery 
 being again Foreign Secretary. Cook gives us some vivid 
 glimpses of the statesman's marvellous versatility and 
 vigour in these latest days of his political life. 
 
 Dined with Rosebery at 38 Berkeley Square — G.O.M., Lord 
 Acton, French Ambassador, Lord Cromer and other guests. 
 G.O.M. looked very fit, very full of his Oxford lectures and 
 bookish points generally. He shook hands with me, and was so 
 sorry I was en disponibilite. He talked during dinner of Oxford 
 and Cambridge, the High and the Backs ; said Ruskin had in 
 conversation with him abused King's Chapel ; of Monk's Life of 
 Bentley, which he said was one of the best of books, and the public 
 didn't know it — you can obtain it quite cheap. He remembered 
 when Macaulay's History came out ; he read it at the same time 
 and turned from one to the other book on equal terms. 
 
 Discussed the question who was the greatest English political 
 writer, deciding for Burke. It was curious that Burke, who on 
 America and Ireland was almost infallibly right, was so wrong 
 about France. Yet Lecky in a footnote — and then he and Lord 
 Acton bandied about dates and footnotes. Talked of the Lans- 
 downes, Northumberlands, Jerseys, of political salons, Whigs, etc. 
 
 Rosebery asked him if he had any announcement, premature 
 or otherwise, to make about the Poet Laureate. He said the 
 best thing would be to let it lie in abeyance. Rosebery said, 
 " But if so, our successors will appoint Alfred Austin ". " You 
 seem needlessly anxious ", said Gladstone, laughing, " to instal 
 our successors ". 
 
 " The last time I saw Tennyson ", he said, " was just after 
 Browning's funeral. ' I've no doubt he's a great genius ', said 
 Tennyson, and then rousing his voice, ' but I can't read him ' ". 
 
 Baring sat next to Gladstone, and seemed to have on his face 
 all the time an expression of " Why go on about books and 
 
 K 
 
130 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 libraries and Latin coinages and Irvingites when you have the 
 affairs of Egypt on your shoulders ? " 
 
 After dinner Waddington took G.O.M. to a sofa, and we 
 heard him talking about Shan States. Before dinner G.O.M. 
 punctiliously waited for the noble lords to go in first, and insisted 
 on Baring and Acton preceding him. 
 
 As others were going (10.30), Rosebery whispered to me to 
 stay, and we smoked and talked in his study (with piles of 
 despatch boxes) for an hour. I asked him if he found the work 
 very hard. " Very incessant ", he said ; " always a pile of those 
 boxes, but not bo bad as in 1886, as I know my way about now ". 
 Did he have to report to Mr. G., or did he care nothing about 
 it ? More than in 1886, and now that his confounded Universi- 
 ties were done with, he had some faint hope that he would take 
 some interest in the affairs of the nation ; but he had been keen 
 about Uganda. 
 
 Rosebery didn't believe there was anybody in the country 
 under sixty who was a Cobdenite. " Harcourt ? " " He's over 
 sixty ". " Morley ? " " He's Cobden's biographer ". I asked if 
 he counted Morley as a hostile force. " He's sincerely opposed 
 to me on foreign policy, but he would never thwart me ; he's 
 about my closest political friend ". 
 
 We talked about the " P.M.G. ", new and old, he pro- 
 pounding exactly what I hold as to the value of independent 
 support. 
 
 Re G.O.M.'s absorption. Rosebery said to him at dinner, 
 " What news do you hear of Dean Liddell 1 " " The very best, 
 and I've been corresponding with him about my Latin neologism 
 of ' obtenebratio ' ", which he proceeded to turn to Lord Cromer 
 and discuss. 
 
 A few days later Cook met Gladstone again at Mr. 
 George Russell's and sat once more next to Lord Acton. 
 The G.O.M. on this occasion talked chiefly about church 
 hymns and organs. 
 
 Russell, who has a wonderful memory, recited a very fine 
 poem by Faber on "The Old Labourer". G.O.M. said that 
 curiously he had written nothing else so good, his expressly 
 devotional hymns being far inferior. The finest hymn he knew 
 
THE " WESTMINSTER GAZETTE " 131 
 
 was Scott's " Dies Irae ".^ Roundell Palmer left it out of his 
 collection, and Gladstone remonstrated. R. P. defended himself 
 on the ground that it was a translation, which, said Gladstone, 
 was absurd — both started from the same point, but that was 
 all. 
 
 Gladstone had read Watson's poem on Tennyson, a magnifi- 
 cent and noble poem. Had also read Watson's other poems, but 
 he ought to discard his early efforts as unworthy, as Tennyson 
 did. And that reminded him of an interesting reminiscence. He 
 enjoyed the honour of Wordsworth's friendship, and W. used to 
 dine with him sometimes at the Albany, and he distinctly 
 remembered W. disparaging Tennyson. But he left the Albany 
 in 1837 ; therefore Wordsworth can only have known Tennyson's 
 earliest poems, most of which he afterwards discarded as un- 
 worthy of him. 
 
 The thing Gladstone was proudest of in his country was its 
 wealth of poetry — still splendid fruitage from a tree 500 years old. 
 
 Re " Rock of Ages ", he had gone through all Toplady's, but 
 had only found four other good lines, which he recited very finely 
 (about fearing to live and die : 211 in Palgrave's Sacred Treasury). 
 He had preserved a newspaper cutting about local enquiries by a 
 Topladyite, eliciting only that T. used to walk about in the woods 
 at night singing. Charles Wesley very much overrated, and he 
 wrote more than Homer — 7000 hymns of, say, thirty lines — " Do 
 the sum, gentlemen, and be appalled ". 
 
 G. talked to me before dinner about " P.M.G." Was very 
 glad to hear my staff was coming over. " I have not troubled 
 much ", he said, " to look at the ' P.M.G.' lately ". 
 
 G.O.M. talked of newspaper vulgarisms — "lengthened", 
 " transpired ", etc. — how John Bright was a great guardian of 
 English (also absurdly appreciative of Whittier, whereupon 
 Russell recited " Barbara F. (Frietchie) ", G.O.M. listening with 
 head down and very sweet expression — " very fine ", " very 
 fine ") and John Morley now. 
 
 G.O.M. went off alone, as before, early, not saying good-bye to 
 
 ^ Lay of the Last Minstrel, canto vi. No reference is made here to Newman's 
 hymn, " Praise to the HoHest ", which was a great favourite with Gladstone. 
 At the time of the Dulcigno demonstration in the autumn of 1880 he wrote to 
 Mrs. Gladstone : " Dearest Catherine, ' Praise to the Holiest ', etc. : the Sultan 
 has surrendered ", 
 
132 LIFE OF Sm EDWAED COOK 
 
 Acton. He always gives his friends the slip thus — even his sons, 
 said Acton — so as to walk home alone. 
 
 Cook's visits to Lord Rosebery now become frequent 
 and contribute largely to the Diary. The noble lord 
 seemed to rely increasingly on his friend's judgment. 
 He told Newnes, who was " hugely pleased ", that Cook 
 was " the only person connected with the Press who had 
 his confidence ". The Diary affords a vivid portrait of 
 this wayward, brilliant and magnetic personality. 
 
 Mr. (afterwards Lord) Bryce also appears frequently 
 on the scene. He gave Cook much advice about the 
 coming new journal. He agreed that independent 
 support, the sort which the Pall Mall had constantly 
 supplied, was the best. But, he said, " it is only human 
 nature to say anybody can support us when right : we 
 want somebody to do so when wrong ". Cook reminded 
 Mr. Bryce of Lord Salisbury's remark to a Conservative 
 editor : " I'll do anything I can for you, if only you won't 
 support us ". No one could ever accuse Cook, however 
 great his respect for party institutions, of an excessive 
 and obsequious partnership. He always reserved a 
 right of private and independent judgment. 
 
 The first number of the new paper was to appear on 
 the opening day of the new Parliament, January 31, 
 1893. A new daily requires a vast amount of organiza- 
 tion. The time was short, but Newnes and Cook in 
 collaboration were " a perfect strength ". The form 
 or ground-plan of the paper had been already deter- 
 mined. The new journal was to be modelled exactly 
 on the Pall Mall, just as the Pall Mall was modelled 
 roughly on the old Anti-Jacobin. But an early and 
 very important question was that of a title. An object 
 becomes in time so identified with its name and the 
 name becomes so steeped in the attributes of the object 
 that the two seem to have been inevitably associated. 
 
THE " WESTMINSTER GAZETTE " 133 
 
 We can scarcely imagine the Westminster Gazette bearing 
 any other name. Yet it might well have borne any one 
 of a score of others. Cook's friends were prolific of 
 suggestion. It is not recorded who first suggested 
 Westminster Gazette. It was the earliest idea to which 
 a return was made after the rejection of many others. 
 Lord Rosebery suggested The Thames, which was voted 
 " too muddy ". I think it was George Meredith who 
 proposed the P.M. with its double significance, temporal 
 and political. A very strong claimant was The Strand, 
 but Mr. Newnes had already annexed this for a popular 
 magazine. Among other suggestions were The Torch, 
 The New Gazette, The Clock, The Argus, The Beacofi, 
 The Pilot, The Tribune, The Forum, The Night Mail, 
 The St. PauVs Gazette, The Patriot, The Moment, The 
 Messenger, The Charing Cross Gazette, The Sun — the 
 list is almost interminable. 
 
 Westminster Gazette was certainly a happy christening. 
 As Mr. Reginald Brett (afterwards Lord Esher) wrote 
 to Cook, it was " soHd, respectable, unflippant, easy 
 to say, commonplace, bourgeois, in short, everything 
 it ought to be ". So this problem was happily settled. 
 But whence and wherefore the greenness of the 
 Westminster ? Many scientific reasons were given for 
 clothing the paper in " the tint of the fields, the trees and 
 the billiard- table ", as the first issue of the paper ex- 
 pressed it. One oculist had said that green was the most 
 restful to the eye, and a spectacle -maker thought that 
 the change would take away a large part of his business. 
 All this may have been true, but the " green thought " 
 was not originally due to any such technical considera- 
 tions. Mr. George Newnes wished to give the newcomer 
 a striking debut, and to differentiate it from the two 
 other evening gazettes then in the field. So he decided 
 to print on green paper, and the scientific case for the 
 
134 LIFE OF Sm EDWARD COOK 
 
 decision was secondary and subsequent. The readers' 
 opinions were amusingly various. Sir Algernon West 
 wrote from Downing Street : "I fear I cannot say that 
 Mr. Gladstone likes your green colour — he says what he 
 suffers from in reading is want of light, and the violent 
 contrast between black and white suits him best ". 
 Mr. George Bernard Shaw, who writes Cook a voluminous 
 letter, tells him : "In good light your colour is first- 
 rate. In a railway carriage in the evening it would make 
 the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes publicly damn his eyes ". 
 But other verdicts were quite the reverse, and the 
 Westminster retained a colour which at first exercised 
 London and other wits, but, one must allow, to no very 
 high flights of humour. Some one dubbed it " the sea- 
 green incorruptible ", and Mr, (afterwards Sir) Herbert 
 Warren wrote from Magdalen College, Oxford, that he 
 flattered himself he guessed the real reason for the colour 
 of the paper : " Because you wished its political hue 
 to be complementary to the Reds ". 
 
 The Westminster Gazette only appeared on January 
 31, though it had to be printed on the machines of the 
 Daily Chronicle, and the familiar bmlding in Tudor 
 Street was hardly as yet above ground. The first number 
 bears unquestionable traces of the difficulty of pro- 
 duction. Mr. Harry Cust, then editor of the Pall Mall 
 Gazette, writes to Cook on February 1 : "I congratulate 
 you very sincerely on your to-day's issue. Yesterday 
 I was relieved : not so this afternoon ". Yet Number 
 One contained much that was interesting. In the 
 leadiQg article, " New and Old ", Cook deals with the 
 ethical question which had been so much debated on 
 the sale of the Pall Mall : 
 
 From one point of view the purchase of a newspaper is no 
 more of public importance or concern than the purchase of any 
 other form of private property. Legally, a newspaper pro- 
 
THE " WESTMINSTER GAZETTE " 135 
 
 prietor has as much right to part with his paper as another man 
 to sell his stud, and the outside public has no better warrant to 
 pass judgment on the buying and selling in one transaction than 
 in the other. But, morally, there is a wide and obvious dijSer- 
 ence. The very phrase, " the public Press ", suggests the nature 
 of it. For good or evil, the Press is every day gaining greater 
 power. Every day it claims to speak with higher authority ; 
 every day it finds, or reflects, the thoughts of a wider public. 
 Such influence would be in the highest degree dangerous, such 
 claims in the highest degree absurd, unless the power of the Press 
 got in the minds alike of writer and proprietors a strong sense of 
 public responsibility, a firm recognition of public duty. How 
 ridiculous, for instance, becomes the assumption of the editorial 
 *' we ", when a journal which for years has been advocating one 
 policy begins some fine day — without any word of explanation or 
 hint of substituted personality — to advocate the opposite ; and 
 when this stultification takes place, not as the result of any 
 change of opinion, but as the journalistic equivalent for a transfer 
 of gold. The evils of a venal Press are not limited to the grosser 
 abuses revealed in the Panama scandals. The dignity of journal- 
 ism as a profession, the seriousness of journalism as an influence, 
 would no less be impaired if the transfer of a paper could avail 
 either to convert hireling pens or to snufi out a public organ. It 
 is for this reason that we venture to claim for the reappearance 
 of the old Pall Mall Gazette, under the title of the Westminster 
 Gazette, the sympathy of all who are disposed to take journalism 
 seriously. Those within the profession needed no fresh assur- 
 ance : but to some others the first number of the Westminster 
 Gazette will come as a useful demonstration of the fact that a 
 newspaper, if it may be sold, cannot be bought ; and that though 
 a pohtical organ may be silenced for a while, there is enough 
 public spirit to ensure for it a speedy reincarnation. 
 
 The editor then proceeds to lay down the general 
 lines of future policy : 
 
 We stand where we stood before, having changed our abode, 
 not our minds ; and begin again where we left ofE — with quite 
 curious exactness, as the fortunes of politics and the virtues of 
 Her Majesty's Ministers have ordained. The Pall Mall Gazette 
 
136 LIFE OF SIR EDWAED COOK 
 
 was one of the earliest advocates of Home Rule ; it was a Home 
 Ruler, indeed, even before Mr. Chamberlain. But the Home 
 Rule for which, until last October, it never ceased to plead, was 
 Home Rule on non-separatist lines. And the first duty of the 
 Westminster Gazette will be, we do not doubt, to support a Home 
 Rule Bill in which the unity of the Kingdom and the sovereignty 
 of Parliament are preserved by the retention of the Irish members. 
 Home Rule for Ireland, we have always urged, should be regarded 
 from the point of view of a possible Federation of the Empire. 
 The maintenance of closer union of the Empire should in its turn 
 be the governing idea in our foreign policy — a policy for which 
 common ground has now been found between the renunciation of 
 Jingoism by Lord Salisbury and of Little Englandism by the 
 Liberals. The continuity of foreign policy, advocated for many 
 years in the Pall Mall Gazette, has thus become possible ; and 
 here in the Westminster we are not too late to congratulate Lord 
 Rosebery on the signal proof he has afforded that the change of 
 Government at home means no weakening of England's policy 
 abroad. The retention of free markets and the provision of 
 future breathing-spaces, which are now among the first essentials 
 of England's Foreign Policy, stand in vital relation to " the con- 
 dition of England question " at home. It was a saying of Cavour 
 that " in whatever country, or in whatever social condition thou 
 art placed, it is with the oppressed that thou should'st live " ; and 
 to the like effect Mr. Morley " has counted that day iU-spent in 
 which some thought had not been given to the problem of the 
 poor ". The Westminster Gazette will not forget the aphorism of 
 the old editor of the Pall Mall. But indeed the claims of Labour 
 are now so loudly vocal that every man must listen, whether he 
 will or no ; and the temptation against which a political editor 
 has now to contend in relation to the working classes is not so 
 much to turn a deaf ear as to play the demagogue to them. 
 
 Finally the reader is assured that the support of the 
 Westminster Gazette accorded to the new Government 
 will be independent ; "for no other kind of support is 
 possible to an honest man, or acceptable to a wise one ". 
 
 This characteristic article, read with interest and 
 profit by many who took home the first Westminster 
 
THE " WESTMINSTER GAZETTE " 137 
 
 Gazette on the evening of January 31, was followed in the 
 same issue by a series of " welcomes " from political 
 leaders. Mr. Gladstone's contribution runs : 
 
 Both on general grounds and from my lively recollection of 
 you as editor of the " P.M.G.", I have truly desired to meet your 
 wishes for some sort of literary or political contribution. But I 
 have thought and thought and consulted the oracle within, which 
 has made no response. From out of the silent cave I am obliged 
 to answer, it is beyond my power. I have nothing but my 
 heartiest good wishes to offer, combining with them the further 
 wish that I had any means of showing how hearty they are. 
 
 I stand upon a ledge which just gives me standing-ground 
 to resist old editors and friends. Were I to give way but once 
 and write, I should have given way in all. 
 
 Others follow from Sir William Harcourt, Sir Henry 
 Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry Fowler. 
 
 The general contents are varied enough. There is 
 a long article on "A Day in the Life of a Cabinet 
 Minister " ; the first instalment of a novel, TJie Dictator , 
 by Mr. J. M'Carthy ; a sketch of Mr. McCarthy, by 
 T. P. O'Connor ; " Reminiscences by a Doorkeeper of 
 the House of Commons ", and a set of very brilliant 
 verses by F. E. Garrett, entitled " Athanasius up to 
 Auction ", and touching satirically through nearly 
 twenty stanzas on the sale of the "P.M.G." Here 
 the two first verses must suffice : 
 
 Come gentlemen ! what offers ? I am authorized to sell 
 
 Without reserve, each stick and stock that can be sold or bought, 
 
 That valuable property which is known as the Pall Mall : 
 Name, fame, and all the fittings of a " Medimn of Thought ". 
 
 The Staff, sir ? No, the Staff, ahem ! together with a few 
 Small matters (you remind me of a detail I forgot) — 
 
 A few small matters of ideas that appertain thereto 
 Is not included in this unexceptionable lot. 
 
 Cook received a good deal of advice from his friends 
 on the conduct of the new paper. He was far too modest 
 
138 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 and free from conceit to treat such suggestions liglitly, 
 but I could never help feeling that in all such matters 
 he was his own wisest counsellor. Sir George Newnes's 
 confidence in Cook was unreserved. " I do hope ", he 
 wrote just before the first number was published, " the 
 great amount of work you have done in the business 
 part has not interfered with your editorial work. As 
 matters may arise on the eve of pubUcation which may 
 require immediate decision, please remember that you 
 have absolute discretion in my absence to do what you 
 think best and I shall approve ". 
 
 I do not know how far Cook was tempted into wilder 
 courses by a paragraph in the afore-mentioned letter 
 from Mr. Bernard Shaw. " Blessed is he ", says a char- 
 acter in Shakespeare, " who heareth his own detraction 
 and putteth himself to amendment ", but it is hard to 
 imagine Cook amending himself on these lines : 
 
 Get rid of the infernal friendly terms you are now on with 
 everybody. Everybody says you are a very nice fellow. They 
 always said that Stead was the damnedest liar, scoimdrel and 
 hypocrite in England. Until at least a thousand men turn white 
 with rage and hatred whenever your name is mentioned, I shall 
 not believe in you a bit as an editor. Who on earth will buy the 
 paper to see what you say about this or that measure when they 
 know beforehand that you won't say anything that could em- 
 barrass the Government or hurt any one's feelings ? You have a 
 tremendous chance. And you are throwing it away because you 
 wish to behave like a gentleman. 
 
 Amidst these converging counsels Cook held his own 
 course. He was not " a sophist who has no wisdom for 
 himself ". He made of the Westminster Gazette the sort 
 of paper he approved. He himself remarks in his Life 
 of Delane that " the best part of the life-work of a con- 
 scientious and indefatigable editor is contained in the 
 files of the paper which he edited ". The files of the 
 
THE "WESTMINSTER GAZETTE" 139 
 
 Westminster for the three years of Cook's rule faithfully 
 reflect the attributes of the editor. One is especially 
 struck with the unchanging ground-plan. The first 
 page contains the leading article and the beginning of the 
 special article. Underneath both at the foot of the page 
 run the paragraphs of " Our London Letter ". On the 
 second page the special article is continued ; then come 
 the characteristic " Notes of the Day ", and generally 
 some correspondence. The rest of the paper is open to 
 more modification, but the general aspect of the sheet 
 shows little or no change from the first to the last number 
 of Cook's regime. The only outward development seems 
 to be Mr. Gould's promotion from the illustration on a 
 small scale of the parliamentary notes to the greater 
 prominence of " the cartoon of the day " which soon 
 became one of the most attractive features of the paper. 
 The Westminster under Cook was free from those 
 shocks and sensations which had marked the old Pall 
 Mall. In its equableness, its statesmanlike tone, the 
 variety of its interests, its impartial devotion to politics, 
 literature and art, its high moral and Hterary standard, 
 the paper was essentially E. T. Cook's. The impression 
 that a paper so tempered must have been dull is quite 
 mistaken. The old Manchester Examiner, which perished 
 before the era of what is known as " the new journalism," 
 was not dull, for it was written by really brilliant persons. 
 A journal on which Cook, J. A. Spender, Garrett and 
 F. C. Gould collaborated was not likely to be too ponder- 
 ous. Stupidity is the really dull thing, and genius 
 will produce what is interesting under whatever forms 
 and conditions it works. It is quite a delusion that the 
 commercial spirit which transformed journalism " from 
 a profession to a business " gave us interesting papers 
 in place of dull ones. It may be doubted on the whole 
 whether London was ever provided with a better, wiser 
 
140 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 and at the same time a more brilliant and attractive paper 
 than was the Westminster Gazette mider Cook's editorship. 
 
 That editorship covered the whole period of the 
 1892-1895 Liberal Government, a triennium which 
 earned a bad eminence as one of the most turbulent 
 and undignified in our parliamentary history. To the 
 second Home Rule Bill, as it did not offend on the subject 
 of Irish representation at Westminster, the Gazette of 
 that ilk was able to give its full support. But that 
 measure was as unsavable as the attempt to raise a 
 popular cry against the House of Lords for destroying 
 it was hopeless. Cook must have known — and he had 
 always a faithful friend. Admiral Maxse, to remind him 
 — that the Liberal party was then compassing its own 
 ruin by a poHcy which in the main only the personal 
 prestige of the Grand Old Man commended even to a 
 minority of the voters. 
 
 Then followed Mr. Gladstone's resignation and the 
 social and political agonies of the successorship. Mr. 
 Gladstone's remark in 1886 at Manchester had been 
 interpreted as promising the reversion of the leader- 
 ship to his brilliant young friend and follower. " Lord 
 Rosebery ", he said, " is the man of whom you will hear 
 even more than you have heard, and in him the Liberal 
 party of this country see the man of the future ". And 
 he went on to say that " he did not speak without 
 reflection, for if he said it lightly he would be doing 
 injustice not less to Lord Rosebery than to them ". 
 Almost certainly no such definite intention was present, 
 and it is probable that Mr. Gladstone in 1894 made no 
 recommendation of Lord Rosebery to the Queen, indeed 
 made no recommendation at all, and was in fact disposed 
 to favour the claims of Lord Spencer or even of Mr. 
 Asquith. 
 
 The one politician, whose claims from some points 
 
THE " WESTMINSTER GAZETTE " 141 
 
 of view might have seemed the strongest, Sir William 
 Harcourt, was scarcely in the running. Hence many 
 tears and the beginnings of that new tabernacular 
 division in the Liberal party which advanced to an 
 acute stage over the Boer War and was at last 
 temporarily healed when the Imperialists of the Liberal 
 League took office in 1906 under Sir Henry Campbell- 
 Bannerman — only to be followed in the course of years 
 by another violent schism between the Coalition and the 
 Independent Liberals. It is always difficult to determine 
 what is the semper eadem of Liberal doctrine, and which 
 section at these times of division is orthodox and which 
 heretical. During this long antagonism between the 
 Imperialists and the Little Englanders both claimed to 
 represent " the main stream of Liberalism '\ There 
 can be no doubt at any rate that Rosebery stood for a 
 spirited and patriotic foreign policy, and for a very 
 sympathetic attitude to our " free, tolerant and un- 
 aggressive Empire ", and as such he had the hearty 
 support of his personal and political friend, the editor 
 of the Westminster Gazette. Probably it was a disadvan- 
 tage that the Prime Minister should sit in the House of 
 Lords. "As, however", wrote the Westminster, "Lord 
 Rosebery has for many years been an advocate for ending, 
 under the guise of mending, it would surely be cruel on 
 the part of any of our Radical incorruptibles to visit this 
 accident of birth upon him ", an accident, we are told, 
 " which probably nobody regrets more heartily than Lord 
 Rosebery himself ". Lord Rosebery inspired confidence 
 in all parties by the " elevated and patriotic strain in his 
 political equipment ". At the same time, it is drily 
 added, " his convictions on the greatness of the Empire 
 and his conceptions for its future consolidation are under 
 no danger of suffering from want of opposition to stimu- 
 late them ". There was a popular and not wholly 
 
142 LIFE OF SIR EDWAKD COOK 
 
 unjustified impression that the Liberal party was in- 
 capable of conducting the foreign affairs of the country. 
 Lord Rosebery's conduct at the Foreign Office in connec- 
 tion with Egypt, Uganda and other regions had tended 
 to correct this impression. " Lord Rosebery ", said the 
 Westminster, " may place Liberalism definitely on a 
 Big England basis and thereby win back many who have 
 been alienated rightly or wrongly by their distrust of 
 Mr. Gladstone's foreign and colonial policy ". One's 
 attention is caught by a clever sketch of this baffling 
 personality : 
 
 A strong Eadical who nevertheless is not unfavourably 
 regarded by the stern unbending Tories ; a Home Ruler who is 
 half trusted by the Unionists ; a socialistic poUtician who is 
 related to the Rothschilds ; a political reformer who commands 
 in equal measure the confidence of the extremists and the 
 moderates ; a man of the world in the widest sense, whose per- 
 sonal friendships include the Heir Apparent to the throne and the 
 leaders of the new democracy — did ever a Prime Minister stand at 
 the outset of his career in so remarkable a position ? 
 
 A story told in Cook's Diaries illustrates the social 
 agonies which follow in the wake of political events. 
 A dinner was given at York House on the day on 
 which Lord Rosebery became Prime Minister. One 
 might have imagined that the unlikeliest guests on that 
 occasion would be Sir William and Lady Harcourt, but 
 there they were with Mr. Gladstone, and by another 
 stroke of ironical, though probably unintentional 
 humour, Lord Rosebery had to take in Lady Harcourt. 
 It is not surprising to hear that she would not speak a 
 word, and that the royal host " often chuckled " at the 
 memory of that dinner. 
 
 Another very disturbing event which fell just within 
 Cook's term at the Westminster was the Jameson Raid. 
 Cook was distinguished among editors, and also among 
 
THE "WESTMINSTER GAZETTE" 143 
 
 Englislimen, for an accurate understanding of South 
 Africa's " tangled politics ". This interest, which was 
 afterwards strengthened and made more intimate by 
 the removal of his two greatest friends, Edmund Garrett 
 and Alfred Milner, to the South African scene, seems 
 to have brought Cook under some suspicion of being 
 identified with what was called vaguely and vitupera- 
 tively the " Rhodesian gang ". Cook's taste for South 
 African poHtics was purely political, tinged perhaps 
 with a certain romantic admiration for Rhodes, Jameson 
 and the others who were " blazing a trail " for British 
 influence in those vast spaces of the sub-continent. 
 
 The writer has heard that the only real difference 
 between Cook and his assistant, Mr. J. A. Spender, 
 arose over these South African questions. Cook was 
 thought to have been too apologetic about the Raid and 
 not quick enough to denounce that relapse into the 
 methods of Drake and the conquistadores. Cook, it is 
 true, insisted on suspending his judgment until he had 
 ascertained the real facts. But his opinion, in the 
 absence of any justification, was unmistakable and 
 expressed in plain and strong language. " If no explana- 
 tion is forthcoming ", said the Westminster of January 6, 
 1896, "it was the action, not merely of an unscrupulous 
 freebooter, but of an utter madman ". " Whatever 
 his motive may have been. Dr. Jameson in the actual 
 result inflicted a most serious blow on British interests 
 in South Africa (to say nothing of its effects on those 
 interests elsewhere). It was calculated to put the clock 
 back and to retard perhaps by years the consummation 
 it was meant to hasten. The union of Dutch and 
 English under a common flag : that is the ultimate 
 goal to which things were being ordered in South 
 Africa ". 
 
 Cook's social engagements became rather crowded 
 
144 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 at this period, and lie has duly recorded in his Diary 
 what he saw and heard in salon and mansion. 
 
 His Diary for March 18 is occupied with a visit to 
 the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Rosebery, 
 at the Durdans, when he again met Mr. Gladstone, who 
 was still Prime Minister : 
 
 Arrived about six (Saturday). Had tea with Rosebery, 
 talked Westminster, Khedive, etc. Then he went ofi to his boxes, 
 leaving me to " browse ". The whole length of the house is 
 library, in compartments, with lounge chairs, etc., and French 
 windows opening on to verandah and garden. Very readable 
 collection of books in all kinds, mostly bound. Noticed that 
 R. makes httle indexes, Hke mine, only at the beginning instead 
 of the end. 
 
 Birrell arrived from town. Dinner at eight, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Gladstone then first appearing, Mrs. Gladstone hurrying after 
 him with shawls and comforters. " Oh, he's very naughty. He 
 would go out to dinner at Ferdinand de RothschUd's, and we 
 had already put off a lunch next day at Sir J. Paget's to meet 
 Virchow and ever so many doctors ". 
 
 Small round table. I sat next to Mr. Gladstone, who was full 
 of Pearson's book,i with which I alone had even a nodding 
 acquaintance through review in Westminster Gazette. Talked of 
 Tennyson and Browning, and told again his story of the last time 
 he saw Tennyson. Birrell said his wife (widow of Lionel Tenny- 
 son) had presentation copies given by Browning to Tennyson, 
 but none of them cut. Birrell said they were keeping them so. 
 
 Rosebery saying something about the " Queen " and " lively ", 
 Gladstone, not quite hearing, said, " What's that, Rosebery ? 
 You found the Queen's table lively ? Then you had a very 
 fortunate experience ". 
 
 Discussed Kimberley, Rosebery saying how loquacious he 
 was and all about h i mself — sort of " Every day, sir, 1 drink so 
 much malt liquor ". Gladstone said, " Well, he has one great 
 gift as Minister — a very rare one — he writes the shortest 
 minutes and memorandums I know, and yet leaves nothing 
 material out ". 
 
 ^ Charles H. Pearson, National Life and Character. 
 
THE "WESTMINSTER GAZETTE" 145 
 
 Curious how Gladstone flashed up whenever Ireland ^ came 
 on. Told an excellent story of an Orangeman who was an 
 evil liver, and in the last ministrations performed the religious 
 exercise of saying " Damn the Pope ". 
 
 Servants came in in the middle of this and Mr. Gladstone 
 turned the subject till they had gone. 
 
 " He wouldn't have said that * damn ' ten years ago ", said 
 Rosebery afterwards. 
 
 In drawing-room after dinner Gladstone went on talking with- 
 out stopping till sent to bed by Mrs. G. at eleven. Told how Lord 
 Brougham had said to Lord Aberdeen, " They say we are the two 
 ugliest men going ", and Aberdeen didn't like it. G. held forth 
 in defence of his saying in first reading speech (criticized in 
 Spectator) that there had been no great Irishmen since the Union, 
 except among Nationalists, or in professions where special training 
 came in, and Trinity College, Dublin. Rosebery stood up to him 
 and argued him down, not quite to his liking. G. maintained you 
 can't take nationality out of a man without impoverishing him. 
 
 After eleven, Rosebery, Birrell, and I sat up for an hour 
 smoking. Going upstairs later we stopped at sporting pictures, 
 which line the rooms, stairs, etc. Said he had begun collecting 
 when he was keen on the turf, and then felt it a point of honour 
 to make his collection complete. But was now afraid lest his 
 boys should get love of turf, which was the last thing in the 
 world he wanted. 
 
 Breakfast next morning. I sat next to G.O.M. Talked 
 about Pearson's book. Stead, and Balfour and bimetallism. 
 Went to church, Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone in brougham. Birrell 
 had walked on with Munro-Ferguson, who came down for break- 
 fast. G.O.M. knelt right down and listened with hand to ear all 
 through. Parson gave out notice about petition against Welsh 
 Church Suspension Bill,^ " Lucky it wasn't Sunday before ", 
 said R., "as the sermon was a scorcher ". R. and G. walked on 
 ahead. After church walked home, giving Mrs. Gladstone 
 my arm. Accosted (in pseudo-character of Herbert Gladstone) 
 by a young fellow who wanted to know if Mr. Gladstone would 
 
 ^ The second Home Rule Bill was defeated in the Lords in September of 
 this year (1893). 
 
 * This had been introduced into Parliament by Mr. Asquith. 
 
 L 
 
146 LIFE OF Sm EDWARD COOK 
 
 shake his wife's hand, as she was the grand-daughter of E. Miall.^ 
 I repeated this to Mrs. Gladstone, who said, " No : so many 
 grand-daughters ". I said how well Mr. G. seemed. She said 
 his cold hadn't been much, but she was always glad of an excuse 
 for keeping him quiet. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. G. went upstairs. Rosebery reappeared in 
 riding breeches, and said to Birrell and me that he would as soon 
 we did not tell Mr. G. what he was up to. I strolled about in 
 the grounds with Campbell-Bannerman, who had come down 
 in the morning. Talked about the House of Commons. (R. 
 said of C.-B. he might almost do anything if he had ambition 
 to, but apparently he hadn't.) 
 
 At lunch G.O.M. talked a lot about economy and Joseph 
 Hume. C.-B. told stories of the extravagance of the Irish Govern- 
 ment — each successive Irish Secretary left fresh greenhouses. 
 Whoever was there in fruit season got it. He went on to same 
 effect about Lords of the Admiralty, even Spencer ^ enjoying a 
 Mediterranean trip at the country's expense. 
 
 After lunch R., C.-B., Birrell, Munro-Ferguson, Waterfield,^ 
 and I walked round the course. R. said he had had to buy ground 
 opposite the paddock for fear of their making a new one there 
 and so his losing rent for present one. 
 
 A few days later Cook dines with Gladstone at 
 Downing Street with Lady Frederick Cavendish and 
 others. 
 
 " The dining-room ", he notes, " adjoins the drawing-room 
 with a room adjoining that, out of which G.O.M. came. Pretty to 
 see him, Mrs. G. and Helen G. whispering and fussing about as 
 to who was to sit where. Mrs. G. talked to me about our visit 
 to Rosebery, said she was determined Home Rule majority should 
 be 36, and ' we are resolved to make every sacrifice to get it 
 through this session '. 
 
 " G.O.M. talked away incessantly about 'bus horses. He had 
 studied them carefully for years — convinced their lot was not a 
 bad one. Tram horses very difierent. 
 
 " Pearson's book again — ' a book every one should read who 
 
 ^ A well-known political Nonconformist. 
 
 * First Lord of the Admiralty. 
 
 ^ Lord Rosebery's private secretary. 
 
THE '' WESTMINSTER GAZETTE " 147 
 
 was concerned or interested in public affairs '. ' But very pessi- 
 mistic, isn't it ? ' said Carvell Williams. * ' No, I shouldn't say- 
 that. I think, don't you, Mr. Cook, that our friend Pearson 
 opens out his questions very fairly ? ' The book would only 
 disappoint the very sanguine believers in progress, but I have 
 never been one of them, never ' ". 
 
 Cook's Diary in these years is crowded with precis 
 of conversations at political symposia. The entry for 
 April 19 reads : 
 
 Dined at House of Commons with Curzon. Sat between 
 Balfour and Birrell. Also Cust, Iwan-Muller,^ A. Hardinge 
 and Asquith. Nearly all " Arthured " and " Georged " and 
 " Harry ed ". Birrell led conversation to eighteenth and nine- 
 teenth centuries on which Balfour cordially agreed. Balfour 
 very fascinating manners. Talked about Randy,' everybody 
 having had a row with him. Balfour said he was the best con- 
 versationalist he knew, better even than Rosebery, not so forced. 
 Said W. E. G. and Chamberlain easily best speakers in the House 
 of Commons — all lawyers bad speakers. 
 
 Cook's advice on political principle and policy was 
 becoming more and more highly appreciated. He was 
 continually consulted by Lord Rosebery. " I had the 
 greatest respect and friendship for your brother ", wrote 
 his lordship in 1920 to Mr. A. M. Cook. " He had the 
 best political judgment that I can remember. He was 
 indeed singularly gifted and a delightful friend ". On 
 one occasion in June 1895 Cook had failed to call on Lord 
 Rosebery and received a telegram. " You didn't come ", 
 said Lord Rosebery on his arrival ; "it was like missing 
 the morning sun ". 
 
 The last time Cook met Mr. Gladstone was in 
 December 1895 when the aged statesman (he was now 
 
 ^ A strong political dissenter. 
 
 * E. B. Iwan-Miiller of the Pall Mall Gazette, author of Lord Milner and 
 South Africa and other brilliant political works. 
 ^ Lord Randolph Churchill. 
 
148 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 eighty-six) had retired from active political life. Cook 
 was invited to Hawarden Castle, the scene of so many 
 pilgrimages from the neighbouring centres of popula- 
 tion. He writes : 
 
 Got to Sandycroft about six and drove in a trap ordered from 
 Glynne Arms to the Castle. Was received in the drawing-room 
 by Helen, Henry and Mrs. Gladstone. Then after a few minutes 
 was taken into Mr. G.'s library. He was lying up in a corner on a 
 sofa reading with a candle lamp on the table Hogg's De Quincey 
 and his Friends. Henry G. sat through the conversation, saying 
 to me afterwards he had seized the opportunity to hear his father 
 talk and hoped he hadn't got off the subject of Armenia too soon. 
 We talked for about one hour and a quarter, it being time at the 
 end to dress for dinner, Mr. G. saying, " Will you please remember 
 that we mustn't resume any of these topics at dinner. We must 
 only talk about the weather or your work. I suppose you have 
 a large staff, but there we will leave that ". 
 
 Cook has preserved the gist of this hour and a 
 quarter's conversation which turned mainly on the 
 then burning questions of Venezuela and Armenia. 
 Gladstone did a little thinking aloud about the Prime 
 Minister, Lord Salisbury : 
 
 He is a man of very great powers, very remarkable parts, but, 
 as I think you said in your paper, he was a Saturday Reviewer, 
 and what a training for a politician ! ^ Lord Salisbury's writing 
 was, however, entirely honourable to him — it was to support his 
 family, for his father behaved very badly to him. A man of 
 great parts, but his tongue is not under control : it runs away 
 with him. 
 
 I talked of Salisbury's unique position. This launched him 
 on to the inadvisability of the Prime Minister being Foreign 
 Secretary — " one of the many constitutional changes which the 
 so-called constitutional party have made and one of the worst. 
 All Foreign Secretaries, Clarendon, etc., consulted with the Prime 
 Minister, which, when they (Ministers) are all in town (as of 
 
 ^ This recalls a summary of the whole duty of man once current in Lanca- 
 shire in those days — " Fear God and hate the Saturday Review ". 
 
THE '' WESTMINSTER GAZETTE " 149 
 
 course they ought to be except in very easy times) is a very valu- 
 able thing — securing two opinions. Every Cabinet Minister agaia, 
 except a few who are under the Treasury, has the right of bringing 
 matters before the Cabinet, and not the least important thing in a 
 discreet Minister is to know what matters thus to bring. But 
 the P.M. also has the right of bringing any matter. All these 
 checks are gone. And again I regard the Court as a most valu- 
 able check in foreign policy, but with a Court which has removed 
 from London to Windsor, from Windsor to Osborne, from Osborne 
 to Balmoral, from Balmoral to Europe, you can guess what has 
 become of that ". He said the Foreign Secretary used to see the 
 P.M. every day — very valuable, because Cabuiet consultation 
 was not easy when there were twelve and altogether impossible 
 when there were twenty. 
 
 I said I supposed there never was such a Dictator as Salisbury. 
 " And at one time," said the G.O.M. with a chuckle, " he used to 
 inveigh against the dictatorship of another Minister. 
 
 " Lord Beaconsfield's influence on Lord Salisbury was bad 
 and he conquered him entirely, after, what was more, the greatest 
 insults ever levelled at a colleague — ' the master of flouts and 
 jeers and — I forget what was the third ' ".^ 
 
 At dinner Gladstone talked a good deal about London in old 
 times. He remembered when Atkinson's shop in Bond Street 
 was a studio, beheved it used to be Sir T. Lawrence's. Growth 
 of 'buses — when they were at Dollis Hill he used to amuse himself 
 with counting 'buses that passed. The nimaber increased from 
 sixty to eighty. " Yes ", chimed in Mrs. Gladstone to me, " it 
 used to be quite a game with us to count the 'buses ". London 
 Hotels — enormous growth, much show and splendour, but no 
 comfort — the comfortable English family hotel gone. 
 
 Asked a lot about my work. Did I walk to my office ? 
 " Yes, reading The Times ". " And what oculist do you mean 
 to employ ? " About the green Westminster — green certainly 
 better than piak, which is very bad. Piok telegrams ought to 
 be stopped. Telegram writing, meant to be specially legible, 
 was not. The secret of clear writing was white space between. 
 
 Manager came at dinner from Pulitzer, whom they call Pilsener, 
 
 ^ " Gibes ". Disraeli also told Lord Cranborne that his invective lacked 
 " finish ". 
 
150 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 asking for message to American people. Unlimited reply pre- 
 paid, G.O.M. said he had already sent same message twice, 
 viz. " Dare not interfere — only common-sense needed ". 
 
 He (Gladstone) ate a good plain dinner, with a rice pudding 
 of his own ; two glasses of claret and two of port wine. Asked 
 if I took sherry : " We are not sherry drinkers — take fire and 
 water and that is sherry." Often he sat rather silent ; his 
 hearing is bad, and sight, except for reading, has to be screwed up. 
 
 When the ladies went, he sat next to me and talked inter alia 
 about Stead — " a most extraordinary man, but so vain. A 
 friend of his went to see him in gaol. He said, ' There's only one 
 man in England able to take decisions and with initiative, and 
 that is the occupant of this cell ' ". I talked of Stead's spooks. 
 He said he had come across most things in his life, but the spirit- 
 ists were one of the few sets of people he had never had much to 
 do with. He objected to their title " spiritualists ". That ought 
 to be a sacred word : he always called them " spiritists ". Re- 
 verting to Stead, I said he was a splendid fellow to work with 
 and a very clever political writer. Didn't he think so ? " Clever 
 — ^yes, as clever as the devil. A very nasty customer to deal with 
 is Stead. I remember a colleague saying, I think during the 1880 
 Government, ' No need to look at the Opposition papers : all our 
 own are in opposition ' . Stead was a very decent fellow indeed 
 when he had his little paper in the North, but London turned his 
 head ". 
 
 I told the story of the Tennyson script (spook-writing) and 
 Brett's remark to Stead : " It's curious that Tennyson who 
 would not communicate with you when alive, at once selected 
 you as his medium when he was dead ". He was much amused 
 and chuckled : " Lord Tennyson showed a most wise discretion 
 in postponing the acquaintance to the other world ". He said 
 about spooks that he had never gone into the subject, but that 
 the denial a priori and refusal to examine seemed to him very 
 imscientific. 
 
 After dinner he played backgammon in the drawing-room 
 with Miss Phillimore, one or other daughter and son looking on — 
 he rather arch, they cracking family jokes (" Sometimes," said 
 Henry G. afterwards, " he will go on telling stories by the yard, but 
 this evening he wouldn't draw ") — a very pretty scene. I talked 
 
THE "WESTMINSTER GAZETTE" 151 
 
 to Mrs. H. Gladstone, Mrs. Drew and Mrs. Gladstone. The last 
 talked about Parnell — " so taking but so wicked " — and Rose- 
 bery, and showed me the first portrait of her husband — " isn't it 
 a big head ? " She was knitting without glasses, but for the last 
 half hour was made to lie down on the sofa — " see how badly 
 they treat me ", she said to me. 
 
 When the ladies went G.O.M. stayed up talking with me a 
 little longer — " for I don't appear early in the morning now ", he 
 said. I asked if he had seen any of the Irish lately. " Oh no, 
 I see nobody here political at all ". I made some remark about 
 it's being hard to help those who won't help themselves. " Ah ", 
 he said, " it's much worse than that. They hinder. I have 
 always believed that the wretched Parnell business made the 
 difference between a majority of 40 and 70 or 80, and 
 that made all the difference ". I talked of Mr. Chamberlain's 
 colonial schemes. He smiled contemptuously and said, " Most 
 mischievous. The last of that business went with the prefer- 
 ential wine duties — most wasteful and demoralizing ". 
 
 About his Butler he said he had only one more batch of proofs 
 to pass. The thing he attached most value to was splitting him 
 up into short paragraphs with marginal summaries for facility of 
 reference. He had corrected all the proofs himself and the 
 Oxford printer had been down to see him : they were printing 
 it beautifully. 
 
 When we left G.O.M. Henry G. and Drew took me to a little 
 den where we smoked and whiskied. This, H. G. said, was a 
 comparatively recent concession, as Mr. G. hated smoking. I 
 asked him if he knew how " P.M.G." got hold of G.'s resignation. 
 He said, " Not a bit — probably from some open door and through 
 Mr. G.'s deafness ". The butler whom they had at the time had 
 to be dismissed for other reasons afterwards. He said Mr. G.'s 
 letters and papers were all in the most perfect order, including 
 500 letters from the Queen. Twenty-five from Tennyson were 
 looked out the other day. 
 
 At breakfast (nine o'clock) Mrs. Drew opened all his letters, 
 putting about half in the waste-paper basket — requests for auto- 
 graphs, for details about his biography, for opinions on every- 
 thing. Afterwards Mr. and Mrs. H. G. took me through the 
 Park to St. Deiniol's — very prettily undulating park with splendid 
 
152 LIFE OF Sm EDWAED COOK 
 
 trees. One great beech was pointed out to me as much admired 
 by Ruskin. Drew took me over library and hostel. Every 
 corner of space in library very cleverly utilized, all measured and 
 planned by Mr. Gladstone himself, who also framed all the 
 divisions and sub-divisions and placed most of the books on step- 
 ladders himself. 
 
 On return read papers. G. reads Westminster Gazette and 
 Manchester Guardian himself in morning and only sees London 
 morning papers, or has extracts, over tea in the afternoon. Left 
 about twelve. Wrote my name in visitors' book. Parnell's the 
 show signature, next to Margot's.^ J. Morley about the most 
 frequent of recent years ; one large Irish deputation. Glad- 
 stone came down to the door with no hat or coat to see us ofi. 
 
 So ended Cook's last visit to the greatest, or at least 
 the most famous, of Victorian statesmen. 
 
 ^ Mrs. Asquith 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE " DAILY NEWS " 
 
 Kdfyrio-Toi /jlIp iffav koX KaprlaTois ifidxovro. {" Great men they were and 
 with great men they fought.") — Hom. II. i. 267. 
 
 Exactly three years after Cook had entered upon his 
 editorship of the new-born Westininster Gazette he left it 
 to become editor of the Daily News. He cannot have 
 seriously doubted that Sir George Newnes would renew 
 the contract at its expiration, though there is some 
 evidence that that idea had occurred to Cook's mind. 
 The Westminster had not yet become a gold-mine, but 
 Newnes was well aware of Cook's value and the enormous 
 services he had rendered in building up ab initio the 
 high reputation which the newspaper had already 
 attained. Cook had found Newnes a highly satisfactory 
 proprietor who was content to reign as a constitutional 
 monarch with as little interference as possible in the 
 actual rule. Cook was perhaps rather too sensitive in 
 this respect, and I have heard it said that Newnes scarcely 
 ventured to approach his editor in the office lest he 
 should be suspected of a desire to interfere. " I don't 
 dare to show my nose in my own offices of the West- 
 minster Gazette ", he is reported to have said : " and why ? 
 — because of E. T. Cook ". Cook wrote to Sir George 
 Newnes on the day of his migration : 
 
 153 
 
154 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 " Westminsteb Gazette," 
 
 Tudor Street, E.G., 
 
 January 30, 1896. 
 
 The paper of this day's issue is now out, completing the third 
 year of the issue and I am about to leave the office. I cannot do 
 so without taking the liberty of again expressing to you my 
 sincere gratitude for the unfailing support you have accorded to 
 me. And not to me only but — what is much more important — 
 to all such of the old Pall Mall stafE as found a new home on the 
 Westminster. Your stepping into the breach three years ago, and 
 the free hand you have ever since given me to carry on the 
 traditions of the old paper under a new name, have constituted 
 (if I may venture to say so) a very high service to the cause of 
 political journahsm, and entitle you to gratitude from the pro- 
 fession, which I shall never cease to feel. 
 
 The early years of a political journal are always very uphill 
 work, and in this case circumstances of uncommercial competition 
 have erected an additional obstacle. And I can lay claim to 
 nothing except having striven, to the best of my ability, to give 
 the paper a position of credit and respect. I sincerely hope, and 
 find much reason for believing, that the future career of the West- 
 minster will be far more satisfactory, I feel sure that the happy 
 arrangement you have made for the co-operation of Mr, Spender 
 and Mr. Gould will start this second epoch under the best possible 
 auspices. 
 
 To this Sir George Newnes replied : 
 
 February 1, 1896. 
 I reciprocate the sentiments you have expressed in your 
 letter. Our relations in regard to the Westminster have been of 
 a very agreeable character and I much regret your leaving. 
 During the three years you have worked in a thorough and con- 
 scientious manner, and I wish to give unstinted testimony to the 
 great ability you have displayed. I heartily wish you every 
 success in your future career and hope you will always keep a 
 kind thought for the paper and the associations you have just 
 left. 
 
 Thus there was no odour of the fires of martyrdom 
 about Cook's demise on the Westminster Gazette. Many 
 
THE " DAILY NEWS " 165 
 
 were the applications for the vacant chair, some rather 
 surprising ones from persons of political distinction. 
 But the predestined successor was evidently Mr. Cook's 
 assistant, Mr. J. A. Spender. It is interesting to find 
 Sir George Newnes informing Mr. Cook that though 
 he had considered the editorials the strongest part 
 of the Westminster Gazette, he should not rely so much 
 on them in future. As a matter of fact. Sir George was 
 appointing a man who of all others was best qualified 
 to carry forward the paper's high repute in this depart- 
 ment. The Westminster, perhaps more than any other 
 paper, has lived on its editorials, those singularly 
 wise, moderate, highly-toned comments and counsels 
 on public affairs which Mr. J. A. Spender has daily 
 published urbi et orbi for nearly a quarter of a century. 
 To his departing chief Mr. Spender writes : 
 
 February 4, 1896. 
 
 Many thanks for your letter. I sent it round the office to-day 
 and I am sure it gave pleasure. I on my side have not said the 
 half of what I mean and feel about the dissolution of our partner- 
 ship. I really can hardly believe it to be a fact, and I seem to 
 look forward to a few weeks when you wiQ come back from a 
 holiday. 
 
 How much I owe to you for teaching me my business these 
 last few years no one knows so well as myself. It has been the 
 best and happiest time of my life, and I can never forget in how 
 many ways, as friend and chief, you have made life easy and 
 pleasant for me. If all offices were as ours has been, journalism 
 would be one of the smoothest professions in the world. Perhaps 
 some day we may be thrown together again. 
 
 Mr. F. Carruthers Gould, the admirable cartoonist, 
 wrote : 
 
 I cannot let you leave without trying to express to you my 
 warmest thanks for your unvarying kindness and courtesy to me 
 during the past years. I feel strongly that I owe a great deal to 
 
156 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 your influence, and although I know quite well that you dislike 
 " melted butter ", I cannot refrain from telling you what a help 
 your clear, logical and cultured view of things has been to me 
 in my work. It is a keen regret I feel in losing your touch, but I 
 am quite sure that the " continuity " which is so valuable will 
 remain with Mr. Spender. 
 
 It is pleasant to note how invariably Cook enlisted 
 the esteem and even the affection of those more 
 mechanical workers who bear themselves a heavy 
 responsibility for the success of a daily paper. Mr. 
 John B. Boyle, Cook's printer, sends a very gratifying 
 letter : 
 
 September 3, 1896. 
 My staff join me in very grateful thanks for your courtly, 
 kindly letter. You do yourself an injustice, however, when you 
 claim the responsibility for late editions. You have always been 
 the ideal editor for punctuality and method, and personally I am 
 very proud of having been your publisher for these past three 
 years. I look forward with confidence to the time when you 
 go to the other Westminster for which you are fated, where they 
 burn the night lamp on the nation's deliberations. 
 
 Such were the halcyon calms which Cook relinquished 
 for the broken and more perilous waters which now lay 
 before him. From Westminster Gazette to Daily News 
 in those days was professionally a promotion, and no 
 doubt the higher dignity and responsibility of a great 
 morning daily weighed with Cook in making his decision. 
 The editor of a morning paper has in some ways a more 
 difficult task than his confrere on an evening journal. 
 The latter has the advantage of studying the comments 
 of his morning contemporaries on the events of the day. 
 It is indeed surprising how largely these morning papers, 
 working independently, coincide in the comparative im- 
 portance they attach to the various items of news they 
 publish. It is not suggested that our chief evening 
 papers are deficient in original leadership, but the 
 
THE ''DAILY NEWS" 157 
 
 advantage just mentioned is a real one. But Cook was 
 of all men least likely to follow in any obsequious sense 
 and best qualified to lead. 
 
 The staff of a morning paper has other advantages 
 not to be lightly esteemed. Mr. Leo Maxse, writing to 
 congratulate his friend, remarked how glad he was 
 that Cook " was to be relieved from his early morning 
 drudgery and was to take it at the other end of the 
 night, when a man has best command of his faculties ". 
 Cook had hitherto been engaged only in evening 
 journalism. The change meant a great and, I think, a 
 pleasant change in the disposition of life. 
 
 The Daily News was by this time an old and well- 
 established paper, the chief organ of political non- 
 conformity and of old-fashioned Liberalism of the 
 Cobden type. Almost at the moment when Cook 
 became its editor it was celebrating its jubilee, having 
 been established just before the repeal of the Corn Laws. 
 It is never forgotten in Bouverie Street that Charles 
 Dickens was its original promoter.^ There were cir- 
 cumstances, however, which tend to qualify the pride 
 in this association. Dickens was the worst editor the 
 paper ever had and certainly the shortest-lived. He 
 occupied the chair for just twenty-six days, and even 
 that short period, though regarded in the Daily News 
 office as " a glorious chapter " in the journal's history, 
 was to him only a regrettable incident. In the preface 
 to the first book he pubUshed afterwards — the Pictures 
 from Italy, which appeared first in the Daily News 
 columns — he dismissed the journalistic episode as "a 
 brief mistake he had made ". No doubt, as Cook said, 
 Dickens will be better known, and will rather live in 
 history, as the creator of the Eatanswill Gazette than as 
 the founder of the Daily News. He was succeeded by 
 
 1 The Pall Mall Gazette, it will be remembered, had Thackerayan associations. 
 
158 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 his friend, and future biographer, John Forster, and 
 since then there had been many editors. Amongst 
 these were Mr. Edward Dicey, C.B., and Mr. Henry 
 Lucy, the latter being succeeded by Mr. (afterwards Sir) 
 John Robinson, who had been literary manager since 
 1868 and was assisted in his editorial duties by Mr. P. 
 W. Clayden, a " Little Englander " of a very pronounced 
 
 For an editor the character and disposition of his 
 proprietors must always be crucial matters, for he has to 
 live and work in immediate contact with them. Cook's 
 new employers were Mr. Arnold Morley (late Post- 
 master-General), who was said to be mainly responsible 
 for Cook's appointment, Mr. Henry Oppenheim, a 
 practical and pleasant helper. Lord Ashton, a novus 
 homo likewise of the old Radical school. Lord Brassey 
 and Sir John Robinson himself. Cook's agreement was 
 similar to that he had made with Sir George Newnes 
 with the exception that the engagement was for two 
 years certain (instead of three), after that period to be 
 terminable at any time at six months' notice (instead 
 of three) on either side. The proprietors had wished to 
 qualify the editor's " full discretion " on policy and 
 control by adding the words " subject to the general 
 control of the proprietors ", but they did not insist as 
 further correspondence elicited an admission that the 
 proprietors in great crises must decide the policy of the 
 paper. 
 
 The staff which Cook found in Bouverie Street 
 included Mr. Herbert Paul, to whom Cook's friends used 
 humorously to refer as " the thorn in the flesh ". Mr. 
 Paul held views diametrically and violently opposed to 
 Cook's on the main political issue of the day, that of 
 Imperialism versus Little Englandism. Cook had many 
 a little skirmish with his leader-writer, whom he held in 
 
THE "DAILY NEWS" 159 
 
 a firm but courteous control.* " Paul is to you ", said 
 Lord Rosebery, " what Harcourt is to me ". " Why ", 
 Cook was asked, " do you go it so strong over this 
 Dreyfus affair ? " " Oh, it is useful to have something 
 for Paul to use his teeth in ". It should be noted, 
 however, that friendly relations were never interrupted, 
 and that Mr. Paul, when the final catastrophe occurred 
 in Bouverie Street, paid the handsomest tributes to 
 Cook's qualities as an editor. 
 
 Cook's editorial staff also contained another Paul, 
 Alexander by name, an able writer and very loyal and 
 pleasant colleague, who joined the small army of martyrs 
 when the time of testifying came. The Parliamentary 
 sketch was continued in the hands of Mr. (afterwards Sir) 
 H. W. Lucy, and was illustrated for a time by Mr. Harry 
 Furniss, whose pictures brought to the editor's table 
 letters of warm admiration or equally warm antipathy, 
 according to views and taste. Another distinguished con- 
 tributor was Mr. Moy Thomas, the veteran dramatic critic. 
 
 It is needless to say that Cook was besieged with 
 numerous applications for work, among which was one 
 from a gentleman who drew attention to the leaders he 
 had written for another paper and added : " I can write 
 them to order, as an advocate, on any lines I am bidden 
 follow ". It is curious he should have imagined that the 
 possession of so obliging a conscience would recommend 
 him to, of all men in the world, Edward Cook. 
 
 The political weather in prospect when Cook em- 
 barked on the Daily News was not encouraging. The 
 Liberal party, of which the Daily News was the leading 
 organ, had suffered a defeat and a popular discredit 
 
 ^ It throws a strange light upon political differences in those days, and 
 perhaps illustrates Cook's forbearance, that in 1899 Mr. Paul published an 
 article in the Contemporary Review attacking (at one point almost by express 
 inference) the pohcy of the paper on which he was engaged. This article was 
 quoted approvingly by the Daily Chronicle. 
 
160 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 which had broken its spirit and discipline. As Froude 
 once very truly remarked, " no party can hold together 
 unless encouraged by occasional victory ". The fortunes 
 of Liberalism were reflected in its moral. The party, 
 as Sir William Harcourt expressed it, was " rent by 
 sectional disputes and personal interests ". Between 
 the Earl of Rosebery, ex-Premier, who, though tech- 
 nically only leader in the House of Lords, was the 
 titular leader of the party, and Sir William Harcourt, 
 leader in the House of Commons, and between the 
 sections who followed these leaders, there was open and 
 bitter hostility. It would be a mistake to imagine that 
 the quarrel was one merely of persons and personalities. 
 It was based upon a radical divergence in political 
 principle which had long been widening and was destined 
 to become a great gulf when the testing issues of the 
 South African War arose. To some observers the differ- 
 ence between Little Englanders and Imperialists, to use 
 the common terms, seemed so fundamental as to justify 
 a party rather than a merely sectional division. 
 
 As regards the particular personal dispute between 
 Lord Rosebery and Sir William Harcourt, the evidence 
 seems rather to justify the ex-Premier. Sir William's 
 temper in the brightest of weather was never angelic : 
 in darkness and defeat it was apt to be the reverse. 
 He had great qualities, among which was a readiness to 
 help people in tight corners, manifested, for example, 
 in the case of Cecil Rhodes. But he was difficult to work 
 with and his temper had not been improved by a series 
 of disappointments. In 1882 he had aspired to the 
 Speakership, in 1885 to the Lord Chancellorship, and his 
 great ambition, as he himself admitted, had been to 
 become Lord Chief Justice. Then in 1894 came the 
 bitterest of all misfortunes, when his high claims and 
 qualifications were passed over in favour of Lord Rose- 
 
THE "DAILY NEWS" 161 
 
 bery. He had some cause to rail at fortune, but this 
 could not justify his persistent opposition to Lord 
 Kosebery, who had not forced himself into the highest 
 place but had been made Prime Minister by the almost 
 unanimous call of the party leaders and the approving 
 invitation of the Queen. 
 
 Lord Rosebery had a perfect right to the loyal 
 support of the party. As those days recede into history 
 he will be more and more recognized as the wisest and 
 most statesmanlike counsellor the party then possessed. 
 Already in his Eton days he had been sketched by his 
 tutor as "a portentously wise youth, not, however, 
 deficient in fun ". But Mr. Cory rather ominously 
 added, " Dalmeny desires the palm without the dust ". 
 At the date we have reached (1896) Lord Rosebery had 
 done more than any other statesman to restore con- 
 fidence at home and abroad in the Liberal Party in the 
 domains of foreign and Imperial policy. With regard 
 to Egypt, Uganda, Armenia, Japan and Ireland he 
 had brought Liberal action within the bounds of 
 common sense and a broad-minded patriotism. He 
 had developed Liberal policy in accordance with 
 the new conditions and ideas of the day. He had 
 expounded with splendid eloquence and in a Liberal 
 sense the new-born conception of a " larger patriotism " 
 embracing the whole Empire. A nobleman is not 
 necessarily a gentleman, because the lesser does not 
 contain the greater. But Lord Rosebery 's " gentil- 
 hood " was instinctive and unerring. It was said indeed 
 by his critics that he was too thin-skinned : "a politician 
 ought to have a hide and not a skin ". But a thick 
 skin often goes with a thick head, and not often with 
 real literary and political genius. If the Liberal Party 
 had retained and loyally supported Lord Rosebery 
 its fortunes down to this day, when it is once more 
 
 M 
 
162 LIFE OF SIK EDWARD COOK 
 
 riven into irreconcilable sections, might have been 
 different. 
 
 At the beginning of 1896 Cook became by accident 
 the intermediary between Mr. John Morley and Lord 
 Rosebery. The latter had already sent an ultimatum, 
 breaking off political relations with Sir William Har- 
 court. Mr. Morley begged Cook to use his influence with 
 Rosebery and urge him to reconsider this step. Har- 
 court, it seems, was asking on what he was going to be 
 " arraigned ". One may remark that the offences in 
 cases of this sort are just those which cannot be set down 
 in a bill of indictment, and Sir William Harcourt knew 
 this well enough. Mr. Morley represented to Cook, 
 and through him to Lord Rosebery, that Harcourt could 
 not conveniently be abolished. " There Harcourt is 
 and there am I and we don't mean to be snuffed out. 
 But if Rosebery resigns, that will break up the party too, 
 for, though he has not acted very strongly in his position, 
 still he has held it and there he is. To break up a party 
 on personal views is a serious thing, and all because for 
 a short time more Rosebery won't put up with the thorns. 
 Harcourt is an old man, nearly seventy. Rosebery is 
 under fifty, the future is all with him and he's as 
 clever as clever can be. On policy there is nothing, 
 I believe, irreconcilable between Rosebery and Harcom^t. 
 Between Rosebery and me I really believe there is." Mr 
 Morley admitted the difficulty of living with Harcourt. 
 " He's damnably overbearing, and he's gone about the 
 lobbies damning the Government : but this includes 
 himself. . . . On the other side there is this — he was 
 badly disappointed and had an intolerable affront 
 passed on him. Yet he led the House very well and 
 passed a splendid Budget. Yet Rosebery says he must 
 go. But Rosebery cannot carry the whole party with 
 him ". Harcourt, according to Morley, was now in 
 
THE "DAILY NEWS" 163 
 
 a " chastened mood ", and there was no reason why the 
 two men should not meet. 
 
 All which, at Morley's urgent request, Cook duly con- 
 veyed to Lord Eosebery at Mentmore, whither he repaired 
 on Saturday, January 18, 1896. " Such a palace ", 
 Cook exclaims, " and, as Matthew Arnold says, ' the 
 perfection of comfort '. We dined and talked and smoked 
 afterwards. On Sunday Rosebery took me for a walk, 
 to see Ladas at the stud farm. After lunch Waterfield 
 (private secretary) and I went over the gardens. Rose- 
 bery joined us and we had some more private talk". 
 
 But Cook's efforts at mediation were unsuccessful. 
 The offences had gone too far. " I repeated a good 
 deal of J. M.'s to him, ingeminating peace ; he retorting 
 much of it to be in re Paul ". All Cook's efforts were in 
 vain. Perhaps he expected they would be. His own 
 sympathies leaned heavily towards Rosebery. It is 
 certain he had little liking, personal or poHtical, for Sir 
 William Harcourt, who, moreover, was rather fond of 
 flouting a profession of whose prestige and dignity Cook 
 was a jealous defender. Cook quickly found that the 
 pin-pricks, in their accumulated effect, had at last 
 proved too much for the thin skin. Rosebery had 
 written on August 10 " cutting off Harcourt ", and 
 acquainting his colleagues that nothing in the world 
 would ever induce him to unsay it. 
 
 By the assurance of a " chastened mood " Lord 
 Rosebery was not impressed. It had perhaps been 
 ascertained that the House of Commons was not par- 
 ticularly Harcourtian, and in any case " a man who 
 takes the pledge for a week is not less but more violent 
 when he breaks it ". Formal pledges as to future support 
 were useless. " No ", concluded Lord Rosebery, " it 
 is a fraud on the party, an organized hypocrisy, and I 
 will have no more of it. Every man must be the judge 
 
164 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 of his own honour ". To Cook's inquiry, " What, then, 
 is to be done ? " Lord Rosebery replied : 
 
 " I have told my colleagues I am perfectly willing formally to 
 retire. Shut up with four hundred Tories in the Lords, a Prime 
 Minister deserves extra consideration, but never a colleague ever 
 defended me, though one and all, except Harcourt, begged me to 
 form a Government. I was sent for by the Queen and urged on 
 by them, but never chosen by the party. If they like, therefore, 
 I will clear out and let the party be united under Harcourt and 
 Morley, with Dilke and Labby and Phil Stanhope, who are their 
 only following ". 
 
 In October the inevitable happened and Lord 
 Rosebery finally retired from responsible leadership 
 of the Liberal Party. ^ It is a curious and thought- 
 compelling fact that less than five years afterwards 
 Edward Cook, who in soundness of political intuition 
 was perhaps Rosebery's equal, and who in co-operation 
 with Rosebery in their respective spheres might have 
 constituted " a perfect strength ", was himself extruded 
 finally from a responsible position in Liberal journalism. 
 What Cook had to say about the resignation in the 
 Daily News is well worth quoting, as it unquestionably 
 corresponds with the real facts and justly interprets 
 them : 
 
 Some, no doubt, will shrug their shoulders and say that a 
 man who is not thick-skinned enough to hold his place, no matter 
 
 ^ It was suggested at the time that Rosebery's real motive for resignation 
 was the necessity in which he was placed of withstanding Mr. Gladstone face to 
 face on the subject of Armenia. " He had too strong a regard ", it was sug- 
 gested, " for his old chief and too high a sense of what was due to the party 
 and its leader to take this step whilst actually holding the post which he had 
 inherited from Mr. Gladstone himself ". There is no evidence, however, that 
 any large section of the party or any leaders were prepared to go any further 
 than Rosebery in single-handed action against Turkey. Lord Rosebery had 
 protested in the previous March against Mr. Gladstone's pohcy " pressed on a 
 reluctant Europe and an apathetic England ". The motive in question can 
 scarcely have operated. 
 
THE " DAILY NEWS " 165 
 
 what is said about him or done to him, had better be out of the 
 way and make room for the less scrupulous build of political 
 pachydermata. But others, however much they may deplore 
 the particular move taken by Lord Rosebery, will feel no little 
 sympathy for a man whose personal and honourable pride is 
 superior to any pride of place, and who finds the position of leader 
 without the entire loyalty of his followers one not easily to be 
 borne (Leader, " D.N. ", Oct. 8). 
 
 As for the personal questions which lie behind the political 
 issue, all we need say at this moment is that when (if ever) the 
 time comes for telling the inner history of the past two years, the 
 pubUc will assuredly recognize that Lord Rosebery's resignation 
 was a perfectly defensible and honourable move on his part to 
 end a situation in which no leader should be placed (Leader, 
 Oct. 9, 1896). 
 
 Does the majority of the party desire to use up its public 
 men in this way ? — to turn and rend them so speedily ? — and to 
 give to poHtical disloyalty and personal jealousies the encourage- 
 ment of success ? (Leader, Oct. 10). 
 
 Li the first leading article quoted Cook expresses a 
 hope that the letter of resignation would clear the air 
 and Rosebery be re-elected — an aspiration not destined 
 to be fulfilled. 
 
 Nevertheless Rosebery was to be a presence and a 
 power in EngHsh pohtics for some years to come, and the 
 close friendship between his lordship and Edward Cook 
 subsisted through all changes. 
 
 The year 1897 saw Cook resisting one of those 
 emotional currents which sometimes threaten to carry 
 the EngUsh ship of state into shallow and perilous waters. 
 Those who are most violent in promoting these crusades 
 are not always prepared themselves to enlist in them. 
 Thus in 1897 the EngUsh phil-Hellenes were wild for a 
 war with Turkey, but wholly at the expense of the Httle 
 kingdom of Greece. Many still remember the manifesto 
 of the hundred Liberal stalwarts to the King of Greece, 
 and the bands and banners of the Hyde Park demonstra- 
 
166 LIFE OF SIE EDWARD COOK 
 
 tions of sympathy with Greece and with " the heroic 
 struggle of the Cretans for their lives and Hberties ". 
 Very few, if any, of these fanatics had any intention 
 of endangering their own skins for Armenia or Greece or 
 Crete, ^ but the noise they made was mistaken in Greece 
 for the voice of the Enghsh people. 
 
 Cook, though full of sympathy with the oppressed 
 nationahties of the Turkish Empire, fought for prudence 
 and restraint in the national pohcy. If his advice had 
 been followed Greece would have been saved from a 
 war which almost brought her to destruction, and the 
 essential objects of the friends of Hberty everywhere 
 could have been otherwise attained. Though not 
 approving of all the actions of the " Concert of Europe ", 
 Cook saw the necessity of England playing a recognized 
 instrument in the orchestra rather than raising that 
 discordant and independent pibroch so much favoured 
 by the wild pipers of the Liberal Party. Again and 
 again he refers in the Daily News to the year 1885 
 when under Gladstone and Rosebery an ultimatum 
 was presented to Greece, backed by the blockade of the 
 aUied fleets, calling on her to place her land and sea forces 
 on a peace footing. Greece was thus saved from herself. 
 " Eleven years later ", writes Cook, " Greece was to 
 commit the same mistake as that from which she was 
 saved in 1886. Lord Sahsbury lacked either the fortune 
 or the resolution to repeat Lord Rosebery 's success ".^ 
 
 Lord Sahsbury, who sincerely desired to prevent 
 the war, was in a difficult position. Probably any 
 attempt to coerce Greece would have been resented in 
 the existing state of opinion in England. " The weapon 
 
 ^ Sir Frank Lockwood, M.P., told his constituents that he would not sign 
 the hundred Liberals' manifesto " unless he was prepared by physical exertion 
 on his own part to act ". 
 
 » The Foreign Policy of Lord Rosebery. By E. T. Cook (1901), p. 11. In 
 this little work Cook gave a most able and exhaustive exposition of our foreign 
 affairs during the specified period. 
 
THE " DAILY NEWS " 167 
 
 we desired to use ", he said after the short and disastrous 
 struggle, " was not the sword so much as the strait- 
 waistcoat ". Neither weapon was effectively applied, 
 and the war began on April 19. A few quotations from 
 Cook's leading articles will show how at this time he 
 " tempered emotion with statesmanship " : 
 
 April 3. — As for the suggestion of leaving the Concert and 
 embarking on a policy of adventure on our own account, we trust 
 that Sir W. Harcourt will not allow himself to be carried into any 
 action which, explicitly or by imphcation, would countenance 
 such an alternative. 
 
 Aj)ril 5. — To make war in Europe in order to obtain com- 
 pensation for the substitution of autonomy for annexation in 
 Crete would be utterly inexcusable. 
 
 April 13. — In the long run the sober sense of the Liberal 
 Party will remain faithful, we are convinced, to the principle 
 formulated by the greatest of modern leaders in the greatest of 
 his speeches — ^the principle of combining the pursuit of freedom 
 with the maintenance of European peace and with loyalty to the 
 European Concert. 
 
 April 16. — The right which some of our latter-day friends of 
 peace hold most sacred is the right of war, both civil and inter- 
 national. We are not for Peace-at-any-price, nor are we pre- 
 pared to join the War-at-any-price party, least of all since it is 
 in reality a War-for-others-at-any-price party. 
 
 After the outbreak of war Cook does not fail to point 
 out that Greece in the circumstances was the aggressor. 
 He predicts the inevitable issue of the struggle. " The 
 odds against Greece are so great that only a political 
 gambler could feel justified, it seems to us, in urging 
 Greece on to the encounter ". On April 29 he writes : 
 
 It seems to us that any one in Athens or elsewhere who should 
 egg the Greeks on to further resistance would incur a responsi- 
 bility only less serious than that of those who helped to plunge 
 her into the initial blunder. 
 
 On May 7 Cook points out that after all Greece owes to the 
 
168 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 Concert : (1) that Crete by being neutralized during the war 
 (against which the EngUsh crusaders had protested) was saved 
 from Turkey ; (2) her own salvation. The contemporary phil- 
 Hellenes, having denounced the Concert, now call upon its good 
 offices. " The simple fact is that the Concert is now the only 
 thing that stands between Greece and destruction ". 
 
 With regard to this incident every one to-day will 
 admit the accuracy of Cook's previsions and the sound- 
 ness of the policy he commended to his fellow-country- 
 men. 
 
 During 1898 Cook rendered two important pubUc 
 services which lay outside his strictly journalistic work. 
 He settled two rather stubborn industrial disputes, in the 
 engineering and the building trades. The men's demand 
 in the former was for a forty-eight hours' week and for 
 some right of interference in business management. 
 The employers were credited with a desire to smash the 
 Unions. As the Government had decided not to inter- 
 vene and the employers had declined formal arbitration, 
 things had reached an impasse when Cook came forward 
 and offered himself as informal mediator. " The Editor 
 of the Daily News ", wrote a provincial paper, " was the 
 one man in the country to perceive the psychological 
 moment for intervening in the engineering dispute, and 
 the only possessor of sufficient tact to bring the contend- 
 ing parties together at the right instant ". Cook sub- 
 mitted to each side a proposed basis of settlement and 
 brought the two parties into conference. The result 
 was a satisfactory settlement, for which Cook received 
 many congratulations. The Daily Chronicle of those 
 days which had greatly emotionalized over the strike 
 was a little disgruntled that the laurel should thus have 
 been won by " a journal which had shown no particular 
 sympathy with " the engineers. That may have been 
 annopng, but it was characteristic of Cook thus to wait 
 
THE " DAILY NEWS " 169 
 
 without any striving or crying until the time for action 
 came, and then to act unemotionally but with prac- 
 tical decision and unerring judgment. The result was 
 summed up in the Daily News in a passage which contains 
 some economic teaching about the relation between 
 wages and production which seems to be as needful 
 to-day as then. If the employers were out to smash 
 the Unions, writes the Daily News, they have failed. 
 
 But in the object of securing " freedom of management " as 
 defined by the employers they have undoubtedly succeeded, and 
 we do not see why anybody — no matter how strong his sym- 
 pathies with labour may be — should grudge them that success. 
 It is no longer necessary to discuss how far the fears and com- 
 plaints of the employers with regard to the restrictive action of 
 the Unions were well founded. The fact remains that the em- 
 ployers beUeved the efficiency of their workshops to be at stake, 
 and that they have secured the adoption of the rules which they 
 deem necessary for the successful conduct of their business. We 
 may all hope that the employers will in this matter turn out to be 
 correct, and it will be distinctly to the interest of the men to 
 co-operate heartily to that end. The way to shorter hours (or 
 higher wages) hes, as we have so often said, through increased 
 efficiency in production. If this is now obtained, the time need 
 not be far distant when the men will be in a position to claim out 
 of the mouths, as it were, of the employers themselves a share in 
 the economic advantage of the settlement to which they are now 
 asked to subscribe. In this sense the " victory " of the em- 
 ployers may in the long run be to the advantage of the men. 
 
 In the summer the second triumph was won in the 
 settlement of a similarly intractable dispute in the build- 
 ing trade. In February some of the London members 
 of the National Association of Operative Plasterers had 
 struck against the employment of certain non-Unionist 
 foremen. Soon afterwards a vote of the Association 
 in London condemned this action. In the meantime, 
 however, the National Association of Master Builders 
 
170 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 had issued a list of grievances and declared a lock-out 
 against the plasterers. This lock-out was enforced, 
 and plasterers were discharged throughout the country. 
 The dispute had begun to assume a more dangerous 
 aspect by its threatened extension to the whole building 
 trade, when Cook, with Mr. Clement Edwards of the 
 Daily News as his assistant, came forward once more with 
 a proposal for a conference and a suggested basis of 
 agreement. This latter was accepted by both sides as 
 a preliminary, and the conference met. It had been 
 intended that Cook should simply open the palaver with 
 a statement of the events which had led up to it, and 
 then leave the delegates to thrash the subject out. But 
 by a unanimous vote he was requested himseK to take 
 the chair. Thanks largely again to Cook's tact and 
 wisdom the result was completely satisfactory. It can 
 well be understood how Cook won the confidence of these 
 disputants by the assurance he gave through his very 
 character and presence that he would act with absolute 
 justice and with a perfect freedom from all passion and 
 prejudice. 
 
 Among the tributes he received for these repeated 
 services came one from that great-hearted and Hberal- 
 minded Nonconformist divine. Dr. Guinness Rogers, who 
 wrote : 
 
 109 Clapham Common, 
 June 2, 1898. 
 
 I cannot repress the impulse which leads me to congratulate 
 you very heartily on the remarkable success which has attended 
 your noble effort to settle the dispute in the plasterers' trade. It 
 is an act of which any one may reasonably be proud. I am very 
 thankful that it has been done by the Editor of our great Liberal 
 paper. 
 
 This letter suggests some reference to the position of 
 the Daily News as an organ of political nonconformity, 
 a question which arose this year between Cook and his 
 
THE " DAILY NEWS " 171 
 
 directors. Cook was not himself a Nonconformist, but 
 a Liberal churcliman, and on his appointment some 
 anxiety had been expressed by militant Dissenters lest 
 the paper should lose its traditional character in this 
 respect. On the other hand, Liberal churchmen had 
 expressed their pleasure on finding that the paper was 
 less narrowly sectarian than it had been under Mr. 
 Clayden, who had himself been a Nonconformist minister, 
 and other previous editors. The Nonconformists had 
 no real ground for alarm. Cook's conduct of the West- 
 minster Gazette was an assurance m itself that he would 
 give them all legitimate support. There could be no 
 doubt about his opinion on Church politics and Dis- 
 establishment. 
 
 But the more extreme Denominationalists among 
 Daily News readers were not all satisfied with this 
 moderate and tolerant spirit of the paper and desired a 
 little more " hot gospelfing " from the direction. To- 
 wards the close of 1898 Mr. Arnold Morley, who held the 
 largest share in the proprietorship, voiced this feeling in 
 the following passages of a letter : 
 
 Since we met here two or three weeks ago I have been thinking 
 over a subject which we then only hghtly touched upon — the 
 possibility of strengthening our positions with the great body of 
 pohtical Nonconformists in the country. I fear of late years the 
 Daily News has lost ground in this direction, and it is certainly 
 worth trying to regain it, especially if it can be done without 
 sacrificing or endangering other interests. If it is possible, an 
 essential condition must be made that upon all the main questions 
 which strongly interest Nonconformists, the Daily News should 
 speak out clearly and definitely on Nonconformist lines. 
 
 My object in writing to you now is to make a practical sug- 
 gestion which, if you approve of it, I hope you wfil discuss with 
 Robinson and Edwards, so that when we meet either here or at 
 the oflB.ce we may come to some decision. It is that once or 
 twice a week and as much as possible on fixed days, of which 
 
172 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 Saturday would probably be one, there should be a signed article 
 written by some well-known Nonconformist on some special 
 subject of immediate and paramount interest to the class whom 
 I have mentioned. A few of the names which occur to me, and 
 who would attract the kind of attention we want, are Dr. Clifford, 
 Hugh Price Hughes, R. F. Horton, J. G. Greenhough of Leicester, 
 Dr. Fairbairn, Dr. Berry. . . . 
 
 What we want is, so far as Nonconformists are concerned, to 
 make them feel that the Daily News is still strong on the old lines 
 which it occupied twenty or thirty years ago. I should not be 
 surprised if we are entering on a period when ecclesiastical and 
 educational questions will occupy a prominent position, and if 
 thip is so it is well that we should be prepared. Please consider 
 this suggestion. 
 
 It would perhaps not be difficult for those wlio have 
 followed Cook's record so far to forecast on general lines 
 what would be his answer to these requests for more 
 sectarian " ginger ". Cook's reply is well worth giving 
 in full, as in its combined fairness and firmness it is so 
 characteristic of the man : 
 
 November 27, 1898. 
 
 I have given careful consideration to your letter of November 
 21, and shall do my best to carry out your idea about signed 
 articles — which I think is well worth trying. 
 
 Hitherto I have rehed rather on interviews — and during the 
 last few weeks the Daily News has pubUshed interviews with Dr. 
 Chfiord, Hugh Price Hughes, Dr. Horton, Guinness Rogers ; also 
 with Mr. Perks, M.P. Dr. FarrbaLrn is in India, and Dr. Berry is 
 ill and unlikely, I am told, to resume his pubHc duties. So you 
 will see that during the last few weeks I have obtained the views 
 of all the men you mention (as far as practicable) except Green- 
 hough of Leicester, but I think it is only lately that he has come 
 to the front. It is true that in one series of interviews I included 
 also the Bishop of London, but I cannot think that this made the 
 series less interesting. 
 
 I just mention these facts to remind you that I am fully alive 
 to the desirability of meeting the interests of our Nonconformist 
 readers. 
 
THE " DAILY NEWS " 173 
 
 I do not think I have been entirely unsuccessful. Please read 
 and return enclosed letter from Rev. W. H. Harwood.^ He is 
 unknown to me personally, but I am told he is one of the most 
 influential Nonconformist ministers in North London. His letter 
 does not stand alone. 
 
 You refer also in your letter to Mr. Edwards's remarks at 
 Stratton Street on October 23. To this matter also I have given 
 my best consideration. As I understand him, his views are (1) 
 that the Daily News should be very strongly sectarian in general 
 policy, and (2) truculent in tone. I am afraid I should find it 
 difficult to come up to his requirements on certain of these heads. 
 I could not do it if I would ; and I would not if I could, for I 
 believe that it would be very bad policy for the paper. 
 
 (1) I doubt if you quite realize the lengths to which one would 
 have to go to satisfy the extreme sectarians. Take Horton, for 
 instance. I was with him at Oxford and he is an entirely sincere 
 man ; but his judgment is warped on certain questions. Con- 
 sider the monstrous charges he has been scattering broadcast 
 about the secret Romanism of the daUy press (the Daily News 
 not excluded). When challenged for his evidence he adduces the 
 fact that in December 1895 (that was ante me) the Daily News did 
 not insert a letter from a lady of his congregation, the purport of 
 which was that all Roman Catholics were, as such, defenders of 
 falsehood and guilty of other immoral behefs ! And now he and 
 others are patronizing an association called the Protestant Truth 
 Alliance, which publishes black lists of all London papers which 
 have any Catholics among their writers, and argues by implica- 
 tion in favour of a journalistic Catholic Disabilities Act. Pretty 
 doctrines for professed Liberals to preach ! This is a sample of 
 the sectarian extremists, for whom I am asked to cater. I do 
 not believe you would wish me to do so, even if it did succeed in 
 selling more copies of the paper. 
 
 But I do not for a moment believe that it would so succeed. 
 Mr. Edwards, in his remarks on October 23, made a great point 
 of a certain correspondence which he started in the paper. After 
 some time, I understand that Sir John Robinson gave instruc- 
 
 ^ He wrote ; " I should like to thank you for the increased interest with which 
 I now read the Daily News. I have been faithful to it for twenty years — ever 
 since I took a London daily at all — and have never enjoyed it so much as now. 
 I don't always agree with it, but that may not be the paper's fault ". 
 
174 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 tions for the correspondence to cease. Why ? Because he con- 
 cluded from letters which came and from conversations that the 
 correspondence was doing no good either to the paper or to the 
 Liberal Party. I expect he was right. 
 
 I do not believe there is any instance of a general newspaper 
 succeeding by sectarianism. The papers with the large circula- 
 tion are those which appeal most successfully to many different 
 interests or to interests com m on to everybody. 
 
 The Daily News has lost many readers to the Chronicle. But 
 why ? Certainly not because the Chronicle is sectarian. In my 
 opinion, because the Chronicle got the start of the Daily News 
 by some years in enlarging its size and scope — and also no doubt 
 in spending large sums of money on its development generally. 
 So with the Telegrajph and the Mail. Their secret is their width, 
 not their narrowness of range. I do not believe a single good 
 instance could be adduced to the contrary. The great prosperity 
 of the Daily News was due to many causes in former times. 
 
 Each sect has for its sectarian interests a weekly paper of its 
 own, none of them very prosperous, I believe. Probably the most 
 prosperous is the British Weekly, the distinguishing character- 
 istic of which is the large amount of space it gives to literary and 
 personal gossip. 
 
 From a business point of view, what I am urging is, I believe, 
 equally the case. A valuable advertising connection has never 
 been built up on a sectarian basis. 
 
 (2) I now come to Mr. Edwards's second point, which referred 
 to the style of writing. The Daily News, he said at Stratton 
 Street, would increase its circulation by " giving ginger " to aU 
 non-Nonconformists. By this I suppose he meant to inculcate 
 greater truculence of tone. Here again my views are diametric- 
 ally opposite. I believe nothing damages a paper more than 
 truculence. I fancy the Daily News has not done itself any good 
 by political truculence even. Since I have been there, I have 
 tried to moderate it. Such writing amuses the extremists, but 
 makes the judicious, even on one's own side, grieve, because they 
 know that it does no good in conciliating waverers. To apply 
 such truculence to politico-religious questions, as Mr. Edwards 
 advocated at Stratton Street, would in my opinion be very bad 
 policy. The Liberal Party is a composite party, largely Non- 
 
THE " DAILY NEWS " 175 
 
 conformist, of course, but certainly not exclusively so. To set to 
 work with the deliberate purpose of " giving ginger " to all con- 
 tingents in the party except one, seems to me the very worst 
 policy. 
 
 I think the foregoing summarizes my views on the second 
 matter to which you have called my consideration. But please 
 do not think that I am not alive to the importance in questions of 
 practical pohtics of taking what one may roughly call the Liberal- 
 Nonconformist line. 
 
 As you say, educational and ecclesiastical questions are very 
 important just now. I maintain that the Daily News has taken 
 a strong line, and has devoted great space to both. We had end- 
 less articles attacking the Education Bills. On the ritualist con- 
 troversy we published far more news than any other paper, and 
 in article after article argued (1) that the only real solution was 
 Disestablishment, but that (2) so long as the Establishment 
 remained, its Protestant basis must not be undermined. 
 
 The Irish University Question is another matter, and a very 
 difficult one. In 1893 the Liberal Party unanimously favoured 
 a Bill which would have established such a University by the 
 Irish Parliament. Many leading Liberals favour a University 
 even now. In a very moderate way, the Daily News inclined to 
 John Morley's view. I cannot think that at the time such a line 
 was indefensible. 
 
 The larger question of Home Rule remains behind. A few 
 years ago the Liberal Nonconformists were anxious to concede 
 Home Rule as a matter of " righteousness ". Now, it seems, a 
 good many of them want to refuse it on the log-rolling principle. 
 The Irish Catholics would not help us to defeat an education bill ; 
 therefore we will not help them to Home Rule. I do not think 
 that this is a view which the Liberal Party can honestly or wisely 
 take. To start an anti-Irish crusade before the elections seems 
 to me absurdly bad tacAics. My view is rather with Sir Henry 
 Fowler, though I thought he put the case rather injudiciously in 
 some ways. I have mentioned this matter now because it is one 
 on which I could not undertake to follow blindly every passing 
 gust of Nonconformist opinion. 
 
 Similarly in the case of the Cretan question I could not have 
 taken what was the popular Nonconformist line at the time and 
 
176 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 encouraged Greece to go to the war. I think time has proved 
 that the Daily News line was right. So I believe it will be with 
 Home Rule, which sooner or later the Liberal Party will infallibly 
 have to take up again, unless the Tories settle it first. 
 
 I am very sorry to have inflicted so long a letter upon you. 
 But I have given the matter much consideration, and thought it 
 was only right to let you have my views fully and frankly. 
 
 Another cataclysm occurred in the Liberal camp in 
 December of this year. Sir William Harcourt resigned 
 Ms leadership, the reasons being set forth in letters 
 exchanged between himself and Mr. John Morley. It 
 was humorously reported at the time that Morley had 
 written Harcourt's and Harcourt Morley's. Both 
 writers dwell on the chaotic conditions prevailing in the 
 party. Mr. Morley's statement that Sir William had 
 " laboured to promote unity of action " is not quite 
 acceptable. Harcourt had no such grounds of just 
 complaint as had forced Lord Rosebery to resign. 
 Though he had accepted Rosebery's leadership, he had 
 done everything in his power to thwart and oppose him. 
 Harcourt at least received the loyal support of those 
 who were not among his political friends. Some idea 
 of Sir William's spirit and language may be derived from 
 a story told in Cook's Diary. Sir Robert Reid had dined 
 one evening with Lord Rosebery in an ordinary way 
 of friendship. On returning to the House of Commons 
 Harcourt asked him where he had been. Reid told him. 
 " Oh ", said Harcourt, " so you've joined that dirty 
 intrigue, have you ? " To represent Sir William Har- 
 court, who had unquestionably other great qualities, as 
 a seeker and pursuer of peace and as a martyr to " the 
 sectional disputes and personal interests " in the party 
 will really not do. 
 
 It may be remembered that Harcourt's letter was 
 thrown into a curiously conditional form, and Cook, 
 
THE « DAILY NEWS " 177 
 
 once asked for his interpretation of the letter, described 
 it "as a feeler, to get a vote of confidence ". Failing 
 Rosebery, Cook now favoured the appointment of Sir 
 Henry Campbell-Bannerman — a genial statesman with 
 whom he was personally acquainted. Cook records how 
 at an unreported meeting at the Reform Club in February 
 1899 " C.-B." pitched into Harcourt and Morley roundly. 
 "He saw no reason why an old gentleman shouldn't 
 retire because his son, on whom he leaned, married. But 
 why those two gentlemen should retire making insinua- 
 tions against those they left behind, he couldn't imagine". 
 Cook could not foresee that a controversy was even then 
 raising its head which would divide the Liberal party 
 once more into rival tabernacles and that he would have 
 to fight " C.-B." and his friends through years of storm 
 and stress. 
 
 N 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE SOUTH AFRICAN SCENE 
 
 Much of the work of the journalist is humble and insignificant. He has, 
 it is true, his golden opportunities sometimes, which make up for the more 
 numerous hours of obscure drudgery — opportunities to strike some blow 
 for a cause in which he beheves, to help in righting a wrong, to form and not 
 merely to follow pubUc opinion, to nerve, it may even be, a nation's 
 purpose. — Sib Edwaed Cook, Literary Recreations, p. 140. 
 
 The negotiations with the Transvaal which preceded 
 the Boer War and the war itself furnished Cook with 
 one of these " golden opportunities ". His most dis- 
 tinctive gift was one of exposition, of arranging and 
 interpreting facts and presenting an issue to his readers 
 clearly detached from the jungle of minor and confus- 
 ing circumstance. " Prudens quaestio ", said Bacon, 
 " dimidium responsionis ". When you have once clearly 
 stated to yourself a question or problem you are halfway 
 towards the answer, and this is what Cook continually 
 enabled his readers to do. The opportunity afforded by 
 the Boer War was in every way congenial to him. He 
 was in politics a Liberal Imperialist, and the British case 
 in South Africa was Liberal lq its claim of constitutional 
 rights for a community unjustly deprived of them ; 
 and it was Imperial because it involved the defence of 
 our position in South Africa and of the whole Empire 
 against an insidious but deadly menace. Cook was at 
 this time in the heyday of his mental and physical powers. 
 
 178 
 
THE SOUTH AFKICAN SCENE 179 
 
 He had attained a higli influence and reputation, personal 
 and political, and lie devoted himself with a perfect 
 concentration upon the statement and defence of the 
 British cause in South Africa. 
 
 There were other reasons why Cook seemed to be 
 providentially designed for this task. He had closely 
 followed South African politics at a time when few 
 Englishmen had the slightest acquaintance with them. 
 His two greatest friends, Alfred Milner and Edmund 
 Garrett, were themselves in South Africa maintaining 
 British interests in their respective spheres, and through 
 them Cook acquired a more vivid and personal knowledge 
 of South African conditions. The tremendous contro- 
 versy began to stir about the beginning of 1899, some 
 three years after the Eaid had temporarily estopped the 
 British efforts for redress in the Transvaal. The task 
 was set, and, as so often in our British annals, the man 
 was provided who should accomplish it. 
 
 The whole record of British journalism has not pro- 
 duced a series of consecutive articles more sustained in 
 wisdom and ability than those which Cook published in 
 the Daily News during the years 1900 and 1901. Never 
 has such a steady and prolonged illumination of sense 
 and reason been poured upon any political crisis as radi- 
 ated from Bouverie Street in those days of diplomatic 
 and military conflict with the South African Eepublics. 
 I was myself appointed as a leader-writer on the Daily 
 News in 1899. I was housed in a room leading from 
 Cook's editorial sanctum and was thus in the closest 
 contact with the editor during every evening's work. 
 Thus one became familiar with Cook's method of work, 
 and the impression of the ease and power and imperturb- 
 able calm with which he expounded and often directed 
 the policy of the country in those stormy days is still as 
 vivid as ever. I say " directed ", for it is no secret that 
 
180 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 Cook's articles were a constant source of counsel and 
 suggestion to tlie Government, wMcli indeed at one 
 critical moment almost bodily adopted a dispatch to 
 Mr. Kruger which. Cook had himself drafted and which 
 he suggested in the columns of his paper. 
 
 It is not necessary to rehearse the stages of the long 
 diplomatic struggle which culminated in war on October 
 9, 1899. And happily Cook's biographer is saved the 
 labour of exploring the immense volumes of the Daily 
 News which cover this period. Cook has himself written 
 the history of those years, incidentally reproducing much 
 of what he wrote in his paper. The Rights and Wrongs 
 of the Transvaal War, published in 1901 after Cook had 
 " suffered " again for conscience' sake, is the classic and 
 standard apologia for British policy in South Africa 
 during these years. I find in a fly-leaf of the copy which 
 Cook sent to me a sentence in which I tried to express 
 the real " secret " of this enduring monument. It is 
 the offspring, I wrote, of " the spirit which insists not 
 that the facts shall square with a preconceived judg- 
 ment, but that the judgment shall emerge from the 
 facts honestly sought and faithfully reproduced ". 
 The appeal of Cook's leading articles on the South 
 African question was never to passion or prejudice but 
 always to reason and logic based upon ascertained 
 truth. 
 
 Facts were indeed our raw material in the Bouverie 
 Street factory under Cook's direction. He had a marvel- 
 lous flair for the discovery of vital and relevant material. 
 One example may be mentioned. It was he who un- 
 earthed and published that famous passage in the con- 
 versations between Sir Hercules Robinson (President of 
 the Commission) and Mr. Kruger at an official conference 
 in 1881 at the time when Kruger was securing the 
 retrocession of the Transvaal. The decisive little dia- 
 
THE SOUTH AFRICAN SCENE 181 
 
 logiie wMch Cook had first quoted as early as May 2, 
 1896, in the Daily News ran thus : 
 
 President. Before annexation, had British subjects complete 
 freedom of trade throughout the Transvaal ? Were they on the 
 same footing as citizens of the Transvaal ? 
 
 Mr. Kruger. They were on the same footing as the burghers ; 
 there was not the slightest difference, in accordance with the 
 Sand River Convention. 
 
 President. I presume you will not object to that continuing ? 
 
 Mr. Kruger. No. There will be equal protection for every- 
 body. 
 
 Sir E. Wood. And equal privileges ? 
 
 Mr. Kruger. We make no difference so far as burgher rights 
 are concerned. There may perhaps be some slight difference in 
 the case of a young person who has just come into the country. 
 
 The publication of these words was something more 
 than a mere journalistic " coup ". It was rightly and 
 generously described by IVIr. Buckle, the editor of The 
 Times, as " a public service ". 
 
 It will be noticed that Cook began to place his finger 
 on the ailing-spot in South African politics and to 
 expound the fundamentals of British interests in that 
 region several years before the final controversy arose. 
 In the first article he published as editor of the Daily 
 News we find a passage which shows much foresight and 
 is surely Liberal as well as Imperialist in spirit : 
 
 The key to the situation in South Africa is the redress of the 
 grievances of the Uitlanders in the Transvaal. " Force is no 
 remedy ". The force which Dr. Jameson so unhappily thought 
 to apply cured nothing. And neither will the disarmament, 
 which the Boers and the British High Commissioner effected, cure 
 anything. So long as the root of the evil is untouched, symp- 
 toms of disturbance wiU inevitably recur, and sooner or later it is 
 tolerably certain that the Uitlanders must succeed. It is idle 
 to suppose that a large and growing community of English- 
 speaking men, accustomed to free institutions, can for ever be 
 
182 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 kept under the heel of an oligarchy. Sooner or later, then, their 
 deliverance must come. But it may make just aU the difEerence 
 to the future of South Africa how it comes. We want it to come 
 not after another race war, and not so as to result in the creation 
 of a EepubUc, speaking the Enghsh tongue, but hostile to England 
 in sentiment. ... A Boer Republic with its internal independ- 
 ence secured, a Rand with its local hberties secure : on such 
 terms only can the peaceful development of South Africa, under 
 the protection of this country as the paramount Power, be 
 secured (February 10, 1896). 
 
 Cook's main task was not to talk to the converted 
 in the Unionist camp but to impress the Liberal Party 
 with the justice of the British case. There were a large 
 number in that party whose panoply of prejudice against 
 the Empire and all its concerns was quite impenetrable, 
 though it wouJd be a mistake to identify " pro-Boerism " 
 entirely with " Little Englandism ". But Cook's daily 
 appeal to reason and fact and Liberal principle had no 
 doubt a decisive influence. As a well-known Liberal 
 worker expressed it, the Daily News kept the party from 
 becoming a " Kruger clique ". 
 
 Incidentally I may add that this was the prime 
 object with which the Imperial Liberal Council was 
 formed iu 1900. It arose originally from a comparison 
 of notes between one or two of us younger Liberals after 
 a meeting of the Eighty Club which Lord Coleridge had 
 addressed apparently on the assumption that all Liberals 
 were anti-British duriug the Boer War. We had con- 
 cluded independently that this could no longer continue 
 and that it was necessary to organize and vocalize the 
 large body of pro-British feeling within the Liberal 
 camp. We quickly got together a large membership of 
 young and energetic Liberals of Independent sympathies ^ 
 
 ^ The list of our first officials was : President, Lord Brassey, K.C.B. ; Vice- 
 President, R. W. Perks, M.P. ; Committee — Chairman, Heber Hart, LiL.D. ; 
 Vice-Chairman, J. W. Greig ; A. C. Forster Boulton, Hon. T. A. Brassey, J. R. 
 
THE SOUTH AFRICAN SCENE 183 
 
 and began without delay the work of propaganda within 
 the party. We received greetings from afar from Lord 
 Rosebery who severely criticised our rather flamboyant 
 title. Mr. Asquith, Sir Edward Grey, Mr. Haldane, 
 Mr. Fowler and other Liberal leaders, who of course 
 had party obligations, were slow to acknowledge us, 
 but we gradually received their countenance and at last 
 their effectual help. 
 
 It was naturally of much importance that the Daily 
 News should declare in our favour. But Cook, still 
 anxious to preserve at least an outward Liberal imity, 
 interposed a firm but courteous negative. The mot 
 d'ordre was that blessed word " permeation ". We were 
 to propagate to our hearts' content but formal schism was 
 to be avoided. Well I remember the evening on which 
 Cook raised the embargo and told me to " fire away " 
 about the doings and dinings of the Liberal Imperial 
 Council. That body was merged afterwards in the 
 Liberal League, but on arriving in South Africa early in 
 1901 and plunging into politics there I felt the advantage 
 of being able to point to the Liberal Imperial Council as 
 an evidence that the whole Liberal Party was not against 
 the war and the Government. 
 
 Yet it remains true that the greatest and oldest 
 Liberal organ, the Daily News, was through all this 
 crisis in conflict with a majority, though perhaps not a 
 large majority, of the party. Cook never became flurried 
 or irritated by opposition, though it was often expressed in 
 violent terms. I am not sure that his unruffled calm and 
 the clearness and simplicity with which he presented his 
 case to Liberal readers did not act as a provocation. 
 
 Brough, Jolin Bruce, W. B. Duffield, John Fuller, M.P., Cecil B. Harmsworth, 
 Hudson E. Kearley, M.P., J. Saxon Mills, H. H. Raphael, A. G. Rickards, Q.C., 
 Robert Steven, E, P. Tennant, James Todd; Hon. Treasurer, Sir Martin 
 Conway ; Secretary, E. T. Slater. Some of these gentlemen have gone far in 
 more than one sense since then. 
 
184 LIFE OF SIR EDWAED COOK 
 
 Take, for example, such a passage as follows from the 
 Daily News' leading articles in July 1899 : 
 
 What Mr. Gladstone intended in 1881 was to confer upon the 
 inhabitants of the Transvaal internal independence and the rights 
 of self-government. But what is the actual use to which the 
 boon has been put ? It is the instalment of a minority in the 
 exclusive possession of political rights. The majority, the Uit- 
 landers, pay in taxation £25 a head ; the minority, the Boers, 
 pay less than £4 a head. But the minority alone have political 
 power. The majority have no votes, may carry no arms and 
 have no means of constitutional redress. Great Britain claims 
 to be, and is, in a position of " suzeraiaty ", or whatever it should 
 be called, towards the Transvaal. Yet in that state settlers of 
 British origin, so far from being in a position of equality with the 
 Dutch settlers, are stamped with political inferiority. And this 
 treatment they receive from a President who, when he was seekiQg 
 the concession of Home Rule, pledged his word that " no difier- 
 ence was made so far as burgher rights were concerned ". How 
 Liberals can with any self-respect tolerate this gross perversion 
 of the wise policy intended by their great leader, Mr. Gladstone, 
 passes our comprehension. 
 
 It is not surprising that Liberals, thus smitten with 
 weapons from their own armoury, should have been 
 extremely annoyed with the Daily News and its editor. 
 It was easier to insinuate and abuse than to answer 
 Cook's argument. Suggestions of undue influence and 
 even veiled charges of corruption were brought against 
 him. A certain member of Parliament, having rather 
 more than hinted this sort of thing in a speech reported 
 in the Daily News, wrote sheltering himself behind an 
 alleged inaccuracy in the report. Cook replied with a 
 coolness almost of indifference : 
 
 June 22, 1899. 
 
 You say that our report was inaccurate ; but you do not 
 specify the inaccuracies. Our reporter understood you to refer 
 to the Daily News as now " the paper of Rhodes & Co.". I 
 
THE SOUTH AFRICAN SCENE 185 
 
 accept your explanation that this meant nothing except that the 
 views expressed by the Daily News on the Transvaal crisis happen 
 to agree with those which Mr. Rhodes is understood to hold. 
 
 You must permit me to express my regret that you did not 
 put your meaning less ambiguously. If I said that some paper 
 was the paper of " Kruger & Co.", I should certainly expect to 
 be taken as meaning something more than that the paper in 
 question happened to express views on public and independent 
 grounds which were in general agreement with the views of 
 Mr. Kruger. 
 
 There, as may be imagined, the correspondence 
 ceased. 
 
 Another gentleman had gone as near as he dared to 
 a charge of actual bribery. " There is reason to believe," 
 he said, " that some of the newspapers have had it made 
 financially worth their while to support the war. I 
 trust this does not apply to the Daily News ". "I have 
 known ", he also added, " some lamentable instances of 
 editors feeling bound under stress of the instructions of 
 their proprietary to follow a popular line ". To this 
 wary slanderer Cook wrote : 
 
 There is not an atom or iota of truth in any of the insinua- 
 tions which you thus make ; and I submit to you, as a man of 
 honour, that it is extremely discreditable to harbour and circu- 
 late base suspicions against those who differ from you on a 
 political question. You are prudent enough to make your 
 suggestions very vague ; but conduct such as this is not less 
 reprehensible morally because it is safe legally. 
 
 It is not suggested that all Cook's critics indulged 
 in these dark insinuations. Many of his friends and 
 admirers differed sincerely from his views and expressed 
 their disagreement in moderate and courteous language. 
 But neither on this nor on any other occasion was Cook 
 to be diverted by friend or foe from the policy which he 
 considered to be that of justice and truth. He went on 
 industriously with his task of " permeation " and public 
 
186 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 instruction. We may take once more at random a 
 passage wMcli shows how clearly and patiently he 
 reasoned with, all objectors. It occurs in a leading 
 article of September 20 : 
 
 One of Mr. Kruger's defenders in this country wants to know, 
 with regard to the proposed use of Enghsh in the Volksraad, how 
 we should Hke " a variegated debate in the House of Commons in 
 which naturaKzed Dutchmen and Germans added a new terror 
 to ParUamentary oratory by iutroducing the twangs and gutturals 
 of their own tongues ". We are not aware that a majority of 
 the taxpayers in this country are Dutchmen and Germans, or 
 that there is any demand for the admission of such " twang 
 and guttural " Uitlanders to Parliamentary representation. But 
 there are within the British Empire two cases which are really to 
 the point. One is the Cape, with its mixed English-speaking and 
 Dutch-speaking population. The other is Canada, with its mixed 
 Enghsh - speaking and French - speaking population. In both 
 cases there is equality between the two languages in the legis- 
 lature. Mr. Reitz, in the Boer reply, speaks of Dutch as " the 
 language of the country ". It is the official language, we all 
 know. But " the language of the country ", in the sense of the 
 language most widely used in commercial, and probably even in 
 domestic Hfe, is EngUsh. The vigour with which Mr. Reitz 
 denounces the idea of Enghsh being allowed side by side with 
 Dutch in the Volksraad throws some Ught on the " goodwill " of 
 the Transvaal Government in the whole matter of the franchise. 
 To admit the Uitlanders, but to forbid them to speak except m 
 Dutch, would be to give them a vote, but not a voice. 
 
 It was just at this time that Cook by his statesman- 
 like wisdom helped the Government out of a pressing 
 difficulty. President Kruger had rejected the very 
 moderate and conciliatory proposals, based on the five 
 years' franchise, contained in the British despatch of 
 September 8. This produced an wipasse from which the 
 only outlet seemed to be a declaration of war. It was 
 highly important, however, that a stiU further chance 
 should be allowed to the Transvaal Government of 
 
THE SOUTH AFRICAN SCENE 187 
 
 adopting wiser counsels. If the British Government had 
 proceeded at once, as they reserved themselves the right 
 to do in the despatch of September 8, " to reconsider the 
 situation de novo and to formulate their own proposals 
 for a final settlement", that would have amounted to 
 an ultimatum and war would have been inevitable. On 
 September 19 Cook suggested in his leading article that, 
 with the view of gainmg time and leaving the door still 
 open for the Boers, an interim despatch should be sent. 
 While announcing that the Government would now 
 proceed to consider the situation de novo, further assur- 
 ances and explanations might be given on such questions 
 as that of " suzerainty " on which the Boers laid the 
 greatest stress. Cook amplified and urged still more 
 strongly his proposal in a further article on September 21. 
 By giving the Transvaal Government such a further 
 opportunity the British Government, said Cook, " would 
 set itself right with important sections of opinion in this 
 country and, in the event of the failure of a sincere efiort 
 for peace on these lines, might hope to find behind it the 
 support of a united nation ". On September 22 he 
 drafted in the Daily News the sort of despatch which he 
 thought would serve as the " golden bridge ". It post- 
 poned, as will be seen, the formulation of new proposals 
 for a later period and so gave the South African Kepublic 
 a chance, if it so desired, of anticipating any such pro- 
 posals by remedying its old offers. 
 
 Her Majesty's Government have received with regret the note 
 of the South African Repubhc of September 16, in which their 
 proposal of September 5 is rejected. 
 
 Their regret is increased by the fact that their proposal was 
 based on the ofEers made by the Government of the South African 
 Republic itself in its note of August 19. 
 
 With regard to the " conditions " attached to that note, it is 
 quite true that Her Majesty's Government were unable to accept 
 
188 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 them in the form in which they were presented. But Her 
 Majesty's Government may point out that (1) they have ex- 
 pressed their readiness, in the event of their other proposals being 
 accepted, to proceed at once to a conference to settle all the 
 details of the proposed Tribunal of Arbitration ; and (2) that 
 their object in proposing a scheme of franchise reform is to enable 
 the Uitlanders to redress their own grievances, and thereby to 
 render unnecessary any further intervention on the part of Her 
 Majesty's Government in relation to such grievances. (3) Her 
 Majesty's Government may point out, further, that while they 
 are compelled to repudiate absolutely the claim of the South 
 African Kepublic to the status of a Sovereign International 
 State, they have no intention to assert on behalf of Her Majesty 
 any right of interference in the internal affairs of the Republic 
 other than that which belongs to every Government for the pro- 
 tection of its subjects wherever they may reside, or than that 
 which is contained in the Articles of the Convention of 1884. 
 
 In view of the rejection by the Transvaal Government of the 
 proposal contained in the note of September 8, Her Majesty's 
 Government, in the exercise of the right reserved in that note, 
 are now formulating their own proposals for a final settlement, 
 which will be submitted forthwith to the Government of the 
 South African Republic. 
 
 For the effect of these suggestions in Mgh quarters 
 we may turn to Cook's brief account in his Diary. For 
 September 21 he writes : 
 
 Went to see Selborne after Cabinet meeting to ask what had 
 been done. " Mr. Chamberlaiu ", he said, " told me to give you 
 a hint that your despatch had been adopted. I drafted one and 
 you drafted one, and in some respects the Cabinet preferred yours. 
 This is probably the only occasion on which an editor of the 
 Daily News has drafted a despatch for a Conservative Govern- 
 ment ". 
 
 In the afternoon Harmsworth rang me up on the telephone to 
 say he had heard from two Cabinet Ministers that Mr. Chamber- 
 lain had brought in Daily News' article to the Cabinet and said 
 he proposed to send a despatch on those lines. Oppenheim also 
 told me from Lord Rothschild the same. 
 
THE SOUTH AFRICAN SCENE 189 
 
 It would have been well if the Government had paid 
 Cook the compliment of a quite literal adoption of his 
 drafted despatch. The alterations were not all improve- 
 ments. For example, Cook had based the rights of 
 British interference in the internal affairs of the Trans- 
 vaal on the Convention of 1884. The Government 
 altered the singular to the plural, " Conventions ", and 
 thus needlessly suggested to the Boer once more that 
 the British Government under the preamble of the 
 1881 Convention threatened the existing liberties of the 
 Republic. It enabled the over-subtle opponents of the 
 Government to repeat that it was " going to war for a 
 consonant ". 
 
 It is clear that Cook's counsel through all these 
 negotiations and afterwards during the war was highly 
 estimated in Government circles. Mr. McDonnell, Lord 
 Salisbury's private secretary, said to Cook in the 
 " Foreign Office " a week after the " interim despatch " 
 incident, " It is not merely my opinion but that of much 
 more important people that the Daily iV^gi(?s articles are 
 the most brilliant things that have appeared in journal- 
 ism for many years ". And this high opinion was 
 expressed by so many who wrote to Cook on the subject 
 that it is difficult to make a choice among such tributes. 
 I doubt whether any penny newspaper ever had so great 
 an intrinsic value and was so carefully read and filed 
 and dissected into " cuttings " as the Daily News under 
 Edward Cook. For example, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Henry 
 Norman wrote in March 1900 : 
 
 The fight you are making for patriotism and common sense in 
 the Daily News is beyond praise. I have never seen so first-rate 
 a prolonged series of leaders in my life, A very prominent Liberal 
 the other day said to me, talking of this subject : "I cut out a 
 leader in the Daily News which I think is the best I ever saw in 
 my hfe ". He took out his pocket-book and showed it to me — 
 
190 LIFE OF SIK EDWAED COOK 
 
 the one about those asses and the " Gladstone League ". I took 
 out my pocket-book and showed him the same thing. 
 
 A similar tribute comes from a gentleman, Mr. 
 Charles Phillips, in Lancashire, dated September 1900 : 
 
 The Daily News is indispensable to me, and when 1 can't get 
 it on account of absence for several days, 1 am compelled to 
 get the back numbers. A number of gentlemen were together 
 recently in a Manchester cafe when three confessed that their 
 objection to the Daily News was that it was " too good " — they 
 had to be continually cutting out extracts, and they had now such 
 a pUe that they had become unwieldy. 
 
 From political leaders and members of Parliament 
 such acknowledgments are numerous. Even fellow- 
 craftsmen in the Conservative Party sent their congratu- 
 lations. Mr. E. B. Iwan-Miiller, one of the most brilliant 
 of British journalists, who had helped Mr. Cust to edit 
 the Pall Mall Gazette and was long on the stafi of the 
 Daily Telegraph, wrote (Oct. 12, 1899) : 
 
 I hope you won't think me impertinent in tendering you — '^ 
 only for the sake of our common friend, Alfred MUner — my 
 insignificant tribute of admiration and respect for the splendid 
 patriotism and rare judgment you have displayed in a position 
 more difficult and delicate, 1 should imagine, than any journalist 
 of modern times has had to tackle. I honestly believe that, but 
 for the Daily News, we should find ourselves divided into two 
 hostile camps at a time more critical than the outside world wot 
 of. I can only hope that your action has contributed as much 
 to the prosperity of the paper as it undoubtedly has, in the 
 estimation of everybody 1 meet, to your own personal reputa- 
 tion. New College ^ in the matter has been all on the same side, 
 and that, I am absolutely convinced, the right side. I had to 
 liberate my soul, and I've done it. 
 
 ^ From New College, indeed, came more than one tribute. Mr. P. E. 
 Matheson, Fellow and Dean of the College, writes : "I have enjoyed reading 
 the Daily News'' articles on the Transvaal business, which have done more than 
 anything else I have seen to keep the main issue without prejudice or passion 
 before the public " — a very accurate characterization of Cook's work. 
 
THE SOUTH AFRICAN SCENE 
 
 191 
 
 A propos of Mr. Iwan-Miiller's reference to the 
 prosperity of the Daily News, it is worth noticing that 
 for the year 1900 the paper's circulation shows a rise 
 instead of a fall for the first time since 1890. The 
 advent of the halfpenny paper had rather severely hit 
 the Daily News during the first few years of Cook's 
 editorship. It may be interesting to give the figures of 
 average circulation for ten years. Cook's editorship 
 began with the year 1896. 
 
 1890 . 
 
 
 
 93,203 
 
 1891 , 
 
 
 
 89,133 
 
 1892 
 
 
 
 87,917 
 
 1893 
 
 
 
 82,012 
 
 1894 
 
 
 
 72,415 
 
 1895 
 
 
 
 . 66,341 
 
 1896 
 
 
 
 . 61,584 
 
 1897 
 
 
 
 . 57,404 
 
 1898 
 
 
 
 . 56,073 
 
 1899 
 
 
 
 . 55,969 
 
 1900 
 
 
 
 61,000 
 
 Some readers may be surprised at the modesty of 
 these figures in the days of colossal circulations. But 
 the influence of Cook's writings cannot be measured by 
 these numbers. Under him the Daily News was a regular 
 quarry from which a large number of provincial and other 
 papers obtained material as they pleased. One editor 
 of an important north-country journal sends Cook a very 
 careful digest of "an able and lucid article " which had 
 appeared in the Daily News, and indeed it may be said 
 that Cook was from Bouverie Street conducting the policy 
 and enriching the columns of a very large number of 
 British journals. There is not much doubt that if he had 
 been allowed to sit a little longer by his job he would have 
 lifted the Daily News into a position not only of self- 
 supporting solvency but even of profit. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 SALE OF THE " DAILY NEWS " 
 
 Cui lecta potenter erit res, 
 Nee facundia deseret hunc nee lucidus ordo. 
 Ordinis haeo virtus erit et venus, aut ego fallor, 
 Ut iam nunc dicat iam nune debentia dici, 
 Pleraque differat et praesens in tempus omittat. 
 
 HoR. De arte poet. 40-44. 
 
 (" He who ehooses his subject according to his faculties wUl never want 
 for eloquence or lucid arrangement of his material. Of this order the charm 
 and virtue will be that the writer says now what needs to be said now and 
 defers and omits other details till the proper time for them comes.") 
 
 The end of Cook's work on the Daily News, as of that 
 on the Pall Mall Gazette, came like a bolt from the blue. 
 But in this case it meant the closing of his editorial 
 record. He was still to do much journalistic work and 
 to be of great service as a publicist, especially in the 
 monthly reviews, to the Liberal Party. But he was 
 never again to edit a paper and was thus excluded 
 from influential and responsible work for which he was 
 supremely, even uniquely, qualified. The first indica- 
 tion of the catastrophe is given in the Diary under date 
 December 12, 1900 : 
 
 A. Morley told me about a scheme to seU Daily News to a pro- 
 Boer syndicate — " men with whom you will not be able to work ". 
 He put it on grounds : (1) Daily News losing money and he 
 wanted to be quit of the whole thing ; (2) Lord Ashton's violent 
 pro-Boerism made the continuation of present conditions im- 
 
 192 
 
SALE OF THE " DAILY NEWS " 193 
 
 possible. A. M. was forced to tell me (but now in strict con- 
 fidence) because those who had been approaching me re a new 
 Liberal weekly had also spoken to him, and he thought that 
 might provide comfortably for me.^ 
 
 During the next few days Cook gathered some 
 broken lights of information from Sir John Robinson, 
 who, however, would not say who the buyers were. He 
 must have been reminded more than once of the Pall 
 Mall debacle eight years before. But the buyers, he was 
 told, were " extreme men with whom Cook could not 
 work ". Indeed it was part of the bargain that Cook 
 should be dismissed. The writer of this biography is 
 interested to find that he also was contractually branded 
 for the slaughter. The rest of the stafi, it was thought, 
 might be reprieved. To Mr. Herbert Paul, of course, 
 the new regime would be congenial, but Mr. Alexander 
 Paul, a very loyal and respected colleague, ultimately 
 went with Cook. 
 
 It appeared from Sir John Robinson that the buying 
 of the Daily News was only a variant of the idea started 
 a year before by Mr. Massingham for a brand-new 
 Liberal paper — a scheme very nearly consummated, as 
 the advertisements of the new journal had been actually 
 on order at the Daily News. At the end of December 
 public interest in the event had begun to appear and 
 letters of sympathy to arrive. 
 
 As I was so much involved in these events, the 
 
 reader will perhaps excuse a slight personal reminiscence. 
 
 I had been in blissful ignorance of the approaching 
 
 calamity. 
 
 No sense had I of ills to come 
 Nor care beyond to-day. 
 
 The evening before the blow descended I had told my 
 
 ^ This apparently refers to a proposed Liberal Daily Graphic, the editorship 
 of which was ofEered to Cook. But the project fell through. 
 
 O 
 
194 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 old schoolmaster what I was doing and how I hoped my 
 present engagement with Cook would last for a quarter 
 of a century. Late the following night Cook came into 
 my room at the Daily News, stood with his back to the 
 fire and to my great surprise asked me if I would go 
 to South Africa. " Why should I go to South Africa ? 
 Was he not satisfied with my work ? " Then came the 
 news. " As for me ", said Cook, " I am case-hardened ; 
 I have gone through all this before. But I'm afraid you, 
 too, will have to leave with me ". It was a very stagger- 
 ing shock which I took home with me that night to my 
 lonely rooms (doubly lonely they seemed at Christmas 
 time) in the old Temple court. 
 
 On the last day of the year Cook had a talk with 
 Mr. Oppenheim which must again have recalled many 
 similar heart-revelations by Mr. Henry Yates Thompson. 
 The Diary thus records it : 
 
 H, 0. came in to my room at five. He had signed on Satur- 
 day the preliminary contract for the sale of the paper. Many 
 details were left to settle, but no doubt they would be settled, as 
 the purchasers were very keen. They were Mr. Lloyd George, 
 M.P., who acted for the syndicate — R. Lehmann, Cadbury, Leon 
 and others. Arnold Morley and he had not been keen, and at 
 first put them off. They came again and satisfied him and A. M. 
 that they were solid. He whined and winced a good deal in 
 telling his story. " I cannot tell you how much I feel it. I have 
 been thirty-two years connected with the Daily News. I don't 
 know what I shall do without it, and I agree entirely with your 
 views, which you have expressed with so much abihty and tact. 
 If I had been a younger man I should have stuck to you, even if 
 others disapproved, and have bought them out and taken the 
 steps we have often discussed for putting the paper on a proper 
 footing. But I am an old man and have not the strength, 
 physical or moral, for that work, nor do I care to under- 
 take the financial responsibility. I adhere absolutely to my 
 principles, but it is a question of money. The Morley family 
 are divided ; Lord Ashton is very angry ; the paper is costing 
 
SALE OF THE " DAILY NEWS " 195 
 
 money. So you see there are reasons. Lloyd George asked that 
 the Daily News should now take a neutral line on the war." 
 
 This, it will be noticed, is not quite consistent with the 
 statement that the Imperialists were to be ousted from 
 the staif. But Cook had not the slightest intention of 
 becoming a stop-gap or compounding with his political 
 conscience. He continues : 
 
 I said I could not on any account do their trimming for them. 
 " You forget that I have my position and reputation to con- 
 sider." " Oh, I did not promise Mr. George anything. It must 
 be left to you. I merely tell you what they suggest. What Mr. 
 Cadbury seems keenest on is the housing question, necessary for 
 the stamina of the race. But that, I said to him, is exactly what 
 Mr. Cook has done so much for. He knew that and said, ' We 
 do not want to make any unnecessary changes. We only want 
 a little give and take.' But you do not think you will work with 
 them ? " " Certainly not, and what I must press urgently on 
 you is as soon as possible to give me my six months' salary in 
 lieu of notice and let me go, for it is not pleasant to work on here 
 with a halter round my neck and my tongue tied." He said 
 they had not considered this matter — would do so when A. M. 
 returned. He told me aU this in confidence and hoped in any 
 case this would make no difierence to our friendly relations. 
 
 Other friends came along and " gloomed sympa- 
 thetically " with Cook. In January Cook visited Lord 
 Rosebery at Mentmore, where he met Rothschild and a 
 certain jockey, the latter " a decent enough fellow ". 
 Cook, interested, as usual, in everything, reports Roth- 
 schild's tribute to the great jockey, Sloan : '' A very able 
 man, who would make his way in anything, also prepared 
 to put you right in anything ". Cook goes for a walk 
 with Lord Rosebery, who on this and other occasions 
 was very condolent. " It was a great pity Harmsworth 
 was away. He did not beheve it would have happened 
 if he had been at home." 
 
196 LIFE OF Sm EDWAED COOK 
 
 A curious little entry in the Diary is that for 
 January 7 : 
 
 Dined with Hudson at the Continental. He was very nice. 
 Said he had people on hand who would readily have bought the 
 Daily News for the other side and at a much better price. Said 
 he was surprised at their getting money from Cadbury. He had 
 always failed. Cadbury used to say, " Liberalism is too high 
 and sacred a thing for money. But I wiU pray with you ". 
 Probably Mr. Lloyd George had prayed. 
 
 The reader who wishes to know more about the 
 manner and matter of Cook's journalism during this 
 period should read carefully the two farewell leading- 
 articles of January 9 and 10, 1901, which are reprinted 
 at the end of the Rights and Wrongs. In the first 
 he gives an invaluable precis of the policy of the paper 
 on the South African question during the previous 
 five years. " It has been presented, we hope, with 
 courtesy and toleration. That it has been presented 
 with intense conviction, we know. We would fain 
 believe that it has been presented also with a constant 
 reference to facts, and with an avoidance of any appeal 
 to passion and prejudice ". The most fanatical opponent 
 could scarcely fail to admit at least so much in Cook's 
 favour. 
 
 The first of these articles was a " Eetrospect ", the 
 second a " Forecast ". The latter dealt with the " New 
 Liberalism " and revealed at a glance the sound and 
 solid foundations of the faith which was known quite 
 accurately as Liberal Imperialism. 
 
 In the solution of all Imperial problems there is a great part 
 for Liberalism to play. The British Empire means nothing, or 
 nothing good, unless it be built upon the principles of self-govern- 
 ment, of equal rights, of political and commercial freedom. But 
 if the Liberal Party is to take its proper part lq the discussion 
 and solution of Imperial problems, it must show itself in sym- 
 
SALE OF THE " DAILY NEWS " 197 
 
 pathy with the national feeling at home and abroad ; and for 
 this two things are necessary. One is a frank acceptance of 
 Imperial burdens, and the other is the cultivation of a sym- 
 pathetic tone and temper in approaching Imperial questions. 
 The bias of patriotism may easily be carried to excess ; but the 
 bias of anti-patriotism is worse. It is worse because it means 
 loss of faith in that Imperial " trust and function " of which Mr. 
 Gladstone spoke in his memorable Fourth Midlothian, and a 
 party that has lost faith and hope can never be a true party of 
 progress. 
 
 He combats the foolish idea that devotion to foreign 
 and colonial questions necessarily means " stagnation 
 at home ". " The eyes of a fool ", quoted Mr. John 
 Burns with this implication not long ago, " are in the 
 corners of the earth ". But the citizen of a great 
 Commonwealth like the British is a much bigger fool 
 who limits his interest and sympathy within the bound- 
 aries of these small islands. The reader should study 
 all that Cook had to say on this question. Here we can 
 print only a brief passage : 
 
 We want for a sane Imperialism a safe England, a just 
 England, a right-doing England, a happy and contented Eng- 
 land, and we may add a business-hke England. It is to the 
 Liberal Party that the nation and the Empire ought to look for 
 the securing of these things. We want administrative and 
 political reform to open yet more fully a free career to talent and 
 to put the right men in the right places. We want a better 
 system of education to equip British citizens more adequately for 
 the keen industrial competition of these new times. We want 
 industrial reforms which shall at once secure to the workers 
 better conditions of life, and relieve the trade of the country from 
 the losses caused by industrial warfare. Above all, we want 
 social reforms which shall do whatever by Act of ParUament can 
 be done to save httle children from the terrible start in life which 
 is the lot of too many of them, to rescue a large proportion of the 
 people from the thraldom of drink, to provide the labouring 
 classes with decent houses for their working life, and with homes 
 
198 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 of honourable refuge in old age. An esteemed correspondent, 
 Dr. Guinness Rogers, wrote an article the other day on what he 
 called " The False Doctrine of the Anti ". It is not enough, he 
 meant, if we understood him aright, for Liberals to oppose and 
 to destroy — not enough to be anti-Chamberlainite, or anti-this 
 and anti-that. They must find also, and place before the country, 
 a constructive policy of social amelioration. In so doing, they 
 will be a patriotic party in the fullest sense of the term, for 
 patriotism, as Ruskin teaches, is nearer to a vice than to a virtue 
 unless the patriot strives to make the country of which he is 
 proud happier, stronger and better. 
 
 As Editor of the Daily News Cook had lived up to 
 these sentiments. He had concentrated especially on 
 " The Cry of the Children ", a phrase which came origin- 
 ally from Mrs. Browning. He published a large number 
 of articles on the question of half-time and the school 
 age in December 1898 and January 1899. These did 
 much to educate public opinion on the subject, and 
 in 1899 Robson's Half Timers Act was passed. The 
 school age was raised to twelve, and in 1918 to fourteen. 
 Other questions on which the Daily News specialized 
 were unemployment and overcrowding. Early in 1899 
 seventeen articles appeared on the subject, " No Room 
 to Live ". It is far from true that Cook was an Imperial- 
 ist who had his eyes fixed solely on the far corners of 
 the earth. From the early days of his friendship with 
 Toynbee he had always been alive to the need of social 
 betterments and these subjects were never neglected 
 under his editorships. 
 
 The last words Cook ever wrote as a responsible 
 editor are contained in the last paragraph of these calm 
 and dignified valedictions : 
 
 It is on these lines that we have endeavoured during the years 
 permitted to us to conduct the Daily News. No one can be more 
 conscious than the conductor of this newspaper of the meagre 
 array which any accomplishment shows by the side of his oppor- 
 
SALE OF THE " DAILY NEWS " 199 
 
 tunities. But there are occasions when it is permissible, per- 
 haps, to avow one's aims and intentions. Our object, then, has 
 been to keep steadily in view the larger interests and duties of 
 the country as an Imperial Power, and to sink, in some measure, 
 mere party considerations in the face of national emergencies. 
 But at the same time we have tried — and, thanks to able writers 
 and special correspondents, we have sometimes not wholly failed 
 in the attempt — to criticize as it deserved the class legislation 
 and administrative blundering of Lord Salisbury's Government ; 
 to contribute on one or two occasions towards the solution of 
 industrial strife ; to arouse public attention to social evils, and 
 to promote social reforms. It is on these lines of " sane 
 Imperialism " and social reform — and, as we believe, on no others 
 — that the New Liberalism may hope to regain the commanding 
 position of the Old, and to render efEective service in its time to 
 the country and the Empire. 
 
 About this time, when the purchase was complete, 
 some of us went down one morning to Bouverie Street 
 and found Mr. Lloyd George, the great War Minister 
 that was to be, in possession of the office. Henry had 
 broken into the spence with a vengeance and turned the 
 monks, or a few of them, adrift. The emotions of those 
 days are long ago spent, but in the retrospect one has to 
 admit that it was perfectly fair war, and that, however 
 painful it might be to lose congenial work and society and 
 a good salary, we had no reason to complain. Certainly 
 the financial obligations of the new and old proprietors 
 were fully and even generously met. 
 
 Cook asked the writer to remain at work for a few 
 weeks in order to avoid the danger of empty columns 
 in the paper. Meantime the policy of the paper on war 
 questions was to be as neutral as language could make it. 
 I agreed, but strange things supervened. Mr. Clayden, 
 an extreme pro-Boer and Little Englander, was appointed 
 to act as temporary editor, and on the very first evening 
 of my melancholy task I was summoned into his room 
 
200 LIFE OF SIK EDWAKD COOK 
 
 to answer for some delinquency. I had been writing 
 a note on some event in the history of King's College, 
 and had mentioned among other alumni of the College 
 the name of Alfred Milner, nothing being further from 
 my mind than any political allusion. I was told that 
 name must now never be mentioned. To chronicle 
 temporary events without alluding to such an important 
 actor therein would have required some agility, but such 
 were the orders. Moreover, as the evenings passed the 
 policy of the paper became nothing like so neutral as 
 language could make it. The temptation after so long 
 a repression was too much for certain gentlemen on the 
 staff, and, considering the passions involved, this is not 
 surprising. I went to Cook in his retirement in Russell 
 Square and told him the " carrying on " business was 
 impossible, and that I must be liberated. Thus ended 
 an epoch in our own lives and, I think, in the history of 
 a great journal. 
 
 Many and sincere were the condolences Cook received 
 on his severance from the Daily News. They came 
 from all regions, the highest and the humblest. Lord 
 Rosebery wrote (January 3, 1901) : 
 
 You have sustained a cruel blow, but you have fought a good 
 fight, and have kept the faith ; indeed the blow has come on 
 you because of that. Your friends and admirers will appreciate 
 this. I, who am both, hold you higher and dearer than 
 ever. As for your future, that is safe enough, and may be 
 much more powerful and important from what we now deem a 
 calamity. 
 
 As for the cause, which is after all our old friend " Imperium 
 et Libertas " — that too may be the better. The air may be 
 cleared ; men may see the right path and pursue it. In the pre- 
 sent, however, I do not deny that the heavens seem darkened 
 by the vacancy in your " pulpit ". 
 
 Still, people who take public affairs earnestly must expect to 
 receive heavy blows and take them smiling. And you who have 
 
SALE OF THE " DAILY NEWS " 201 
 
 had 80 much to endure in the Daily News ofl&ce, and have borne 
 it so bravely, will not now be less serene. 
 
 Mr. (afterwards Lord) Haldane wrote on the same 
 day from Scotland : 
 
 What you tell me is a great misfortune for Liberalism. For 
 yourself the position you have created and the name you have 
 made in the country should put things straight before long. 
 These are days in which men of really foremost rank are never 
 left long sought after, and you have many friends. 
 
 Mr. Asquith wrote a line or two of " sincere regret ", 
 expressing a hope that the splendid service which Cook 
 had rendered so long to the best type of Liberalism was 
 only interrupted for a moment. " The party never 
 needed it more ". It is significant that from fellow- 
 editors such as Mr. Buckle and Mr. Douglas Straight 
 came messages of the warmest and most particularized 
 appreciation. Mr. Buckle testified that the Daily News 
 dealings with the South African question had been " of 
 great — in some sense decisive — national importance ". 
 The Grand Old Man of Nonconformity, Dr. Guinness 
 Eogers, wrote, too, letters characteristically warm and 
 strong. " My interference ", he wrote, " is prompted 
 by my Liberalism and also by my sense of justice and 
 my admiration of the great work you have done and are 
 doing. I can speak the more freely because, as you 
 know, I do not agree with all your views of South 
 African policy ". He had read Cook's valedictory lead- 
 ing article " with admiration and sympathy and with 
 extreme indignation towards those who have brought 
 about such a result ". A letter from Mr. Theodore 
 Watts-Dunton contains the germ of Cook's volume on 
 The Rights and Wrongs of the South African War : 
 
 Ever since this war your leading articles have been the 
 greatest delight and support to all those who would fain be 
 
202 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 staunch Liberals if the Liberals would let them. Your analyses 
 of the sophistries, day by day, of the pro-Boers and your refuta- 
 tions of them have been so masterly that I feel you ought in 
 justice to yourself as a writer to collect them in a volume. Mr. 
 Swinburne asks me to say the same and to urge you to collect 
 and reprint them. I feel sure that you could do so without any 
 pecuniary loss, and they would be a possession indeed. 
 
 F. E. Garrett writes with a humorous suggestion that 
 Cook of the Daily News and Massingham of the Chronicle 
 should " change pulpits ". That might indeed have 
 been a satisfactory arrangement, involving the least 
 amount of disturbance and suffering. But a very 
 different arrangement ensued. Mr. Robertson Scott, a 
 fellow- journalist, remarked that " if things go on as they 
 have done this past year or two, newspaper men will 
 have to ensure their incomes at Lloyd's ". 
 
 Least expected, perhaps, of all tributes came from 
 Mr. George Cadbury, who wrote expressing the great 
 admiration for Cook's work on social questions. And 
 not least welcome were the kindly messages from the 
 composing room. On January 10 Cook received these 
 lines : 
 
 We desire to express to you our great regret at your leaving 
 the Daily News and to say how highly we hold you in our esteem 
 and, if we may say so, in our regard. Your consideration for the 
 Companionship, your courtesy to its members, your readiness to 
 ease our labour whenever possible, have been and are appre- 
 ciated by us. . . . You have been one of the best of Labour's 
 friends, and not less its friend because your sympathy has always 
 been tendered with judgment. We who have necessarily been 
 your constant readers you have taught to take broad views, to 
 hold intense convictions without letting their intensity lessen 
 our courtesy or our toleration, and to qualify our judgment with 
 a constant reference to facts. 
 
 The Companionship ended by hoping that Cook would 
 always be "a force in British journalism ". The 
 
SALE OF THE " DAILY NEWS " 203 
 
 nature of Cook's reply may be gathered from a further 
 letter from the composing room : 
 
 I beg to acknowledge your kind letter of yesterday. The 
 Companionship read it with, if that were possible, iiicreased 
 respect for the writer, and I am to thank you for the enclosure, 
 which, however, was not needed to comimemorate your five years 
 with us. Some of us will be better all our lives for the privilege 
 of having worked with you. Your gift wiU be applied to the 
 Fund from which we contribute to the trade charities, which 
 lately have been heavily drawn upon. 
 
 May I add a word on my own account, less as a member of 
 the Companionship than as one who has been helped not only 
 to see clearly, but to the method of thinking clearly and judging 
 fairly or with some approach to fairness by your writing ? But, 
 indeed, I cannot say what I would. We shall all miss you because 
 we cannot help it. 
 
 C. F. Toms 
 {Father of the Chapel).^ 
 
 There was also a little meeting and presentation in 
 the composing room at the Daily News. Mr. Alexander 
 Paul had the happy thought of taking down the depart- 
 ing Editor's speech on this occasion and sending it to 
 Mrs. Cook : 
 
 Mr. Murch, Mr. Toms, and Gentlemen — Words and time 
 would aUke fail me to express what I feel on this most unexpected 
 and gratifying occasion. I say time would fail me, for I am in 
 the middle — or, unfortunately, only beginning — my last leader 
 for the Daily News. This, as we all know, is an age of machinery, 
 and I suppose there is a tendency lq newspaper oflfices, from the 
 highest to the lowest, to regard every one as a mere machine, 
 without any feelings worth consideration. But nothing has 
 been a greater pleasure to me here than to feel that in some small 
 way I was mixed up in human relationships, as it were, with 
 those who were concerned ia the production of the paper. I can 
 
 ^ So the head of the composing room is entitled — a reminiscence, it is said, 
 of those far-gone days when the first printing-presses were set up in chapels or 
 churches. 
 
204 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 truly say that the pleasantest quarter of an hour in my nightly 
 work here is that which I spent at the end of this stone with Mr. 
 Murch ; not only because my night's work is then over, but 
 because I thereby gained the opportunity of coming iuto some 
 sort of relationship with those engaged in the production of the 
 paper. I have not words to thank you sufficiently for the 
 exceedingly kind terms of the address which the father of the 
 chapel read to me. 
 
 This of course is not in any sense a political occasion, and I 
 do not mean to say anything about the pohtical aspect here, 
 beyond the expression of my extreme gratitude for one remark 
 in your address, which discloses to me that, though some of you 
 may have differed from me, you have recognized my sincerity 
 and conviction. I think I may fairly claim, without undue 
 boasting, that my journalistic career has shown that I am not 
 one of those who are unprepared, at the call of duty, to make 
 some sacrifice for the sake of principle. This, I think, will appeal 
 to members of Trade Unions — for, as I understand, one of the 
 highest and best qualities of the trade-union spirit is that it leads 
 men to think more of their trade and their cause than of them- 
 selves. What I would venture to claim, leaving political and 
 public matters apart altogether, is — and I hope you wiU not 
 contradict me — that at any rate I have shown myself not to be 
 inefficient in the workmanlike qualities of journalism. Perhaps 
 I may add, lastly, that my handwriting — compared with that 
 of some other members of the stafi — might almost be called 
 legible. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, time presses, and I must say a word which 
 may not be more difficult to compose than any other — but 
 which is more difficult than any other to say with the tongue. 
 That word is " Good-bye ". Thank you most heartily, not only 
 for this most gratifying address, but also for this most acceptable 
 and useful token of your regard, which I shall ever cherish among 
 my most valuable possessions. 
 
 And, not to continue unduly these quotations, a letter 
 from the Headmaster of Winchester College (Dr. W. A. 
 Fearon) must have especially lightened the gloom of 
 these dark wintry days : 
 
SALE OF THE " DAILY NEWS " 205 
 
 Jany. 11, 1901. 
 
 I hardly know whether friends ought to condole with you on 
 your change of fortune. At first it looks like a second stroke of 
 cruel luck ; but, though I don't know what your destiny may be, 
 of course I can't doubt that you can command pretty well what 
 position you choose. However, my main purpose in writing is 
 to tell you with what joy and pride I have watched the line the 
 Daily News has taken on public questions and the position to 
 which you have raised it. I think we Wykehamists may well 
 all feel proud of your doings in the last five years, and not least 
 of your fine valedictory article of yesterday. May you quickly 
 again find yourself in the commanding position which you ought 
 to occupy. 
 
 But the " positions " of which Dr. Fearon speaks 
 are not numerous or easy to command, and when Cook 
 went abroad on January 25 for his unfailing anodyne 
 of foreign travel his future cannot have seemed very 
 assured. One opening, however, was available. Early 
 in January, Mr. W. J. Fisher, Editor of the Daily 
 Chronicle, had offered him a leader-writership on that 
 paper. For such a position at least Cook must have 
 felt that he had some qualifications. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 AS EDITOR AND JOURNALIST 
 
 Praeclara est aequabilitas in omni vita et idem semper vultus 
 eademque frons. (" Excellent is equanimity in every scene of life : a 
 countenance and brow unchanged amid the changes of fortune.") — Cic. 
 De off. i. xxvi. 
 
 The severance from tlie Daily News ended Cook's record 
 as a responsible editor. He was to have other offers 
 of editorships — golden ones from South Africa, and in 
 England of such papers as Black and White, a projected 
 Weekly Review, and, a little later, strange to relate, of 
 the Pall Mall Gazette to be run " on independent lines ". 
 In replying to the latter invitation on March 4, 1903, 
 Cook summarizes his editorial record. " My main effort 
 in journalism ", he writes, " has been (1) to influence the 
 Liberal Party in an Imperialist direction ; (2) to support 
 social reforms. The political causes which interested 
 me most at the ' D.N. ', after South Africa and other 
 Imperial questions, were what I called ' No Room to 
 Live ' and ' The Cry of the Children ' ". He expresses 
 his belief that " the competitive party system is necessary 
 to the effectual working of the British political system ". 
 He has always been a party man and though having 
 " often shown some independence ", his sympathies 
 are still with Liberalism. But he concludes, " Apart 
 from other considerations I am not sure that I should 
 
 206 
 
AS EDITOR AND JOUENALIST 207 
 
 care to take the editorship of an evening paper again. I 
 am at present very busy with other things " — meaning 
 chiefly the monumental edition of Ruskin on which he 
 was now engaged. 
 
 Cook was still to work for several years in daily 
 journalism. But this is a convenient place to say a few 
 words on his journalistic attributes, as my own oppor- 
 tunities of judging them fell in these last years of his 
 editorial life. 
 
 Of all Cook's qualities that which my memory most 
 vividly recalls was his equability. The task of bringing 
 out a great paper six evenings in the week involves many 
 worries and irritations, but I never remember Cook 
 showing any signs of being either worried or irritated. 
 In fact there was a wide range of emotions, such as 
 anger and indignation, which I cannot recall that Cook 
 often or ever exhibited. Only on one occasion do I 
 remember seeing him in any way exalted or enthusiastic, 
 and that was when Lord Roberts turned the tide of war 
 in South Africa in the British favour. Even when the 
 final blow fell Cook's " cheerful equanimity " was not 
 seriously shaken. I can easily return in memory to 
 the January evenings when he wrote those memorable 
 valedictory articles, which, by the way, were not 
 carefully prepared but written in the ordinary course 
 of nocturnal journalism. I was in his room just as 
 he finished the last words. " I'm a bit tired ", was all 
 he said as he rose from his chair. No one could have 
 guessed, though probably he himself suspected, that he 
 had just accomplished his swan-song as a responsible 
 editor. 
 
 It was about one o'clock in the morning that Cook 
 was wont to ascend from his quiet and rather awful 
 sanctum to the region of noise and bustle in the com- 
 posing room above, there to give the next day's paper its 
 
208 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 final form. His serene presence was strikingly and 
 almost rebukingly contrasted with the tumult there. 
 It was like the appearance of a calm and confident 
 commander on a field of hard-contested fight. I believe 
 the printers and compositors had this feeling. Nothing 
 testifies better to the respect, mingled with personal 
 affection, with which he was regarded by his more 
 mechanical but very important and responsible colleagues 
 in the production of a daily paper than the letters, usually 
 written at Christmas time or the New Year, which Cook 
 received from the " Companionships " of his composing 
 rooms. I have already quoted those received after the 
 debacle, but the normal and periodical messages from 
 the upper regions show such a curious and correct 
 appreciation of Cook's habits and temperament that a 
 few more may be interesting : 
 
 " Daily News " Companionship, 
 January 1, 1899. 
 
 Dear Sir — Permit me on behalf of my colleagues and myself 
 to wish you a Happy and Prosperous New Year. You have 
 become so familiar to us by your nightly visits to our room that 
 you have become almost as one of ourselves. We should sadly 
 miss your calm and serene figure amid the tornado that nightly 
 rages around us while in the throes of getting the paper to 
 press. 
 
 To a philosopher there is much in our nightly experience to 
 give rise to reflection ; and for any one with a sense of humour, 
 much to amuse. But it cannot be a very amusing thing to fill 
 our columns with just what that fickle jade, the Public, wants for 
 her daily appetite, and you doubtless have many a bad quarter 
 of an hour sifting the chaff from the wheat. Good luck attend 
 your efforts in the year that has now commenced. In all you 
 undertake, and in all you desire, both in business and in domestic 
 life, may you be blessed with success. 
 
 For ourselves — well, sir, the New Year will be an interesting 
 one. There will be need for Patience and Fortitude (the capital 
 
AS EDITOR AND JOURNALIST 209 
 
 letters are, I think, justified). But whatever be our experience, I 
 am sure we have your good wishes, — Yours sincerely, 
 
 Harry Whitehorn 
 {FatJier of the Chapel). 
 
 Another of these happily expressed letters is dated 
 Christmas Eve 1900 : 
 
 Dear Sir — I am desired by the Companionship to express to 
 you their best wishes for your Christmas and New Year. If it be 
 not presumptuous for the hand to address the head and the heart, 
 we would say how glad we are to be the instruments of such wise 
 thought as that which directs us. We cannot help taking pride in 
 our Editor, and hope that all his efforts towards peace and good- 
 will among men and among nations may be blessed to himself. 
 
 But some wishes will not get themselves expressed. Will you 
 take my desire to express them for the expression itself, and 
 believe me, on behalf of the Companionship, to remain, with 
 respectful regards, C. F. Toms 
 
 {Father of the Chapel). 
 
 I have stressed a good deal the impassivity of Cook's 
 temperament. But the reader must not picture in his 
 mind a morose, solenm and insusceptible person. I 
 should say that Cook's serenity was matched, and perhaps 
 in some degree accounted for, by his sunny, light-hearted 
 and invariable good humour. Cook had great depths of 
 character, but laughter, like the dv^ptO/xov yeXaafia 
 of the deep sea, was always at and near the surface. 
 He usually allowed me to suggest my own subjects for 
 notes and leaderettes, but I always submitted them to 
 him before writing. Persisting trifles are sometimes of 
 the essence of our memories, and the pleasant, reflective, 
 encouraging smile with which he would assent to my 
 choice, is still vivid to me. And it mattered nothing 
 how busy he was when I, or any one else, broke in upon 
 him. He could always " switch ofi " and resume without 
 any flutter. 
 
 p 
 
210 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 In fact, Cook's indisposition to worry or hustle some- 
 times set the nerves of contiguous persons on edge. I 
 have seen him postpone the writing of his " leader " 
 to an hour which seemed to imperil the very appear- 
 ance of a paper next morning or at any rate a paper 
 with adequately supplied editorial columns. Compositors 
 might rage, printers stand waiting, railway trains in 
 imagination move out, but Cook remained calm and 
 irritatingly deliberate. Of course he was full of ex- 
 pedients. He had always, as is customary, some editorial 
 material in reserve, and I remember how surprised I was 
 one morning to find for the first time a "leaderette'' 
 of mine forming a paragraph in the conventional " three- 
 decker ". This, however, was only an emergency 
 measure, though on the Westminster Gazette also Cook 
 would sometimes resort to the composite leader. 
 
 I have wondered whether Cook's equability was more 
 physical or philosophic. He had, no doubt, a touch of 
 that " stoical pococurantism " which Carlyle tells us is 
 characteristic of English youths of high birth or high 
 education. At long last, perhaps, nothing really 
 mattered. Such a creed may have its dangers. But 
 it may also act as a sedative, while those who hold it 
 are often apt to insist, v/ith a sort of noble inconsequence, 
 that certain things such as conscience and principle 
 shall matter exceedingly so far as their own influence and 
 example go. I detected something of this spirit in Cook. 
 " The best preservation ", he once wrote, " against the 
 worry and responsibility of journalism is not to take the 
 work too seriously ". And he then quoted, as he was 
 rather fond of doing, the reply which Mr. John Morley 
 in his editorial days dictated to his secretary for 
 transmission to a contributor who was excited about 
 the non-appearance of some article he had sent in : 
 " Write and tell him ", said Mr. Morley, " that the world 
 
AS EDITOR AND JOURNALIST 211 
 
 moves even though his article does not appear, and that 
 it would continue to move if the paper itself never 
 appeared again ". 
 
 Under Cook's control the Daily News attained the 
 highest ideals of daily journalism. With all his academic 
 culture and literary interest the editor was no pedant. 
 He accepted the conditions under which a modern 
 newspaper is produced. He was not indifferent to the 
 external form, and he always called in aid the pictur- 
 esque and varied headline. Some of the more recent 
 developments of the daily Press in the direction of 
 a cruder sensationalism, the undue prominence, for 
 example, given to the sordid dramas of criminal and 
 divorce courts, he would not have approved or en- 
 couraged. He detested the spirit of commercialism 
 which was invading the journalistic world, and he would 
 have condemned some of the natural effects of that spirit. 
 If the object of newspaper production is simply to make 
 money, the one thing needful will be to indulge the 
 public taste. The popular journal, I have heard it said, 
 must hit the taste not simply of the busman but of the 
 busman's wife. To cater for the public palate in this 
 way, without any higher motive, means inevitably to 
 degrade it. And if the process goes on indefinitely and 
 unchecked, journalism may in time become as immoral, 
 or non-moral, as that earth-born Fame who, according 
 to Virgil, was : 
 
 Tain ficti pravique tenax quam nuntia veri.-^ 
 
 There is much that is disquieting and discouraging 
 in modern journalism. A democracy is notoriously 
 unable to choose its friends, and journalism gives to the 
 bad man a means of acquiring a power and influence 
 
 ^ " As devoted to the false and the foul as to the publication of true 
 news". — Aen. iv. 188. 
 
212 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 whicli otherwise lie miglit not attain. Newspapers are 
 published, and reach a large circulation, whose influ- 
 ence is steadily downwards. To hundreds of thousands 
 in our country districts the sweepings of the criminal 
 courts are served up regularly every week for Sunday 
 consumption. Cook leaned by temperament towards 
 hope and toleration. He often referred to these questions 
 in his public addresses. Speaking to the Authors' Club 
 he said : "I suspect that in many cases the alternative 
 is not between reading the newspapers and reading no 
 good literature but between reading the newspapers and 
 reading nothing at all ". Again, in his speech at the 
 reopening of the Gladstone Library at the National 
 Liberal Club (1917) he declared it was ''probable that 
 the newspapers are schoolmasters which bring a certain 
 number of the great public to read other things ". He 
 was thinking here rather of the newspaper of the Scraps 
 or Cuts type. But I am sure he would have agreed that 
 the persistent reading of a certain class of newspapers of 
 wide circulation is a devil's schooling of the worst sort, 
 and that if the choice indeed lie between reading such 
 papers and reading nothing at all the latter alternative 
 is greatly to be preferred. 
 
 But, happily, commercialism is better in practice 
 than in theory. The general results of the new spirit 
 have been far less disastrous than the change as ex- 
 pounded by some of its promoters might have led us 
 to expect. We have in this country a large and, let 
 us hope, a growing body of tast6 and opinion which 
 maintains a large number of daily papers of the highest 
 character, and forbids even in our more popular and 
 democratic journals too low an appeal to vulgar in- 
 stincts and appetites. 
 
 Cook, though perhaps not very fond of journalistic 
 cliches, was quite willing to compromise on these non- 
 
AS EDITOR AND JOURNALIST 213 
 
 essentials. A paper had to be readable and read. 
 " Unless we are read to-day ", he once said, " we shall 
 never be read. Hence our straining after effect, our 
 exaggerated emphasis, our damnable iterations, our 
 headlines and our booms. Let us strive and scream for 
 to-morrow we die ". This, of course, is a humorous 
 travesty of his own practice. Yet he had himself done 
 very much to promote what was best in the New Journal- 
 ism, and he neglected no legitimate device to lighten and 
 brighten his daily numbers. For example, I remember 
 his counsel that a leader or leaderette or general article 
 should strike off on a note Hkely to arrest the attention. 
 To take an absurd and extreme example, a new journalist 
 drawing attention to the Report, say, of a Royal Com- 
 mission on Devastation by Rats, would not begin, " The 
 Royal Commission, etc., has just issued a valuable report 
 which all who are interested in sanitation and domestic 
 economy should carefully peruse ". He would certainly 
 begin with the word " Rats ! " followed by other arresting 
 vocables, and only when the reader's eye and brain were 
 secured would he reveal the rather commonplace peg on 
 which the whole screed was hung. 
 
 Cook's presence on a paper was sufficient to repel the 
 more vulgar manifestations of journalistic modernism. 
 But the journals he controlled were equally far from dul- 
 ness or heaviness. Here is a passage from an article in 
 the Pall Mall Gazette of January 9, 1912, written when 
 Cook finally departed from daily journalism — a tribute 
 the more weighty and valuable as coming from a fellow- 
 craftsman : 
 
 Whether one agreed with its poHtics or not, the Daily News 
 in Cook's hands became one of the most varied, coherent and 
 altogether delightful papers ever published, well deserving the 
 title of " the only organ " bestowed on it by its readers. There 
 has been no happier union in recent journalism of political 
 
214 LIFE OF Sm EDWARD COOK 
 
 instinct, fine literary judgment and interests, and an excellent 
 news service combining to produce a paper that was always 
 individual and amusing, and often brilliant, and tbat made itself 
 a power in the land by the pungency, and not by the partisan- 
 ship, of its leading articles. 
 
 It is quite a mistake to fancy that all that is best in 
 modern journalism is due to what is known as the 
 commercial spirit. 
 
 But Cook's most personal and distinctive gift as a 
 journalist was his clear and clarifying mind. This has 
 been again and again illustrated in preceding pages. It 
 was his attribute from his earliest days, but it attained its 
 highest and most effective expression in his long-con- 
 tinued exposition of the British case in the South African 
 controversy in the editorial columns of the Daily News, 
 and then in his book on the Rights and Wrongs of the 
 Transvaal War. Through the months of that contro- 
 versy, Cook gave to his readers day by day a simple 
 and clear presentment of the situation as it then stood. 
 The main issue was always cleared from the undergrowth 
 of conflicting and confusing circumstance and made to 
 stand out unmistakably in the foreground of the picture. 
 In the Pall Mall's brilliant and appreciative analysis of 
 Cook as a journalist, from which I have quoted, the 
 critic remarks of the Rights and Wrongs that it 
 
 . . . summarises his special characteristics as a political jour- 
 nalist — his terse, flexible, sun-clear style, his candour and sense 
 of proportion, his sustained power of close and cumulative argu- 
 ment, his admirable generalship in the disposition of chapters 
 and paragraphs, and that quality of dry, dispassionate acuteness 
 which seems more and not less judicial from being based on an 
 avowed and reasoned belief in the righteousness of our side. 
 Mr. Cook not only drove a broad and solid highway through the 
 marshes and bogs of Boer and British diplomacy, but he made 
 that highway positively fascinating for the ordinary wayfarer. 
 He gave us a bird's-eye view of the tangled and confusing negotia- 
 
AS EDITOR AND JOURNALIST 215 
 
 tions that preceded the war, showing the bearing of each fresh 
 move on the general situation and the hidden impulses that 
 dictated it. What before was a blurred and bewildering chaos 
 became under his treatment a consecutive narrative of keen and 
 even exciting interest. Piecing the evidence together in stroke 
 upon stroke of masterly precision, he summed up with a pre- 
 sentation of the British case that could not and cannot be 
 answered, and is never likely to be bettered. 
 
 Though Cook was much in political society and was 
 always ready to listen to suggestion and advice he owed 
 very little to inspiration from without. I believe he 
 could have conducted the whole of the South African 
 negotiations in a satisfactory manner " off his own 
 bat ". He not only relied on facts but always went 
 for his facts to original sources — blue-books, statutes, 
 dispatches and other such documents. He acted on 
 the principle that it is " melius petere fontes quam 
 rivulos sectari ". I am not sure that his powers of 
 memory were at all exceptional. He would sometimes 
 come into my room in the course of writing an article 
 and ask me to help him to some stanza, it might be of 
 Omar Khayyam or some other poet, which he required at 
 the moment. But I never knew him to be at a loss for 
 a fact or a political citation, and I never remember 
 a single occasion on which he was caught out in a fault 
 of inaccuracy or misinterpretation or unfair comment. 
 And a very keen searchHght was thrown in those days 
 upon each issue of the Daily News. Cook's line of 
 argument and policy during the South African War was 
 truly his own. Mr. J. L. Garvin described Cook, with 
 much happiness and truth, as "the statesman among 
 Journalists ". But Cook was also a statesman among 
 statesmen. He remarks in his Diary that his line on 
 the Daily News was usually taken before any Liberal 
 leader had spoken and thus " created a favourable atmo- 
 
216 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 sphere " in advance. And, as already remarked, througli 
 the Daily News he conducted indirectly the politics 
 of a large number of British journals and provided 
 material for countless writers and speakers. 
 
 One of Cook's greatest services to journalism was his 
 unfailing championship of its dignity and independence. 
 At least twice in his own career he sacrificed livelihood 
 and position at the bidding of conscience, and his sup- 
 port and sympathy were always with those who did like- 
 wise. When, at the end of 1899, Mr. H. W. Massingham 
 parted from the Daily Chronicle in the same spirit, Cook, 
 though differing widely from that well-known publicist 
 on many first-rate questions, wrote : 
 
 In the present matter your courage in asserting and main- 
 taining the most honourable traditions of our profession will, I 
 am sure, command the admiration of every journahst. They 
 certainly command mine, and I hope you will not mind my 
 writing these few lines to say so. 
 
 Some years later I myself, for reasons still dark to me, 
 was embroiled with my proprietors in that most pre- 
 carious of all countries, South Africa. Cook wrote to 
 me then : 
 
 Not knowing the particulars I cannot get to the heart of 
 the latest row. But editors are bom to such things as the sparks 
 fly upward. Stick on, stand no unstandable nonsense, do the 
 best you can under the circumstances for the right — and what 
 more can one do ? 
 
 And in conclusion, I never knew any worker so 
 completely master of his job as E. T. Cook. I am sure 
 he would have approved Mr. Winston Churchill's idea 
 of perfect happiness — a supply of clean paper, a good 
 pen and an article commissioned to be written. I can 
 still see him, with his quotations and other material at 
 his hand and the ground-plan of his task mentally laid 
 
AS EDITOR AND JOURNALIST 217 
 
 down, beginning the composition of a leading article. 
 He gave the impression of being completely " above his 
 subject ", and of making his points with equal ease and 
 enjoyment. He never seemed to labour in composition 
 or to make heavy weather of his work. Journalism was 
 not to him, as to many, a mere irdpepyov or " side-show ". 
 He threw his whole personality into his editorial work, and 
 laid under contribution all his vast resources of know- 
 ledge and culture and wisdom. We may hope that the 
 tradition which Cook so courageously maintained will 
 not be lost to our British journalism, and that the pro- 
 fession will still do honour and service to these high 
 ideals and thus continue to attract men like Edward 
 Cook into its ranks. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 LITERARY WORK 
 
 Tentantem maiora fere, praesentibus aequum. (" Always striving 
 towards higher things, yet content with the present.") — HoR. Epp. 
 i. 17. 24. 
 
 Some surprise may be felt that when Cook was excluded 
 from a responsible position in journalism he should not 
 have turned towards ParHament as an alternative sphere 
 of work and service. Instead of this, he entered the 
 more sequestered paths of literature. In this he exer- 
 cised his own wisdom in his own behalf. The Liberal 
 Party, to which he would have been attached, was 
 hopelessly divided and defeated. Party politics offered 
 no attractions in those days, and Cook, by declining par- 
 liamentary honours, avoided a large amount of wasted 
 time and energy. 
 
 But, though editorships were no more to be his, Cook 
 was not destined or intending to retire wholly from 
 politics. For a good many years he exercised a very 
 powerful political influence and did invaluable service to 
 the Liberal Party by his contributions to the Contem- 
 porary and other reviews, by such works as his mono- 
 graph on the " Foreign Policy of Lord Rosebery " and 
 as leader-writer for ten years on the Daily Chronicle. 
 
 The parting from the Daily News was financially a 
 serious matter for Cook who was not in a position to 
 
 218 
 
LITERARY WORK 219 
 
 forgo the income of regular professional work. The con- 
 gratulations and commendations he received from all 
 quarters were not convertible into solid cash for the pay- 
 ment of bills, and even Cook ran a risk, which others have 
 not always so happily avoided, of being actually stranded. 
 An entry in the Diary explains how the S.O.S. implied 
 in Cook's position received its response : 
 
 Early in January, on our needs becoming known, Fisher of 
 the Daily Chronicle had come over to the office {Daily News) and 
 asked me to leader-write. I said I must have a holiday. As 
 nothing else offered, on March 30 I wrote offering myself. After 
 negotiations by letter and two interviews, I began work. 
 
 It appears from another entry that before Cook left 
 the Daily News efforts had been made by a certain group 
 of gentlemen to buy the Daily Chronicle with a view to 
 making Cook the editor thereof. The proprietors had 
 parleyed, but in the end demanded the prohibitive price 
 of £400,000 (including, I think, Lloyds' News). It should 
 be added incidentally that the price of the Daily News to 
 its purchasers was understood to have been £100,000. 
 
 The writer remembers how shocked he was on return- 
 ing from South Africa to find Cook sitting in a small 
 room in Whitefriars Street and writing articles under 
 the direction and correction of a superior authority. I 
 had been so accustomed to work under " E.T.C." as a 
 sovereign power that I could scarcely recognise him in 
 a subordinate capacity, or imagine the sort of superman 
 who should dare to wield the blue pencil over the off- 
 springs of his skill and wisdom. But Cook himself 
 accepted his new position with characteristic stoicism. 
 He made no attempt to mitigate or disguise the fact that 
 he was no longer a master but a servant. He was 
 entirely free from personal conceit or affectation, and I 
 am sure neither Mr. W. J. Fisher nor Mr. Robert Donald 
 
220 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 had any cause to complain that he ever tried to over- 
 step his new limitations. It sometimes appeared that 
 Cook took an interest in observing in his own case, and 
 yet from a quite detached point of view, how fortune 
 could deal with a man who certainly gave her little 
 pretext for ill favour. I believe he would have ac- 
 quiesced lento risu in the darkest of fortune's frowns, 
 so far as it affected his material interest and position. 
 
 Cook, in the excellent Horatian phrase, was " prae- 
 sentibus aequus ", quite willing and able to be happy 
 under existing conditions. " I am jogging along com- 
 fortably enough ", he reported to me in South Africa ; 
 " writing leaders for Fisher, also for the Sunday Sun 
 (which is the one professedly Liberal Imperial organ, but 
 a poor concern). It is a very easy way of making one's 
 living, and when I am lazy I rejoice in the leisure and 
 absence of all worry and responsibility. At other times 
 I pine for opportunities ". 
 
 The Chronicle of those days, with its modern " com- 
 mercial " spirit and a rather lukewarm Imperialism, was 
 not entirely congenial. Perhaps no man who had been 
 accustomed to command in a newspaper office could have 
 succeeded so well as Cook in obeying for a long ten 
 years of service. He knew that party loyalty always 
 involves some compromise, and the sacrifices he had to 
 make on the Chronicle were not more than could have 
 been expected. On essentials Cook at no time would 
 have been willing to compromise. Yet the loss of self- 
 determination and the want of complete agreement with 
 a poHcy which was not so strongly Imperial as Cook 
 could wish prompts, I think, exactly two bitter comments, 
 and no more, in his Diary. On one occasion he is offended 
 at a " sickening " opportunism in poHcy, and on the other 
 he expresses " anger and humiliation " when his leading 
 article was " unmercifully and crudely mangled ". It 
 
LITERARY WORK 221 
 
 is no reflection upon the able editors under whom Cook 
 worked to say that his position, considering his great 
 record and reputation, must have been a trying one and 
 called for all that wonderful patience of which he was 
 master. 
 
 In June 1903 Cook suffered a blow compared with 
 which all vicissitudes of material fortune must have 
 seemed of small account. The death of his wife was 
 a stroke from the staggering effect of which he never 
 completely rallied. The unsociable man is often the 
 most domestic. Cook courted and made few friends, 
 and he was the more devoted to and dependent upon 
 a wife who had been also his truest friend, comrade 
 and helper. Most readers will know the delightful 
 guides to London which Mrs. Cook (E. C. Cook) wrote 
 partly in joint authorship with her husband,^ of which 
 we find Cook preparing further editions when his wife 
 had gone. Of this grief, too. Cook repressed all out- 
 ward manifestation, reserving for his own intimate 
 Diary any utterance thereof. Many a broken and 
 poignant sentence therein reveals the unhealing wound. 
 The Diary, as might be expected, becomes during the 
 next few years subject to long interruptions. A new 
 attempt to pick up the threads under date December 10, 
 1905, contains a passage which for E.T.C. is strangely 
 elegiac : 
 
 To-day walked my usual longer round to Mongeweli — very 
 sunny and frosty. Sun went down behind Streatley Hill, as I 
 came back. Full moon opposite. When the fire of love and 
 gold of happiness die, there rises the cold orb of duty, with some 
 faint rosy streaks cast around it from the sunken sun. 
 
 With the ending of the Baity News editorship the 
 
 ^ Highways and Byways in London and London and Environs (with special 
 chapters on the British Museum, the National Gallery, the National Portrait 
 Gallery and South Kensington, by E. T. Cook). 
 
222 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 political interest also of the diaries naturally diminishes. 
 Cook is less able to help and is accordingly less courted 
 by political personages. He still frequents political 
 salons and dining-rooms and duly records the con- 
 versation. His friendship with Lord Rosebery remains 
 unabated, and through his active membership of the 
 Liberal League, which grew out of the Liberal Imperial 
 Coimcil early in 1902, he was in constant touch with 
 the " Vice-Presidents ", Mr. Haldane, Mr. Asquith, 
 Sir Edward Grey and the other protagonists of the 
 Imperial tabernacle in the Liberal camp. That party 
 was in a truly parlous state. There were constant 
 searchings of heart over Lord Rosebery, whose " in and 
 out " policy, and Achillean habit of shouting from the 
 ramparts (Chesterfield, Burnley and the like) and then 
 diving under canvas once more, seems to have caused 
 as much irritation as the earlier and original example 
 of the sort in the Grecian army under the walls of Troy. 
 In the retrospect it is difficult to discover what Lord 
 Rosebery was really expected to do. 
 
 A curious note to history is contained in Cook's 
 report of Mr. Chamberlain's table conversation at a 
 dinner in May 1901. The Secretary of State for the 
 Colonies remarked that 
 
 . . . Rosebery had often had the ball at his feet — e.g. after 
 the " predominant partner " speech. If he had stuck to that, his 
 future would have been certain. We leaders were far too com- 
 mitted, but he would have captured our followers, I was asked 
 to speak soon after. I waited to give my decision to see. If he 
 had stuck, I should not have spoken — should have had nothing 
 to say. As soon as he explained away, I wired, " Yes, I will 
 speak ", 
 
 It may be questioned whether Rosebery, if he had 
 " stuck ", would have promoted any better the unity 
 of the Liberal Party. History may perhaps never 
 
LITEKARY WORK 223 
 
 trouble herself about the family feuds in the Liberal 
 Party of these days. Unity was secured in the end by 
 the fusion of the tabernacles, or, perhaps more correctly, 
 by the absorption of one tabernacle by the other, the 
 " Vice-Presidents ", to the astonishment of some people, 
 accepting office under Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. 
 One service, at any rate, was rendered by these states- 
 men. Lord Rosebery and his lieutenants, Mr. Asquith, 
 Sir Edward Grey, Mr. Haldane and others, gave eloquent 
 and abiding expression to sentiments which were at 
 once Imperial and Liberal. They were the exponents 
 of an Imperialism freed from any vice of megalomania 
 or the " Asiatic " proclivities of Lord Beaconsfield. It 
 was an Imperialism in correspondence with the attributes 
 of a " free, tolerant and unaggressive Empire ", and 
 being such, we may wonder that it proved rather a 
 battlefield than a common ground of agreement among 
 all sections of the party. 
 
 During the few years following the Daily News' 
 downfall. Sir Alfred Milner was an unfailing visitor of 
 Cook's during the great pro-consul's vacations from 
 his South African task. On one occasion Cook places 
 at his friend's disposal Rose Cottage, the pretty little 
 retreat near Reading which he had acquired. Though 
 his visage may have been, in the phrase of Balzac, 
 " impassible comme ceux des diplomates ", Milner's 
 conversation was always frank and unreserved, and 
 Cook's record of these visits throws light on events and 
 persons in the moving South African scene. One of these 
 visits occurred soon after Sir Alfred had received his 
 peerage, which seems to have been offered quite suddenly 
 by the King in the course of a conversation with His 
 Majesty. Milner had been offered this high honour 
 before, but had preferred and accepted instead a G.C.B. 
 And when he was ennobled there were difficulties. 
 
224 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 Would residence in chambers, suitable enough for an 
 unmarried commoner, be " seemly " in a peer 'of the 
 realm ? Cook had no answer to this. " The danger ", 
 he said, "is guinea-pigging — you must set a new de- 
 parture ", which Milner dutifully undertook to do. Cook 
 was happy in the friendship, and even the companion- 
 ship, of many of the choicest spirits of his times. But 
 no one who knew something of his inmost thought 
 and feeling could fail to be aware that Milner of all 
 men living was for him the highest moral and intellectual 
 exemplar. Certainly no public man ever enjoyed a more 
 powerful, constant and whole-hearted support than 
 Milner received from Cook during his long day's work 
 in South Africa. 
 
 But though Cook as a prolific writer in the Daily 
 Chronicle and the Sunday Sun, for which latter paper 
 he also wrote leaders, continued his interest and 
 influence in politics, his main and most congenial task 
 was now literature. It was early in 1902 that the first 
 reference to a great edition of the works of Ruskin 
 appears in his Diary. For ten years that task was to 
 have the first and biggest call on his time and energy. 
 Cook's fellow-editor was Mr. Alexander Wedderburn, 
 K.C., one of Ruskin's most trusted friends and his 
 literary executor. Mr. Wedderburn had much material 
 to bring to the joint stock. He had himself edited 
 some of Ruskin's books and had constructed invaluable 
 indexes to the most important. On his side Cook had 
 the accumulated fruits of a persistent study which had 
 begun in his early years. He had attempted an index 
 to some of Ruskin's books so far back as his Winchester 
 days and his earliest published book was entitled 
 Studies in Ruskin. Mr. Wedderburn's material, con- 
 siderable in extent, was placed at Cook's disposal. The 
 normal method of procedure was for the editors to meet 
 
LITERARY WORK 226 
 
 twice a week, on which occasions Cook would submit 
 for Mr. Wedderburn's approval the use he proposed 
 to make of the latter's material, proofs also being 
 subsequently sent. Mr. Wedderburn cannot recall an 
 occasion on which there was anything like a serious 
 difference of opinion between him and his collaborator. 
 
 When the work on the edition really set in Cook 
 took the " labouring oar " and spared himself not at 
 all. The devotion of the ten best years of his life to this 
 edition of the entire corpus of Ruskin's production has 
 often been criticized. So also has the edition itself, 
 which has been described as a monument indeed, but 
 one under which Ruskin is buried. It is possible that 
 Cook scarcely realized when he undertook this colossal 
 task the amount of work it would involve. The financial 
 terms were certainly not very attractive. I was myself 
 surprised at their moderation. Many a person obtains 
 for a second-rate novel as much as Cook for these thirty- 
 nine volumes and the immense labour they represent. 
 Yet there is no reason to think that Cook ever regretted 
 the Ruskin enterprise. It was in truth a labour of love, 
 and Mr. Wedderburn testifies to the amazing industry 
 which Cook expended upon it, and to his determination, 
 never relaxed to the last word in the last volume, to 
 make the edition a perfect and final monument. 
 
 Mr. Wedderburn relates how Cook would think 
 nothing of working with him from 10 to 1 ; then, after 
 an hour for lunch, from 2 till 7 ; and then after dinner 
 going do^vn to the Daily Chronicle for, in the most 
 practical sense, his real day's work. " Pegging away at 
 Ruskin" becomes almost a monotonous entry in these 
 years' diaries. Cook notes on one date in 1909 that 
 he had finished " colour " for the index — this one word 
 involving more than a week's labour. The work, indeed, 
 was Herculean. The edition was to include every word 
 
 Q 
 
226 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 ever written by John Ruskin, who, as Mr. Frederic 
 Harrison has said, wrote more than any three leading 
 British thinkers put together. Measured simply by 
 the arithmetical tables, the work breaks all records. 
 It forms a block of books nine feet long by ten inches 
 high, " formidable ", remarked Cook, " even as a piece 
 of furniture ". All this huge literary area Cook sur- 
 veyed and mapped out with scrupulous care. The 
 notes were Cook's own composition, and we may imagine 
 the days and months and years of burrowing and prob- 
 ing in the British Museum involved in that business. 
 " Ruskin ", says Cook, " wrote about everything — moun- 
 tains, rivers, lakes and clouds ; geology, minerals, 
 flowers, birds and snakes ; about architecture, painting, 
 sculpture, music, drawing, cookery, political economy, 
 education, poetry, morals, mythology, history, socialism, 
 theology, coins, manuscript. He ranged from Mon- 
 mouth to Macedon, from Giotto to goose-pie. The 
 index to his works might compete with Mrs. Beeton for 
 the title ' Inquire within upon everything ' ". 
 
 Every allusion, literary or artistic or geographical, 
 had to be explained and traced to its source, however 
 occult and remote. Cook tells us he kept most of the 
 tickets returned for the books he took out in the British 
 Museum, and he foimd that in six years they indicated 
 an appalling total of 10,000 volumes. Many a footnote, 
 we learn, represented a search through twenty volumes 
 and the labour of half as many hours. The brain aches 
 even at the record of this relentless toil. In the end 
 every allusion, save one,^ was duly tracked home, and 
 
 ^ Some lines, greatly admired by Ruskin, representing a man in despair 
 who desires that his body may be cast into the sea, 
 
 " Whose changing mound and foam that passed away 
 Might mock the eyes that questioned where I lay ". 
 
 I believe the place and authorship of these lines remain undiscovered. 
 
LITERARY WORK 227 
 
 the wonder of this can be appreciated only by those 
 who know something about Ruskin's " esoteric allusive- 
 ness ". 
 
 It has been suggested that a select and representative 
 rather than a complete edition of Ruskin would have 
 been more useful and appropriate. But Cook was a 
 Ruskinian as some admirers of Wordsworth are Words- 
 worthians. He quoted with approval the dictum of 
 the German critic, Engel, that Ruskin " has never 
 written anything worthless or unimportant ". Never- 
 theless the editors had in view the desirability of an 
 edition of selections and but for the Great War this 
 enterprise would have been carried out. 
 
 " Cook ", says Mr. Wedderburn, summarizing his 
 impressions of his collaborator, " was the embodiment 
 of quiet wisdom and most amazing industry ". The 
 index to the edition is itself a monumental achievement 
 of the latter virtue. Cook was an expert on the index. 
 " The Art of Indexing " is the subject of a curiously in- 
 teresting paper in his first volume of Literary Recreations. 
 " If I were despot ", he writes elsewhere, " I should 
 chop off the heads of the only two sets of criminals who 
 are unforgivable — authors who issue books without 
 an index and directors of galleries and museums 
 who alter their numbers ". Cook certainly lived up 
 to his principles herein. The indices and appendices 
 to all his books are models of convenience and com- 
 pleteness. 
 
 The great Life of Ruskin was wholly Cook's work 
 and grew naturally out of the biographical introductions 
 to the thirty-nine volumes of the edition, which were 
 also from his pen. The Life was published in 1911, 
 the year before the last and index volume of the 
 edition. 
 
 The following letter from Mrs. Arthur Severn shows 
 
228 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 how the edition and biography satisfied those most 
 deeply interested : 
 
 Dear Mr. Cook — I feel much touched by your kind letter, 
 and it is a real joy to be able to give you any pleasure, for nothing 
 we can ever say or do would rightly express our gratitude and 
 appreciation of the wonderful work you have done for my be- 
 loved cousin's new edition. I feel sure no one else could have 
 done it so splendidly, and I feel it is a great memorial to you as 
 well as him, and in all this I know Mr. Wedderburn keenly sym- 
 pathizes. — Ever gratefully and most sincerely yours, 
 
 Joan Ruskin Severn. 
 
 But the edition and the Life of Ruskin do not, as 
 has been said, complete the tale of Cook's industry 
 during these years. He was not only, down to the end 
 of 1911, earning his livelihood in daily journalism, but 
 keeping abreast of the home. Imperial and foreign 
 politics of the day as perhaps no other man living. He 
 was contributing on literary, but mainly on political, 
 subjects to the Contemporary, National, Quarterly, New 
 Liberal, Monthly Reviews and to the Strand, Pall Mall and 
 Universal Magazines. His political articles show a quite 
 amazing knowledge of contemporary politics. They are 
 all easy and pleasant to read, but their range and elabora- 
 tion, the way in which the argument is enforced by 
 fact and by quotation for which chapter and verse are 
 always accurately given, imply an amount of study and 
 an industry in the gathering and marshalling of material 
 which are truly thaumaturgic when we remember the 
 other calls upon Cook's time and strength. 
 
 And even this is not all. In the very thick of the 
 melee, if the word be appropriate to Cook's unhasting 
 toil, he finds time to write a substantial memoir to be 
 laid on the grave of his beloved friend, Edmund Garrett, 
 who died May 10, 1907. " And now ", he writes, after 
 
LITERARY WORK 229 
 
 recording tlie struggle over " colour " in the index, " I 
 must really switch myself off to F. E. G." 
 
 What cranny of leisure was left for many lectures 
 on literary and artistic, mainly Ruskinian, subjects 
 and for assiduous attendance at the Liberal League, 
 the Liberal Colonial Club (largely his own creation) and 
 the Victoria League the reader must conjecture for 
 himself. It is convenient here to proceed with Cook's 
 great biographical undertakings. In 1913 appeared 
 his Life of Florence Nightingale. The subject cannot 
 have been entirely congenial to Cook as the material 
 consisted so largely of hospital and sanitary detail. 
 Cook showed great skill in dealing with this, " without 
 swamping ", in Mr. J. A. Spender's words, " the portrait 
 of the woman or her mission to the Crimea ". Cook's 
 wonderful industry and precision are once more visible 
 in the exhaustive appendices to the book which is 
 indeed, like all these biographies, a final, satisfying and 
 continuously interesting memorial to its subject. 
 
 The best review of the book is contained not in a news- 
 paper but in one of those extraordinarily live and brilliant 
 letters Cook has preserved from Mrs. Carruthers, C.H. 
 {nee Miss Violet Markham). She writes on Aug. 8, 1915 : 
 
 I wanted to write and tell you how thrilled I have been by 
 your Life of Florence Nightingale, and send you my warmest 
 congratulations on such a fine piece of work. I don't know when 
 a book has engrossed me more. It's a long book, but I can tell 
 you honestly that I did not find one dull or unnecessary line in it. 
 I can't say how Florence Nightingale's personahty laid hold of 
 me, and the host of speculation to which your brilhant study 
 gives rise. She must have been an awesome old woman — she 
 never was young so far as I could gather — and that sense of 
 mission (always rather a ponderous thing) conflicts oddly with 
 the humour and raciness of the letters. What an intriguer too 
 — her rigging of Royal Commissions from that back bedroom 
 must have made Beatrice Webb green with envy. And that 
 
230 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 retreat to the back bedroom and the cutting adrift from her 
 intolerable family, especially the intolerable sister. 
 
 But what a life ! Never have I read a book which brought 
 home to me so fully the truth of Madame de Stael's words, 
 " Fame for a woman is splendid mourning ". Men do achieve 
 success and fame so much more easily than women. They don't 
 have to retire to back bedrooms to do it. A famous man doesn't 
 find his work incompatible with family and even social ties. But 
 our women of genius — what tragic figures they are — Charlotte 
 Bronte, George Eliot, Florence Nightingale ! She must have 
 been a very difficult woman to deal with, and I expect even her 
 tiresome mother and sister had a bad time of it with her on 
 occasions. What a " down " she has on marriage. I expect 
 the dear darling nurses shook in their shoes when they fell away 
 from grace into matrimony, and had to break the news to the 
 dear mother ! That is a very painful line you quote, " Happi- 
 ness, thou destroyer and corrupter of men ". I believe that 
 point of view is profoundly untrue, and one feels the sort of warp 
 for which it stands running through the woman's whole life. 
 
 It is difficult to sum her up — she is so fine and in parts so 
 repellent. Her friendship with Jowett interested me enormously. 
 Years ago I had speculated as to the personahty of the unknown 
 correspondent who figures so largely in his life. Well — please 
 let me add my thanks for the very great interest and pleasure 
 I have had from your gift. It is a most stimulating book and 
 makes one stand and deliver over and over again. 
 
 But Cook's most perfect literary product is un- 
 questionably bis Life of Delane — " the best book ", to 
 quote Mr. Spender once more, " ever written about a 
 journalist ". Here, indeed, was a congenial sitter for 
 a biographical portrait, a subject with whom Cook was 
 in full sympathy. The two great editors, though 
 differing in character and temperament, had much 
 in common. They held largely the same views on the 
 morale and methods of journalism, and both made a 
 constant and courageous stand for the independence 
 of the profession. 
 
LITERARY WORK 231 
 
 There are many autobiographical touches in this 
 study. A rather cryptic passage on page 262 seems 
 to require illustration. " A capitalist with large re- 
 sources ", we read, " once asked an editor of some 
 experience to say wherein the secret (of journalistic 
 influence) consists. ' I see my way to getting large 
 circulation, but how am I to get influence ? Tell me 
 that '. What the editor said in that particular case 
 does not concern us here ". The capitalist, it may 
 not be indiscreet to explain, was Lord Northcliffe, the 
 editor was Cook, and what the editor said was, " By not 
 suppressing the leading article ". Cook did not approve 
 the extreme " commercial " idea of a newspaper as a 
 mere purveyor of news. His own best work had been 
 done in the " leader " or editorial columns, and he was 
 no friend to reducing the comparative space allotted 
 to these. He comments also on the disadvantage 
 suffered by an editor who, like Delane, does not write. 
 " Of course ", he adds, " no conceivable editor could 
 write all the leading articles in The Times or in any other 
 of the morning papers as they used to be ; but many 
 an editor has written one a day, especially at critical 
 times ". An editor may exercise all the possible safe- 
 guards of initiative, selection, instruction and revision, 
 but the policy for which he is himself responsible can 
 never be fully his own unless its literary expression is 
 mainly the work of his own hand. This mediation of 
 another brain and temperament results in " endless 
 scrapes and contradictions ", as Delane says, which 
 might otherwise have been avoided. No editor, of 
 course, can avoid these misadventures over the whole 
 range of his responsibility. " Even the most diligent 
 of editors ", writes Cook, " sometimes find it impossible 
 to exercise complete control over articles which they 
 do not themselves write ", and, of course, there must 
 
232 LIFE OF SIR EDWAED COOK 
 
 be many such. Cook's letters contain many from 
 aggrieved persons who evidently thought he was per- 
 sonally and deliberately responsible for the offence. 
 On all these occasions Cook, without of course betraying 
 any colleague, was careful to point out the conditions 
 under which an editor works and to make the most 
 honourable amends. 
 
 On another page Cook has some words on that 
 " sensation - mongering ", which, under extreme com- 
 petitive conditions, is, and apparently must be, the 
 besetting vice of modern journalism. " A journalist ", 
 he writes, " who adopts what are called sensational 
 methods is naturally suspect. They are methods which 
 are sometimes profitable to the journal, but they are 
 not the only methods by which a journalist of influence 
 can bring weight to bear upon the course of affairs ". 
 One of the greatest triumphs ever scored by a journalist 
 was Mr. Frederick Greenwood's inducement of the 
 British Government to buy the Suez Canal shares. 
 But this was not effected, as Cook reminds us, by 
 shrieking captions in Mr. Greenwood's paper, but 
 " quietly and behind the scenes ". "If the editor 
 adopt the noisier way ", Cook proceeds, " with incidental 
 disadvantage to the public interests, when another and 
 quieter would or might have attained the same end, he 
 must expect to find his motives questioned ". Cook 
 might also have referred to the ennui and irritation 
 with which this hysterical and sensational mood, 
 too persistently maintained, afflicts the general reader. 
 " When Delane spoke out ", adds Cook, " he spoke 
 not as a mere journalist catering for curious appe- 
 tites, but as a public man more than ever convinced 
 that the best, perhaps the only, cure for incompetence 
 and mismanagement was publicity ". Very sound doc- 
 trine is much of this for the journalism of our days. 
 
LITERAEY WORK 233 
 
 Delane and his biographer held identical views on 
 
 maintaining the dignity and detachment of the Press. 
 
 Neither editor would ever have paid for " official news 
 
 by official views ". Many important personages in 
 
 Cook's editorial days, as in Delane's, thought that for 
 
 " so much exclusive information given, so much political 
 
 support was due ". " Delane respected his calling too 
 
 much to stoop to any such bargaining ", and so 
 
 also did Cook. As this memoir incidentally shows, 
 
 Cook was in the closest and most familiar communion 
 
 with many of the main actors in the poUtics of his day. 
 
 But he never became anybody's man. Like Horace, 
 
 he was " nullius addictus iurare in verba magistri ".^ 
 
 He maintained an unfettered independence. Again and 
 
 again in his writings he insists that an independent 
 
 support of a party is not simply the only honest but 
 
 the only effective form of support, and the only form 
 
 which profits the journal itself. A newspaper which, 
 
 it is known, will support a certain group or party jper 
 
 fas et nefas, can never be very attractive or interesting 
 
 because it fails to excite " curiosity ". There is an 
 
 apriorism about its opinions which relieves many people 
 
 from the necessity of buying it. 
 
 Cook, then, was all for "independent support", but 
 this did not mean a neutral or non-party position. The 
 reader may recall what he said in a letter replying to an 
 invitation to return to the Pall Mall Gazette as editor 
 on independent lines. " Apart from my opinions ", he 
 wrote, "it seems to me that an independent journal 
 which leaned to {a very different thing from adhering 
 rigidly to) neither side and to no organized group or 
 party would not be a very influential organ ". I have 
 italicized the careful words in which Cook distinguished 
 between the out-and-out party attitude from that kind 
 
 ^ " Not bound to swear as any one master dictates ". — Epp. i. 1. 14. 
 
234 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 of free championship which he himself always accorded 
 to the Liberal Party, and which, as he again and again 
 insisted, is the only support worth giving and getting. 
 
 But, indeed, to say that Cook was " independent " 
 in his views and policy is an understatement of the case. 
 As has been pointed out, he was much more generally 
 giving than receiving suggestions, more often leading 
 than following. So far from awaiting orders from the 
 hierarchy it was rather the Cabinet which, at any rate 
 at one great and prolonged emergency, was wont " to 
 wait and see what Cook said " before a decision was 
 formed. 
 
 " Commercialism " as an exclusive and dominating 
 motive was anathema to Cook. On this subject, of which 
 much has recently been heard, he writes a page or two 
 in his moderate, unemotional way in the Delane. Here 
 is a characteristic passage, well worth noting for thought 
 and style : 
 
 Lord Palmerston, in a letter to Queen Victoria upon the 
 elements of journalism, laid it down that every newspaper is 
 essentially a commercial enterprise. And so, with rare excep- 
 tions, it is ; the cases are few and far between in which a news- 
 paper survives for any considerable space of time, and maintains 
 a position of large influence, without being a commercial success. 
 Much the same may be said of other comparable activities. The 
 doctor, the lawyer, the author, looks to receive pecuniary reward, 
 as well as the proprietor of a newspaper, or a mill or a store. 
 Yet there is a vital difierence between what Ruskin called " the 
 fee-first man " and those to whom the fee is not the entirely 
 dominant consideration. A man of push and go was once asked 
 to describe a newspaper. A newspaper, he said, is a means of 
 making money, and a ridiculously easy means to any one who 
 thoroughly masters the tricks of the trade. The proprietors of 
 The Times, I am sure, would have disclaimed altogether such an 
 account of the matter, and to a large extent they might have 
 done so with perfect sincerity. The members of the Walter 
 family with whom successively Delane had to do, kept, indeed. 
 
LITERARY WORK 235 
 
 a close scrutiny, I do not doubt, upon the balance-sheet, and the 
 editor's influence would, I dare say, have waned if the balance 
 had been on the wrong side. But, on the other hand, if any 
 question had arisen between making more money in the one 
 scale and losing some dignity in the other, the answer would 
 have been given on the better side ; there would have been no 
 inclination to take the cash and let the credit go. The owners of 
 The Times took an honourable pride in the paper, and had the 
 kind of feeling for its traditions which is cherished in the case of 
 many an old-established business or ancestral estate. The con- 
 ditions of newspaper enterprise at the present day are different, 
 and though there are some survivals of the older tradition, 
 another order of ideas is in the ascendant. 
 
 In these successive biographies Cook set a standard 
 of thoroughness and fidelity to truth to which future 
 practitioners may find it difficult to attain. Certainly 
 he enriched our libraries with permanent works of high 
 literary and spiritual value. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE LAST TASK 
 
 Denn wo das strenge mit dem zarten, 
 Wo starkes sich und mildes paarten. 
 Da giebt es einen guten Klang. 
 
 (" Where the strong and the tender, the mild and the stern are blent, 
 then rings the metal true".) — Schillee, Lay of the Bell. 
 
 We must now resume the narrative of events in Cook's 
 life. We read in his Diary under date July 25, 1911, 
 this entry : " Last night on coming home to supper 
 and leisurely opening letters found one giving me three 
 months' notice ! " The next day it appeared that 
 Cook's time would be extended to the end of the year. 
 At first there were vague promises of occasional work 
 after the year's end, but it soon became evident that 
 these were only in the nature of shock-absorbers and 
 at last in December that Cook's departure was to be of 
 the bag and baggage kind. A gentleman from Notting- 
 ham had been engaged in his place. " Toujours 
 Nottingham ", exclaims Cook on hearing this, for an 
 appointment from Nottingham had been " the beginning 
 of the end " at the Daily News. No light is thrown by 
 the Diary on the motives which prompted the dismissal 
 of a man who had rendered such great service to the 
 paper and might well have seemed to many people 
 irreplaceable. But there had been differences of opinion, 
 e.g., on the "two -power standard", and, moreover, 
 Cook's position on the Chronicle, though it had lasted 
 
 236 
 
THE LAST TASK 237 
 
 ten years, had always been in some degree anomalous. 
 But the forces of change often act mechanically, and 
 time manages to dispense with the most indispensable 
 persons and institutions. Economy and reorganization 
 had become necessary, and Cook was perhaps regarded 
 as an expensive and ornamental appendage. Anyhow, 
 December 30, Cook's last evening at the Daily Chronicle, 
 was also his last in daily journalism. He was once 
 more, this time finally, dismissed from a profession 
 whose status he had done perhaps more than any man 
 living to raise and to maintain. 
 
 Cook's departure from the Chronicle was the occasion 
 of another chorus of tribute and appreciation not only 
 from private friends but from the British Weekly, the 
 Pall Mall Gazette and many other papers. And also 
 that official recognition which seems to be bestowed 
 so capriciously and was certainly much overdue in 
 Cook's case was now on the way. '' I have the pleasure 
 of proposing to you, with the King's approval ", wrote 
 Mr. Asquith on June 8, 1912, " that, on the occasion of 
 the forthcoming celebrations of His Majesty's birthday, 
 you should receive the honour of knighthood ". Cook 
 was abroad when this letter arrived, so that the announce- 
 ment of his honour was not included in the birthday 
 list, but separately a few weeks later. 
 
 So in the Diary, under July 1 , we read : 
 
 Dressed at tailor's, got to Buckingham Palace 10.50 (20 
 minutes late) and advised by flunkeys to hurry up, but I saved 
 so many minutes' wait. Paish was nearly as late. We were 
 marshalled in our several groups in Picture Gallery. Then single 
 file into Throne room, a Court official giving each in turn a civil 
 piece of advice as to how to kneel. The whole thing managed 
 very well and quickly. Drove away with Paish. 
 
 Never was an honour better deserved and never 
 was the desert more fully and generously recognized 
 
238 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 in the organs of public opinion. A public dinner was 
 given in bis honour at the Hotel Cecil on July 26, at 
 which Lord Morley presided and the whole journalistic 
 world was represented. Few journalists have ever 
 been so honoured by their fellow-craftsmen. Lord 
 Morley made one of his most humorous and delightful 
 speeches. He reminded his hearers that he had been 
 Cook's first editor. Their guest had dignified public 
 discussion and had brought into rather coarse afiairs — 
 if he might use the word without disrespect to Parlia- 
 ment — a spirit of cultivation and refinement. He had the 
 gift of sincere argument, and while he argued sincerely 
 and firmly from his own point of view — which had not 
 always been the chairman's — he did perfect justice to the 
 arguments of other people. Sir Edward Cook had been 
 a downright good fighter who had shown untiring industry 
 and perfect modesty. He was also blessed with a sense 
 of humour, and had devoted years of faithful and pious 
 industry to presenting to the world in the best form that 
 was possible the works of one who was his master. 
 
 The journalist, Lord Morley went on to say, is 
 actuated by superior and inferior motives. Happy 
 was the man who, when the balance was struck, found 
 that on the whole the superior motives weighed in the 
 scale. Their guest was one of those happy men, and 
 they all honoured him for it. They all knew that he 
 had not allowed inferior motives to overpower superior 
 motives, and they all knew that he had made sacrifices 
 of material interests, which, after all, were something, 
 so that these motives might not overpower his sense 
 of duty and responsibility in advocating causes which, 
 in his own view, were for the advantage and common 
 good of the nation. 
 
 Lord Morley did not forget to protest against the 
 sensationalism, the " flaming, garish colours, the dashing 
 
THE LAST TASK 239 
 
 emphasis, the Brobdingnagian attempts in type of all 
 kinds ", which mark the most up-to-date newspapers. 
 To this new spirit he was inclined to attribute some of 
 the restlessness of modern life. " I don't mind who 
 writes the leading articles ", said his lordship, " if you 
 will give me full control of the black t5rpe and the 
 headlines ". 
 
 Cook's reply was pleasantly reminiscent. Acknow- 
 ledging his first editor's tributes, he happily quoted 
 Dr. Johnson's remark, "It is not for me to bandy 
 compliments with my sovereign ". One of his best 
 anecdotes referred to a conversation once held between 
 Mr. Gladstone and Lady Stanley. The two were com- 
 paring notes as to their physical weaknesses and the 
 great statesman confessed to being rather deaf. To 
 this Lady Stanley replied that, while not suffering from 
 deafness, she had at times great difficulty in finding the 
 right word to express her meaning. " That ", replied 
 Mr. Gladstone, " is a weakness of which I have never 
 been suspected ". 
 
 The best that a journalist could do, concluded 
 Sir Edward Cook retrospectively, would for the most 
 part serve only the passing hour, but there were 
 occasional opportunities of striking a blow for some 
 cause in which one greatly believed, for endeavouring 
 to lead and not merely to follow public opinion ; these 
 were the opportunities which the journalist who re- 
 spected his calling really prized, and which added 
 dignity and solace to the daily " tale of bricks ". 
 
 A private letter received two days later from the old 
 editor of more than a quarter of a century ago must have 
 been among the most gratifying of the countless tributes 
 Cook received at a time whose happiness was only 
 clouded by the regret that one who would have shared 
 and rejoiced in the honour had passed away : 
 
240 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 Wimbledon Park, 
 July 28, 1912. 
 
 My dear Cook — Your kind letter has given me the greatest 
 pleasure. It was a true gratification to me to bear a part in 
 recognizing the worth of an admirable worker in an important 
 craft, and a thoroughly upright man into the bargain. The 
 gathering was, I believe, held to be a great success in every way. 
 It was a delight to me to " testify ". 
 
 With cordial good wishes I mean to remain, 
 
 MORLEY. 
 
 From an old friend and antagonist of the Union 
 days comes this : 
 
 July 26, 1912. 
 My dear Cook — May I just write you a line to say that if I 
 had not been bidden to a Royal feast to-night which I cannot 
 escape, I should certainly have done myself the pleasure of 
 applying for a place at the banquet to be given to you in recog- 
 nition of that well-deserved honour which no one observed with 
 greater pleasure than — Yours sincerely, 
 
 CURZON. 
 
 From regions nearer Bohemia the following letter is 
 pleasurably greeted and preserved : 
 
 June 24, 1912. 
 
 Dear Sir E. T. Cook — I wonder whether the ocean of life 
 and death that has rolled between us since we last met has wiped 
 me entirely out of your memory. But even if it has there is no 
 reason why I should stifle the impulse to express the deep 
 pleasure the newspapers have given me this morning. Among 
 all the honours that have lately been awarded there is none, I 
 think, quite so well deserved as that which has fallen to you. 
 Apart from the perennial delight that your life-work upon Ruskin 
 has given me, I have, for entirely other reasons, been for many 
 years following you, in the columns of the various journals in 
 which you have written. I think I could spot your style any- 
 where, but I know I could spot the unmistakable note of plucky 
 honesty which characterizes all that you write. 
 
 I feel that Swinburne is a link between you and me. We 
 
THE LAST TASK 241 
 
 often talked about you, especially about your fearless attitude 
 in connection with the Boer War, an attitude which Swinburne 
 used to call heroic. — Yours very sincerely, 
 
 Theodore Watts-Dunton. 
 
 To Miss Markham, who had written her felicitations, 
 
 Cook replies : 
 
 Rose Cottage, Southstoke, Reading, 
 August 2, 1912. 
 
 Your letter pleased and touched me more than I can say. 
 Yes — I did feel a Uttle proud of such evidence of goodwill and 
 esteem as was forthcoming in the dinner — and I feel the same, 
 and much pleasure also, at the knowledge that I have won your 
 friendship and esteem. The sympathy and understanding in 
 your letter are very comforting. Would that I could attain to 
 the same surety of faith that shines through your words and 
 that must be so great a solace to you in your grievous loss. Yet 
 something of it I cling to and strive after, and there are moments, 
 especially when sympathy of other souls in this present life 
 comes home very vividly, when everything falls into harmony. 
 
 It was rather an ordeal having to speak for at least half-an- 
 hour (as I was asked to do) at the dinner. If I had said all that 
 was in my mind, I could never have said it ! What a bull, but 
 you will understand — so I took refuge for the most part in 
 pleasantries, though with serious words here and there. And 
 the speech, I was relieved to find, went down well — did not fall 
 flat at all I think, even after Lord Morley's charming discourse. 
 But really — what about my " modesty " ? 
 
 The nicest things about the occasion were the widely repre- 
 sentative character of the gathering and the feeling of esprit de 
 corps and goodwill which it seemed to inspire. It was a gratifi- 
 cation, as I could not help feeling, that the funeral feast held over 
 me as a journalist should have shaped itself into a kind of cele- 
 bration of the better aspects of journalism. 
 
 But really, really, this is too much about myself ; though the 
 great and gracious kindness of your letter has led me on to such 
 egotism. 
 
 Cook appears to have liked at first " the life of 
 fairly busy leisure " which followed his retirement from 
 
 R 
 
242 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 journalism. Sometimes, however, lie seems to miss 
 more regular employment. In the Diary for November 
 2, 1913, he writes : "A new phase in my life seems 
 upon me. I have nothing except Committees, Victoria 
 League, Winchester, South Kensington,^ Liberal Colonial 
 Club, to do ". This was just after the publication of the 
 Life of Florence Nightingale. Again, on New Year's 
 Day 1914 we read : " I start the New Year in a sorry 
 state — with no appointed work ". Yet the Committee 
 work in itself was no light matter. The Liberal Colonial 
 Club, founded in 1907, had continued the Liberal 
 League's work of " permeation " in favour of Imperialist 
 principles in the party. It suspended its activities in 
 1917 owing to war preoccupations. To the Victoria 
 League, however. Cook devoted unsparing and con- 
 scientious service to the end of his life. The League 
 had the full benefit of a wisdom and experience which 
 by this time had begun to attain to something of 
 prophetic strain. IVIiss Gertrude Drayton, O.B.E., the 
 secretary, informs the writer that she has looked through 
 the minutes of the Executive Committee and cannot 
 find a single instance during twelve years of Cook's 
 advice on any question not being accepted. It stands 
 almost monotonously recorded : " Mr. (or Sir Edward) 
 Cook suggested, etc., and this was unanimously adopted ". 
 Lady Jersey has written some vivid reminiscences 
 which, in view of Cook's almost paternal interest in the 
 League and the light they throw upon certain features 
 of his character, must be given in full : 
 
 Among the many friends and admirers of Sir Edward Cook 
 few outside his immediate family can have had better oppor- 
 
 ^ Sir Edward Cook was appointed by the Board of Education Vice-Chairman 
 of the Advisory Council of the Victoria and Albert Museum in December 1912, 
 and served on the Council until his death. The Council placed on record in 
 its minutes a high appreciation of Sir Edward's services. He also acted as chair- 
 man of one or two important sub-committees. 
 
THE LAST TASK 243 
 
 tiinity of knowing the real man than his colleagues on the 
 Executive of the Victoria League. Quiet and reserved as he 
 may have appeared to ordinary acquaintance in the work of 
 the League we realized the artist who understood the minds of 
 Ruskin and Florence Nightingale and with the insight of genius 
 grasped the imperial ideal, and therewith knew, and taught by 
 example that " genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains ". 
 
 The Victoria League is now sufficiently well known to need no 
 further description than that it exists to " promote closer union 
 between British subjects living in different parts of the world ". 
 On its initiation in 1901 Rudyard Kipling called it " the first 
 attempt to organize sympathy ". Sir Edward Cook's favourite 
 description of the League was " The Maid-of-all-work of the 
 British Empire ", and it was thus that he generally introduced 
 strangers to its work. He joined as Member of the Executive 
 in 1907 and was a chief moving spirit until his death. In 1910 
 he became Chairman of the Organization Committee, an ofl&ce 
 which he held until he was summoned to the Press Bureau early 
 in the War. In 1917 he was asked to become Deputy President, 
 and though pleased and touched, his characteristic modesty was 
 hard to overcome, as he declared that the League should have 
 some one better than himself. However, the unanimous wish of 
 the Executive overbore his objections, and he served for two 
 years, when he resigned on giving up his London home, as he 
 asserted that a Deputy President living in Berkshire could not 
 fulfil conscientiously his duties at the Central Office. No post 
 with him was a sinecure. In all matters his advice was ever 
 available, and was quite sure to be received by return of post if 
 he did not, as was frequently the case, arrive at the Office an 
 hour or two after receiving a letter, to answer it in the fullest and 
 most personal way. Even after he went to the Press Bureau he 
 maintained this custom, and frequently called at the League's 
 headquarters on his way to a long day's work, lasting from 11 
 A.M. to 11 P.M. 13 days out of 14. 
 
 It would be difficult to say too much of what the League 
 owes to his fertile imagination and considered suggestion. This 
 was especially notable at the beginning of the War, when the 
 League sought the best means of serving the Country, The War 
 Pamphlet Sub-Committee was Sir Edward's child. At its first 
 
244 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 meeting one of the members, Mr. J. H. L. Eidley, suggested a 
 series of pamphlets on the Causes and Issues of the War, and 
 said that one stating Great Britain's case was urgently required. 
 Sir Edward, in the Chair, with his slow quiet smile, drew a roll 
 of manuscript from his pocket and laid it on the table, saying : 
 " Here it is — I thought possibly the League might like to have 
 it. I am prepared to make the necessary arrangements with 
 Macmillan, but, if the Committee will accept it, this manuscript 
 shall belong to the League ". This pamphlet, " Why Britain is 
 at War ", was translated into Swedish, French, German, Spanish, 
 Portuguese, Italian, Norwegian, Bulgarian and Chinese, nearly a 
 million copies being distributed during the first months of the 
 War. Sir Edward also contributed to the War Pamphlets series 
 " Britain and the Small Nations ", " How Britain strove for 
 Peace ", and " Britain and Turkey " ; and he was joint-editor 
 and part author of " Britain's Part in the War ". 
 
 The suggestion that the League should follow up its pamphlets 
 by organizing meetings on the Causes and Issues also came from 
 Sir Edward. Four hundred such meetings were addressed by 
 speakers provided by the League, which led the van in the matter 
 both of speakers and pamphlets, being several weeks ahead of 
 other organizations official and unofficial. In like manner the 
 assistance given by the League to the Government with regard to 
 propaganda was initiated and arranged in every particular by 
 Sir Edward Cook. Nor will the League readily forget his gener- 
 ous help in writing the Annual and Special Reports, leaflets and 
 appeals, for which his talent and grasp of every subject involved 
 were in constant requisition. 
 
 As a speaker Sir Edward was perhaps less well known than 
 in other capacities, and his speech when he took the Chair at the 
 final meeting of the Victoria League Health Conference in 1914 
 and summed up the results was almost a revelation to some of 
 his colleagues. It had an extraordinary effect, and was the one 
 subsequent topic of conversation among the delegates. They 
 clamoured for it to be reprinted as a leaflet, and one hard-headed 
 Australian declared that it was worth coming across the world to 
 have heard it. He was always ready to sacrifice his own comforts 
 and convenience at the shortest notice. In June 1919 the Duke 
 of Connaught had consented to take the Chair at the Annual 
 
THE LAST TASK 245 
 
 Meeting at the Guildhall, but was, at the last moment, prevented 
 by illness. Sir Edward received at breakfast a telegram asking 
 him to take H.R.H.'s place as Chairman, caught the train half 
 an hour later, and made a brief but excellent speech. In response 
 to an expression of warm thanks, he simply said that his " allegi- 
 ance to the Victoria League admitted of nothing else ". 
 
 Perhaps, however, the memories which will linger longest in 
 the minds of his fellow-workers will be those of Sir Edward as 
 Chairman of the Organization Committee and as Member of the 
 Central Executive. It was he who Lnsisted that the balance- 
 sheets, or statements of estimates, must be circulated to members 
 of the Organization Committee more than 24 hours before 
 the meeting at which they were to be discussed, and the 
 pertinent questions which he asked when present showed how 
 completely he had considered and understood the figures circu- 
 lated, and how determined he was that there should be nothing 
 foggy about the discussions or decisions concerning them. At 
 the Executive Meetings his attitude was characteristic. The 
 Executive Committee of the Victoria League, though a most 
 harmonious body, has never been composed of dummies, but of 
 men and women of decided opinions and keen interest in the 
 work. When after some lively discussion on a point raised, the 
 Chairman would ultimately say, " What does Sir Edward Cook 
 think ? " Sir Edward, who had meantime sat silent and atten- 
 tive, would give a little shake of his head, and in one or two 
 quiet sentences crystallize the whole matter and give a verdict 
 with which all would agree. Why did his views carry such 
 weight ? The Preacher said long ago : " Wisdom is the prin- 
 cipal thing ; therefore get wisdom : and with aU thy getting get 
 understanding ". For wisdom to have practical efiect surely it 
 must be based on understanding. We all felt that Sir Edward 
 had understanding, and therefore we accepted what we knew to 
 be his wisdom. 
 
 It is remarkable that the last big task of this famous 
 jom-nalist and editor who had done so much to assert 
 the freedom and independence of the Press was actually 
 to impose fetters upon it through a bureau of censorship. 
 The management of the Press Bureau was entrusted to 
 
246 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 Sir Edward Cook and Sir Frank Swettenham, G.C.M.G., 
 C.H., in June 1915. Botli these gentlemen had already 
 done valuable and voluntary work under the pre- 
 ceding Directorship of Sir Stanley Buckmaster, who 
 had succeeded Mr. F. E. Smith, both these Directors 
 becoming in turn Lord Chancellor. It may be men- 
 tioned here that Sir Edward Cook had been of great 
 service in helping to draft some of the early diplo- 
 matic correspondence with the German Government 
 after the outbreak of war. The work of censorship 
 was scarcely on so high and constructive a plane as 
 that of the editor of a great journal. But it was very 
 necessary war- work and required in the doer the quahties 
 of patience, judgment, tact and forbearance in a high 
 degree. These qualities were conspicuous in Cook. 
 He, moreover, if anybody, would be likely to reconcile 
 the higher national interest at a great crisis with an 
 insatiable thirst for news on the part of the newspapers. 
 He would give full weight and a wise consideration to the 
 former while making all possible allowance for the latter. 
 Sir Frank Swettenham was one of England's most 
 experienced and successful colonial governors. He and 
 Sir Edward Cook formed an ideal partnership for the 
 work in hand. Sir Frank has kindly given the writer 
 a few notes on this four years' co-operation. He would 
 never have thought it possible to find a man with whom 
 he could work so long almost without any difference 
 of opinion. He was impressed, like all who were ever 
 colleagues of Edward Cook, with two outstanding 
 characteristics. The first was Cook's extraordinary 
 wisdom in all difi&culties. He may have been perhaps 
 a little too concessive, but in his mind he always knew 
 what was the right course. It was a positive pleasure 
 on this account to work with him. The second impres- 
 sion was of Cook's enormous industry. He was always 
 
THE LAST TASK 247 
 
 willing to do not only ids own daily task but that of 
 anybody else. Cook, like Sir Frank Swettenham, did 
 his earlier work on the Press Bureau without payment. 
 Both gentlemen, indeed, wished to continue unpaid, 
 but one of the conditions of their joint appointment 
 in June 1915 was that they should receive a salary. 
 They objected, but were necessarily overruled. The 
 Bureau was, however, conducted throughout with the 
 utmost economy. 
 
 Wisdom and industry Cook brought to the job in 
 plenty. But the Press needed a good supply of another 
 quality, patience, once defined, according to Erasmus 
 Holiday, as " difficilium rerum diurna perpessio ", the 
 daily endurance of things hard to be borne.^ It may be 
 imagined what endless irritation was produced by the 
 conflict of the two interests involved and what firmness 
 and patience were required in the daily conduct of the 
 Bureau. In an entry in the Diary during the early days 
 of the censorship Cook gives a few instances of the sort 
 of news some papers desired to print. One great news- 
 paper clamoured for details of the numbers of the new 
 armies, which would have been valuable information for 
 the enemy. A provincial paper reported a great petrol 
 depot at Harwich, a useful target for the next Zeppelin 
 raid. A smaller provincial journal gave details of a great 
 aerodrome in course of erection in its neighbourhood. 
 
 To keep a tight hand on this sort of thing is among 
 the more obvious details of a censor's duty. Problems 
 in which policy and impolicy were nicely balanced had to 
 be decided upon, and, needless to say, the Press Bureau 
 became the object of criticism which was the more 
 violent as it was usually ignorant of the interests and 
 considerations which determined the official action. For 
 the first time we find Cook worrying and spending sleep- 
 
 ^ The dominie slightly misquotes his Marcus Tulliua. 
 
248 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 less nights over mistakes he thought he had committed. 
 Again and again in these nerve-fits he wonders whether 
 he ought not now to resign. All this is rather unlike 
 the E.T.C. of earlier days and suggests a gradual 
 failure in health and strength. It generally turned 
 out that he had either imagined these or greatly 
 exaggerated their importance. Sir Frank Swettenham 
 cannot remember a single instance of any blimder or 
 lapse of judgment on Cook's part during the whole 
 course of this prolonged and complicated work. Only 
 on two occasions can he remember that Cook lost his 
 temper. And even then, he adds, no outward sign of 
 the disaster was manifest. Whether a temper thus 
 lost was not really kept the reader must decide for 
 himself. Apparently on one of these occasions Cook 
 made some slight mistake, for which he afterwards made 
 a very generous apology. 
 
 The amount of daily work to be accomplished at the 
 Bureau, whose home was at the Royal United Service 
 Institution in Whitehall, must have satisfied even Cook's 
 appetite. For April 30, 1917, he gives us a sample of 
 " an average quiet day ". "It may be interesting some 
 day ", he adds, " to see what one had to do " : 
 
 I suppose I dictated some dozen letters in answer to questions 
 and complaints, these latter being as usual of unfairness to some 
 papers by non-submission (of material) by others. Also read 
 some six articles sent down by military room. Referred to War 
 
 Office some doubtful official photos. Consulted , according to 
 
 War Cabinet instructions, on certain messages to Russia which he 
 agreed with me in thinking harmless. Suggested to War Office 
 to consult American attach^ on question of censoring military 
 
 cables from the United States. Talked to over telephone 
 
 on messages from Greece. Settled some dozen other cables sent 
 down from cable room. Asked to circulate some articles by 
 
 ; not thinking them worth, got out of it. Left office at 
 
 8 ; dined at lodgings. 
 
THE LAST TASK 249 
 
 Amid these labours Cook must have been encouraged 
 by a further honour — that of K.B.E., conferred upon 
 hhn in the autumn of 1917. An invitation in 1918 to 
 permit himself to be nominated to the Wardenship of 
 Winchester College he declined on the ground that he 
 could not give the office the time and attention it would 
 and should demand. Yet in these anxious and laborious 
 times, in ipso discrimine rerum, we find him working 
 at the essays for his volume of Literary Recreations 
 (published 1918) and More Literary Recreations (1919). 
 He amuses himself in the evenings turning into English 
 verses from the Greek Anthology, on which he writes 
 a charming paper, and these, proving refractory, would 
 sometimes pursue him to bed. In his Recreations 
 Cook garnered the fruits of a lifetime's wide and varied 
 reading. In their easy and lucid style, their wise com- 
 ment on men and things, their scholarly, humorous and 
 allusive qualities, they are truly characteristic of their 
 author. They more than fulfil the modest aspiration 
 of the preface to the first volume that " they may be 
 found of interest to students of the art of literature ", 
 and no one who has followed Cook's record in this 
 memoir will find in them a " sign of undue detachment 
 from the stress of great events ". 
 
 Cook's Diary for these years should some time, 
 as he seems to have thought, throw a vivid Hght on 
 these strenuous and often dark and disastrous war- 
 days. Cook annotates carefully such events as the 
 formation of the CoaHtion Government, the resigna- 
 tion of Mr. Asquith, the establishment of the " single 
 command ". 
 
 Cook's wisdom and foresight even amid the stress 
 of an unparalleled crisis are curiously evident in a para- 
 graph of a letter he wrote in 1915 to Mrs. Carruthers. 
 " I still hope", he writes, "that it may be possible to 
 
250 LIFE OF SIE EDWARD COOK 
 
 get through without conscription — which, however, is 
 clearly the democratic thing. Its introduction in the 
 middle of the war would be difficult. If it has to come, 
 the State should be completely socialized ad hoc : every 
 man enrolled, and told off to some service whether 
 military, operative, civil or agricultural ". si sic 
 omnes ! Would that our responsible statesmen had 
 adopted this policy. The seriousness of the crisis would 
 have been better brought home to the nation ; heart- 
 burnings and social and industrial disputes without 
 end would have been avoided ; discipline would have 
 been maintained, perhaps even in Ireland to which 
 these measures ought certainly to have been extended ; 
 stupendous sums of money would have been saved 
 and reconstruction after the war made vastly easier. 
 Reading this simple passage in Cook's letter and recalling 
 what really happened one wonders whether the highest 
 wisdom of the nation is ever available for the nation's 
 needs. 
 
 Of the actual working of the Press Bureau Cook's 
 volume on The Press in War-time affords a permanent 
 record. It is a highly original handbook on the principles 
 and practice of censorship which should be of the utmost 
 service in case of another great war. Cook had written 
 to Sir Frank Swettenham on August 23, 1919, soon 
 after the closing down of the Press Bureau : 
 
 My dear Sir Frank — 1 have been occupying myself of 
 late by writing, or rather typing (for my hand is no better) an 
 Essay on The Press in War-time, with some accomit of the Press 
 Bureau. 
 
 The Essay would make a short book, but before going any 
 further I should greatly Hke to know what you think of the idea. 
 Is it right to publish anything at all ? You will probably say 
 that depends on what it is. Would you feel it an intolerable bore 
 if I were to send you the MS. to look at ? 1 should lock it up if 
 
THE LAST TASK 261 
 
 you were decidedly of opinion that it ought not to be published. — 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 E. T. C. 
 
 On August 27 Cook wrote again to liis former co- 
 Director : 
 
 I take you frankly at your kind word and am sending the 
 manuscript in a separate packet herewith. I do not know that 
 it is interesting, but I think that it is discreet. You will tell me 
 if it is not and whether you think I ought to ask the Home 
 Secretary, who, however, might naturally say to a censor, " Pray 
 censor yourself ". Of course it would have been more fun to 
 say all that one thought, but I have refrained from gibes at other 
 departments, and as for the Press, to which you may think I 
 have been too lenient, you must remember my antecedents. 
 
 Sir Frank Swettenham returned the manuscript 
 with expressions of strong approval. " I think the 
 book is admirable as a record of the office and quite 
 unobjectionable as regards discretion". He was fully 
 in favour of its publication. The book certainly gave 
 the enemy information that he might have found useful, 
 but the war was over, the next war was, it might be 
 hoped, far distant, and meantime it was necessary that 
 the British public and the Services should know on 
 what principles the censorship had been conducted. 
 
 Sir Edward Cook died before the little work was 
 published, and the proofs were revised by Sir Frank 
 Swettenham. It appeared in February 1920, with 
 an appendix containing an appropriate and admirable 
 character-sketch of the author by Mr. J. A. Spender. 
 None of Cook's productions illustrate more remarkably 
 his power of subduing a difficult and complicated 
 subject to logical division and orderly arrangement. 
 Here, as always, his intellect moved upon the face of 
 the waters and worked out the primeval Fiat. Or, in 
 a humbler simibtude, he is like the pioneer who surveys 
 
252 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 a tract of waste land, clears it of stubs and undergrowth, 
 lets in the daylight, builds roads and paths and hedges 
 and evolves a civil, habitable and fruitful estate. Every 
 attentive reader will be impressed with the logical 
 clarity of the little work, with the way in which a 
 technical treatise, full of facts and quotations always 
 carefully verified, becomes through the alchemy of 
 literary talent an attractive and interesting book. Cook 
 was constitutionally incapable of dulness or pedantry, 
 and The Press in War-time, which he never saw in its 
 published form, suggests the sad reflection that he died 
 in the full fruit-time of his intellectual powers. Indeed 
 in his last days he had begun work on a Life of Queen 
 Victoria and a treatise on Public Opinion on the lines 
 of Professor Dicey's well-known book. 
 
 Among the recognitions of Cook's work on the Press 
 Bureau came one from Lord Buckmaster, who wrote 
 (May 4, 1919) : 
 
 The closing of the Press Bureau ended a strange episode in 
 our public life. It was always to me a matter of great satis- 
 faction that I was able to secure your help. Without it the 
 difficulties would have been greatly intensified and the success 
 much lessened. In spite of all the misrepresentations and abuse 
 to which we were subjected and in spite of some of the mischiev- 
 ous things we were compelled to do, I am certain that the office 
 did accomphsh a great work, and I always look back to my 
 association with it and with you and our proved friends with very 
 pleasurable memories. 
 
 Mr. Francis Meade, Secretary of the Bureau, wrote 
 on receiving a copy of The Press in War-time : " We all 
 loved Sir Edward at the Press Bureau. Everybody 
 who was brought into contact with him felt at once his 
 ready sympathy and kindliness ; and myself more than 
 any one, as I fear I must have tried his patience many 
 a time ". 
 
THE LAST TASK 263 
 
 There can be no doubt that the work and worry of 
 the censorship was one cause of Sir Edward Cook's 
 premature death. He may fairly be numbered among 
 those who sacrificed themselves for their country in the 
 Great War. And he would have asked for no better 
 destiny than to die almost in harness and after the 
 accomplishment of a great and important work of public 
 service. 
 
CHAPTEK XV 
 
 THE AGE OF PUFF 
 
 Nobody is either the better or the worse for being praised. 
 
 Maecus Aurelius. 
 
 Cook never acted or spoke or, I believe, even thought 
 in malice. I cannot imagine him intriguing against or 
 supplanting a colleague, or doing anything mean or 
 underhand. Moreover, his experience as an editor seems 
 never to have soured him or made him misanthropic or 
 cynical. Perhaps no one has fuller opportunities of 
 observing the foibles and frailties of humanity and even 
 " les petitesses des grands hommes " than the editor of 
 a great paper. Cook regarded humanity from a very 
 detached and objective point of view. He was a Stoic 
 in this also, that he formed no great expectations of 
 human nature and was therefore seldom surprised or 
 disappointed. " That such men should act thus ", 
 wrote the Imperial philosopher, "is a necessity of 
 nature : to wish it otherwise is to wish that the fig tree 
 had no juice ". 
 
 It was therefore not in malice or despite but simply 
 to exemplify a sign of the times that Cook filled three 
 boxes with letters and newspaper cuttings under the 
 title of " The Age of Puff ". No despot in the world 
 ever had such power of inflicting pain or giving pleasure 
 as the newspaper editor. He dispenses from his sanctum 
 
 254 
 
THE AGE OF PUFF 255 
 
 a commodity which to many people seems to be more 
 precious than gold, yea, than fine gold, namely, notoriety. 
 This newspaper-made and ephemeral distinction has been 
 described as the " bastard-brother " of true fame, to 
 which, indeed, it is related as the gent, to the gentleman. 
 In old pre-newspaper days when a man became con- 
 spicuous from the crowd he usually acquired real 
 fame, the reward of high merit or conspicuous achieve- 
 ment of some sort, if it were only in the commission 
 of enormous crime. Fame, like Nemesis, often came 
 jpede claudo and sometimes never reached the man 
 in his own lifetime. There was little conscious pursuit 
 of it. Neither Sir Henry Morgan nor Dick Turpin 
 could hope for headlines or portraiture in the illustrated 
 page. Shakespeare himself, as some minor poets must 
 recall with incredulous surprise, took no thought for 
 his own posthumous fame, or even for the preservation 
 of his plays. A renown that grew in this way, " under 
 weights ", was likely to be deep-rooted and permanent. 
 In these circumstances the men of distinction were a 
 real aristocracy of merit and achievement, and the rest 
 of the people were known mainly to their neighbours. 
 
 But democracy, it has been said, is " hostile to all 
 monopolies, even the monopoly of greatness ". If the 
 many cannot have true fame, they can have an important 
 and flattering ingredient therefor, the digito monstrari, 
 the pleasure of having their names often under the 
 public eye. They could be notorious, if not famous, 
 conspicuous, if not great, and the daily newspaper was 
 the means by which the privileges of a select aristocracy 
 were distributed among the people in wider commonalty. 
 The newspaper cannot confer nor can it permanently 
 obstruct a genuine and well-earned renown. But it 
 can confer or withhold the retail commodity of an 
 immediate though ephemeral distinction, the patronage 
 
256 LIFE OF SIR EDWAED COOK 
 
 of which is largely in the hands of the responsible editors 
 of the daily Press. Hence these well-filled boxes filled 
 with the petitions and plaints and agonies of littera- 
 teurs and artists and politicians who pant for what the 
 editor can give or deny as hart never panted after the 
 water-brooks. 
 
 Among these papers we may easily distinguish the 
 various species of " pufi " indicated by Mr. Pufi himself. 
 The "puff direct" is the most usual, and with rather 
 surprising frequency is written and sent by the aspirant 
 himself. This, in spite of the shallow egotism, the self- 
 delusion and the complete lack of humour generally 
 impHed, is the least objectionable of all the brands, 
 because it is at least honest. No one need be very 
 indignant with the gentleman who writes to the editor 
 of the Pall Mall Gazette, enclosing the first of a series 
 of articles whose publication, he thinks, " will mark an 
 epoch in the history of mankind and revolutionize the 
 whole realm of religious thought and cannot fail to 
 vibrate instantly throughout the world ". These earth- 
 shaking utterances are to be published " exactly as they 
 are because the author has weighed every word ". 
 Specific instructions are given as to the manner and date 
 of their publication, the possibility of an editorial rejec- 
 tion having, it seems, never been entertained. Yet this 
 appears to have been their fate and I cannot discover 
 that the revelation of ultimate truth was ever given to 
 the world. In any case, the bomb seems to have been 
 what in military slang is known as a " dud ". 
 
 The self -written testimonials in this selection are in- 
 numerable. They are often accompanied with flatter- 
 ing references to the editor and his paper, which are 
 obviously intended as part of the consideration for the 
 expected favours. It is surprising how suddenly the 
 politeness and benignity of a hopeful anticipator may 
 
THE AGE OF PUFF 257 
 
 pass into the abusiveness of a disappointed applicant. 
 One long-winded correspondent imposes upon himself 
 the task of instructing Mr. Cook as new editor of the 
 Pall Mall Gazette in the deeper principles of art and 
 beauty. " The ' P.M.G.' ", he writes, " already leads 
 the van in social progress, and without fear or favour 
 continually strikes off the trammels with which political 
 dilettanteism would hinder real progress. It is therefore 
 inevitable that when your journal sees the light it must 
 go towards it ". Then comes a long disquisition on the 
 " Gospel of Art ", amid which we read that " if Homer 
 came to-day and sung to England, the people would not 
 be touched by his song, for they do not understand 
 Greek ", which seems as pardonable as Tilburina's in- 
 ability to see the Spanish fleet, " because it was not yet 
 in sight ". From these uplands of vague but ideal 
 speculation we drop rather suddenly to the practical 
 envoi : " Therefore I want meanwhile the job to write 
 your notices of these contributions ". 
 
 This gentleman was impressed with the absolute and 
 imperative necessity of a meeting between himself and 
 Mr. Cook, " whether it might result in Mr. Cook taking 
 up and publishing certain views being of secondary 
 importance ". The main object of a begging letter of 
 this description nearly always appears in parenthesi. 
 Cook's reply to this gentleman was courteous but con- 
 clusive : " I regret that I am unable to make an appoint- 
 ment as you suggest. But I can add in all sincerity 
 that you altogether overrate the importance attaching 
 to a conversation with me ". 
 
 These " direct pufis ", as one might expect, are not 
 remarkable for restraint or understatement. A lady 
 who had given a charity recital which realised fifty 
 pounds " by her own unaided exertions," and who was 
 not minded to reserve her whole reward for the next 
 
 s 
 
258 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 world, sent the editor of the Pall Mall her own critique. 
 " Her selections were judiciously made and splendidly 
 uttered. Every emotion and every alternation of 
 emotion came out with exquisite distinctness in the tones 
 and looks of the speaker. Her voice, clear and sweet, 
 possesses great compass and is expertly modulated ", 
 and so on through unqualified superlatives which would 
 have left this great journal with nothing to say if a 
 greater luminary should appear on a pubHc platform. 
 
 Very amusing, too, in its affectation of critical im- 
 partiality is the letter of a clergyman forwarding a 
 series of sermons he has published. Of these, he writes 
 for the guidance of the reviewer, " No. 10 seems to me 
 the most scholarly ", and "No. 16 strikes me as the 
 most eloquent ". Another gentleman, who, strange to 
 say, is an old University man, forwards a puff of a 
 " shocker " he has just produced. The autobiographical 
 part tells the world, or would have told the world, that 
 his career at Harrow was " one of exceptional brilliance, 
 during which it literally rained prizes ". He also draws 
 out a list of his distinguished contemporaries at Oxford, 
 though it is hard to see how he can claim any credit for 
 this. The singular thing is that these auto-panegyrics 
 are not confined to the obscure and struggling aspirant. 
 Men and women of established success, including two 
 prolific novelists, roll their own logs with an energy 
 which would seem to argue a want of faith in the per- 
 manence of their reputations and the staying quality of 
 their own works. " Nothing ", wrote the philosopher 
 already quoted, " is either the better or the worse for 
 being praised. This applies also to things called beauti- 
 ful in common life ; and indeed, what is intrinsically 
 beautiful needs no addition, any more than Law, any 
 more than Truth, any more than Benevolence or Rever- 
 ence. Which of these owes its beauty to men's praise, 
 
THE AGE OF PUFF 259 
 
 or is the worse for their censure ? Does an emerald suffer 
 if men do not praise it ? Or gold, or ivory or purple ? 
 A lyre, a dagger, a floweret or a shrub ? " These are 
 hard sayings for an age in which the commercial spirit 
 has invaded art, literature, the stage, journalism and 
 other departments of our national life, when every pro- 
 duction must have its immediate advertisement so as 
 to produce the maximum of immediate cash profit. 
 
 It is rather melancholy work looking through Cook's 
 " puff-boxes ". They suggest a rough football scrim- 
 mage in which, to one's surprise, some owners of well- 
 known names are seen to be shoving and struggling 
 among much smaller fry. For the smaller fry, indeed, 
 every humane editor will feel some sympathy. " You 
 have not reviewed my novel ; but if you knew what 
 sufferings I endure from chronic dyspepsia, and how 
 hard it is to support a widowed mother, you would, I 
 am sure, relent " — such a letter probably covers a real 
 tragedy, and editor and reviewer will be tempted to 
 stretch many points on his behalf. " It is impossible ", 
 writes Cook in reference to these applications of budding 
 authors, " for an editor not to feel some weak, natural 
 sympathy as he thinks how many innocent hopes, how 
 much bitter disappointment lie behind such ingenuous 
 missives ". This pardonable weakness is not universal 
 among editors and reviewers, for the gentleman with the 
 chronic dyspepsia includes among the unkind notices 
 
 which he copies and sends : " Mr. might write a 
 
 book better worth reading than if he, Mr. , 
 
 would make his characters less idiotic and their ad- 
 ventures more amusing ". 
 
 But there is a sort of puff under the category of 
 " direct " for which Cook himself can have had little 
 tolerance. One very nasty sort is the puff paragraph 
 sent not by the author or performer himself but by a 
 
260 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 tliird person whom he has obviously suborned. Cook 
 has kept and annotated a few of these. Here is a 
 letter from an anonymous correspondent, who says he 
 encloses his card but does not, which rather artfully 
 commends a certain writer of minor verse, himself a 
 great " practitioner of panegyric " in his own behalf, for 
 the vacant ofi&ce of Poet-laureateship. One wonders if 
 principal and agent really believed that Mr. Cook would 
 be taken in by these disingenuous manoeuvres. Then 
 the inducements sometimes held out by the author or 
 artist were not always very tactful. Here is a gentle- 
 man who writes that he is interested in a certain book 
 which for some months has remained unre viewed. If 
 the editor will make good this omission, he will receive 
 a postal order for one pound as "an honorarium for 
 your trouble ". The notepaper reveals that this gentle- 
 man, appropriately enough, was an " auctioneer and 
 valuer ", and Mr. Cook has kept the letter and pencilled 
 those professional titles again beneath his signature with 
 an obvious significance. Another person, in forwarding 
 a company prospectus, requests the editor to describe 
 the investment as " gilt-edged," in return for which he 
 will be able to secure a few of the preference shares for 
 which there is such a demand. These frank and vulgar 
 financial appeals are, however, not common. But an- 
 other amusing example is rather on the border line of 
 bribery. It is a letter from a dentist, calling attention 
 to a book which was being sent in and of which a review 
 was requested. " We shall be most happy to recipro- 
 cate by giving our best attention gratis to any member 
 of your staff requiring our aid at any time ". If the 
 artist had promised to draw the fangs of one's rivals, 
 remarked Mr. Cook, the offer would have been more 
 attractive. 
 
 As already mentioned, the bait often takes the form 
 
THE AGE OF PUFF 261 
 
 of a compliment to the editor. An eminent novelist, 
 who has contributed more than anybody else except 
 perhaps another eminent novelist to the contents of 
 these boxes, writes : " The importance of the Pall Mall 
 Gazette as a literary organ is so great, and its influence on 
 other journals so strong and immediate, that I am more 
 than ever anxious that your reviewer should have all 
 the time it is possible to give him — with kindest regards ". 
 Another letter from this gentleman enshrines a piece of 
 self-glorification of which he himself professes to be " a 
 little ashamed ". A postscript (a good many of his 
 puffs are in postscripts) adds : "I have never thanked 
 you for the promptitude and prominence of your review 
 of my novel. The reviewer is evidently an able man, 
 and he certainly scores some points against me, but, 
 frankly, I think he was not quite the right man to 
 put himself into a position of sympathy with a book 
 
 like the ". It is astonishing how human types 
 
 persist. Here we are, mutatis mutandis, back to Sir 
 Fretful Plagiary, who was certainly never more raw- 
 nerved to newspaper criticism than this latter-day writer 
 of fiction. These letters, which all went promptly into 
 the " Age of Puff " boxes, would, if published, make an 
 interesting psychological study. 
 
 One gentleman, who, strangely enough, appears to 
 be himself an assistant-editor, thinks the puff-paragraph 
 itself, being " quite gratuitously contributed ", should 
 be an inducement in itself, though he does hold out a 
 prospect of a subsequent advertisement and a copy of 
 the book. The paragraph itself is so grossly self- 
 appreciative that the " very many thanks in anticipa- 
 tion " were probably wasted. 
 
 Mr. Puff's " collateral " species finds many modern 
 exemplars in this museum. The type as illustrated in 
 the comedy is worth setting out : 
 
262 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 Yesterday, as the celebrated George Bonmot was sauntering 
 down St. James's Street, he met the lively Lady Mary Myrtle 
 coming out of the park, " Good God, Lady Mary, I'm surprised 
 to meet you in a white jacket — for I expected never to have seen 
 you but in a full-trimmed uniform and a light horseman's cap ! " 
 " Heavens, George, where could you have learned that ? " 
 " Why ", replied the wit, " I just saw a print of you, in a new 
 publication called the Camp Magazine ; which, by-the-by, is a 
 devilish clever thing, and is sold at No. 3, on the right hand of 
 the way, two doors from the printing ofl&ce, the corner of Ivy 
 Lane, Paternoster Kow, price only one shilling ". 
 
 The object, I need hardly say, of this indirect 
 variety is to delude the reader into believing that the 
 advertisement of the Gamp Magazine was not the original 
 motive but only an accidental idea. 
 
 Plenty of examples in this kind may be found in 
 Cook's anthology. There is one gentleman, a writer on 
 musical subjects, who seems to have had a wonderful 
 series of bicycle and other accidents, each of which 
 furnishes a peg for a lengthy description and a collateral 
 puff about the popularity of his works and lectures. As 
 an exhibition of unabashed egotism it would be hard to 
 beat this gentleman's collected efforts. If he treated 
 other editors as he treated Mr. Cook his days must 
 largely have been consumed in this assiduous tending 
 and watering of his own little garden-plot. Publishers' 
 advertisements, which Cook particularly disUked, often 
 furnish examples in this kind. He gives a typical 
 example which, it will be seen, is quite " collateral " in 
 character : " Miss Laura Montmorency, who was pre- 
 sented at Court yesterday, is, we understand, a second 
 cousin of Mr. Smith-Jones, whose important novel of 
 modern life, etc. ". The debutante simply serves the 
 purpose of a peg on which to hang the Smith-Jones ad- 
 vertisement. Then there is the lady novelist, also an 
 indefatigable blower of her own trumpet, who writes a 
 
THE AGE OF PUFF 263 
 
 long article in the public Press (likewise preserved by 
 Mr. Cook) in which she has the hardihood to grow sar- 
 castic about log-rolling and puffing, but manages two 
 fine " collaterals " about herself and a royal favour, and 
 about another writer with whom she labours incessantly 
 in a sort of puff-partnership. 
 
 And this brings us to speak of the " puff-collusive ", 
 though with a change in the meaning of the term. Of 
 course, modern advertising is not innocent of the col- 
 lusive puff in the sense in which it is used in the comedy. 
 We have all heard of books and plays benefiting by 
 dark hints as to the risky and audacious character of 
 their contents. But this species is better reserved for 
 those reciprocal partnerships just mentioned. Cook's 
 collection is rich in these exercises. He himself ex- 
 posed in the Pall Mall quite a number under the title 
 of " Studies in Keciprocity ". The partnership to 
 which I have referred between a novelist and a poet 
 seems to have subsisted for a long time. Such mutual 
 services really constitute a mild fraud upon the public, 
 who are not behind the scenes and are therefore un- 
 conscious of the incessant bamboozle. But they are 
 sometimes detected, as will be seen from the following 
 letter which Cook has preserved : "On returning to 
 town after a week's absence I have just fallen in with 
 the enclosed (a newspaper cutting), and hope some inde- 
 pendent journalist will one day expose the ' claw me 
 
 and I'll claw you ' proceedings carried on by . She 
 
 never omits referring to him as the poet of the period : 
 while he never fails to laud her in return ". 
 
 A lust for genuine fame may be " the last infirmity 
 of noble mind ", but we can scarcely give the benefit of 
 that generous extenuation to this vulgar and egotistical 
 passion for newspaper notoriety. Yet we must not ex- 
 aggerate its prevalence. The great body of the people 
 
264 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 are unaffected by the virus. Cook's correspondence 
 reveals instances of persons who shrink from mention in 
 the pubHc press as earnestly as others court it. The 
 choice spirits in his distinguished circle of friendship 
 make no contribution to these treasuries. 
 
 We have been dealing hitherto mainly with the 
 personal paragraph and the review or critique. But, 
 as everybody knows, a newspaper is not self-contained, 
 and every number includes a certain amount of material 
 contributed by the outer world. Such contributions are 
 invited, but the editor, except in the case of a definite 
 order, reserves to himself the right of acceptance or 
 rejection. Hence another whole set of pains and 
 pleasures which he is empowered to distribute. Many 
 persons have had their share of these — the deUght of 
 acceptance and appearance, the hope of publication long 
 delayed, the shock of rejection with the editor's regrets 
 which are much less poignant than those of the dis- 
 appointed writer. One wonders how much wasted and 
 frustrated effort is represented by the few selected 
 articles which appear in each day's issue. Surely no- 
 body ever condemned himself to a more precarious and 
 wearing profession than that of the free-lance writer. 
 A man's handiwork, embodying the finest essence of his 
 wit and wisdom, and incidentally his chances of bread 
 and cheese, is subject to the decisions of a tribunal from 
 which there is no appeal. " The wrath of dissentient 
 poHticians ", writes Cook in an article of reminiscence, 
 " is great, but it is nothing to that of rejected con- 
 tributors, and these do not conceal their names ". 
 He proceeds to quote a rather extreme example, de- 
 livered with the writer's full name and address : " Sir — 
 You are ignorant and narrow-minded. I am as certain 
 of it as that I hold a pen in my hand at this moment. 
 Outside of what is elementary and picked up in journal- 
 
THE AGE OF PUFF 266 
 
 istic gutters you know nothing and can teach nothing. 
 You move in a circle of knowledge no bigger than a 
 sixpence, and your intellect is as shallow as that small 
 coin. Heaven help some of us when we submit our 
 work to the judgment of such as you. The day will 
 
 come ". " Yes ", writes Cook, " it has come. My 
 
 injured friend shall complain no longer that I have 
 never published one of his contributions ". 
 
 Few tasks can be more invidious than this daily 
 editorial duty of selection among a large delivery of 
 original articles by industrious and earnestly expectant 
 writers. It is not surprising that an editor should 
 receive almost as many letters of violent and impotent 
 abuse as a Prime Minister. Even when he has accepted 
 a contribution, he still has a discretion as to the day of 
 appearance, and here again is a source of vexation for 
 the genus irritabile. A philosophic attitude is not so 
 easy for a man or woman whose daily bread depends on 
 publication, wnich, in the custom of the trade, always 
 precedes payment. 
 
 The passion for the pseudo-fame dispensed by the 
 newspapers may perhaps subside with its growing vulgar- 
 ization and the increasing share in it enjoyed by the 
 heroes and heroines of the divorce and criminal courts. 
 The system of " puff ", which in Cook's editorial days 
 had already extended in an amazing degree from the 
 theatrical, political and social spheres to the literary and 
 seems to be still developing, does unquestionably much 
 harm. It debases the currency of criticism, destroys 
 confidence, builds up fictitious reputations and favours 
 the pushful and pretentious at the expense of the modest 
 and meritorious. We may trust, however, that in the 
 long run merit, even when handicapped, as it usually is, 
 by modesty, will prevail. " Fame ", said Bacon, " is 
 like a river that beareth up things light and swollen, and 
 
266 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 drowns things weighty and solid ". But the forces 
 which have hitherto preserved for the world, against 
 all adverse influences, the best that has been said and 
 thought are still operative and will continue to dis- 
 criminate between what is of permanent worth and what 
 is only the object of temporary fashion and favour. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 SOME STOEIES 
 
 Misce stultitiam consiliis brevem. (" Mix a little frivolity with your 
 wise coiinsels.") — Hor. Od. iv. 12. 27. 
 
 Cook's Diary contains the gleanings of a good thirty 
 years of social and convivial experience, in the course of 
 which he met most of the distinguished figures in politics, 
 literature and art. Happily Cook enjoyed a good story 
 and he has enlivened his record with an unfailing suc- 
 cession of humorous anecdotes. These are not strictly 
 relevant to our subject, if we are to observe Cook's 
 rigid canons of biographical art; but they are duly 
 recorded in the Diary and must therefore have been 
 intended, though perhaps subconsciously, for eventual 
 pubHcation. The reader will not object to the garnering 
 of a selection of these in a separate chapter, as they 
 occasionally throw light upon contemporary persons 
 and events and as otherwise there might be no oppor- 
 tunity of preserving them. 
 
 Some of the best of these anecdotes refer to the 
 great Conservative statesman, the third Marquis of Salis- 
 bury. The neighbourhood of Hatfield still retains a 
 strong impression of Lord SaHsbury's absent-minded 
 and Cecilian aloofness, especially in his later days. His 
 growing inability to remember names and faces resulted 
 in many amusing incidents. One of the best was told 
 
 267 
 
268 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 by a gentleman who had it from the Bishop of St. 
 Albans. It occurred after Buller's recall from South 
 Africa. Lord Salisbury and the Bishop of London were 
 at Sandringham with the King. His Majesty said to 
 the Bishop, " Lord Salisbury has just asked me, ' Who 
 is that young-looking clergyman ? I seem to know his 
 face, but cannot put a name to him.' But ", continued 
 the King, " don't you mind. Lord Salisbury took up a 
 photo of me just now and said, ' Ah, old BuUer, I see ' ". 
 
 A propos of the same infirmity is a story told by 
 a well-known statesman and confirmed by others who 
 were at Hatfield on this occasion. A certain baronet 
 whom no one could suspect of military leanings was 
 invited to the great house from Saturday to Monday. 
 Lord Salisbury covered him with attentions, probably 
 to the gratified surprise and even the political conversion 
 of the newly decorated guest. ^ At last Lord Salisbury 
 tapped him on the shoulder and took him aside for a 
 little private talk. " Now tell me ", said his lordship, 
 "is it true that Kitchener is making such a muddle of 
 it as all the other generals ? " The story records not 
 the reply of this suddenly constituted military expert, 
 but it does go on to explain. " Next day Lady Gwen- 
 dolen Cecil said to a friend, ' Papa is getting so bad 
 about remembering faces. From Saturday to Monday 
 he mistook Sir for Lord Roberts ' ". 
 
 Another story of the same kind was told by Mr. 
 Leo Maxse. Lord Salisbury was going down to Wilt- 
 shire. Mr. Maxse warned Mr. Dickson-Poynder (after- 
 wards the member for the Chippenham Division) not 
 to mind if the Prime Minister took no notice of him. 
 After the visit Dickson-Poynder said to Maxse, " You 
 
 * I believe this gentleman was recommended for a baronetcy by mistake 
 for another gentleman of the same name. Errors of this kind are not easily 
 rectified. 
 
SOME STORIES 269 
 
 are an ass ! Lord Salisbury was as nice as possible and 
 talked to me about the war in the freest possible manner ". 
 A few days later Lord Salisbury remarked, " I didn't 
 know Brodrick had anything to do with Wiltshire ". 
 
 A faint aroma of faded antagonisms is conveyed by 
 Lord Salisbury's reply to some one who asked him 
 whether he missed Lord Randolph Churchill — " Do you 
 miss a carbuncle which has been removed from your 
 neck ? " 
 
 As is well known, the Cecils are not a horse-racing 
 family. The political caricatures of our period never 
 portray a Cecil, as they portray a Cavendish or a Primrose, 
 on the Epsom Downs. In the accounts Cook gives of his 
 innumerable visits to Mentmore or the Durdans we have 
 glimpses into that absorbing game, whose honours the 
 master of these houses treasured as highly as the highest 
 won in the other sport of politics. Cook seems to have 
 been rather fascinated by the evidences of this grande 
 passion of his aristocratic friend, which was not readily 
 reconcilable with the Nonconformist conscience and the 
 position of a Liberal Prime Minister. Lord Rosebery 
 never felt impelled to abandon horse-racing out of 
 respect for the Nonconformist element which formed 
 the backbone of his party. Yet he was well aware 
 that the two departments of sport and politics could 
 not be kept entirely unrelated, and that a beautiful 
 favourite, whilst winning him glorious laurels on the 
 race-course, might be effectually discrowning him in 
 another arena. Lord Salisbury on the other hand, 
 though having no such puritanic susceptibilities to 
 placate within his own party, went as little to race- 
 meetings as any Primitive Methodist. He had some 
 contempt for the sport if we may judge from a certain 
 story related in Cook's diaries. His lordship once wrote 
 to Mr. Balfour postponing a meeting of the Committee 
 
270 LIFE OF SIR EDWAED COOK 
 
 of National Defence, as " Devonshire was going to 
 Newmarket to see wMch of two quadrupeds can run 
 quickest ". Perhaps any game might be reduced to 
 an absurdity by being thus reduced to its elements. 
 
 Disraeli does not look personally into these daily 
 records. He died a few years before Cook began his 
 Diary. But we find a good many reminiscences of a 
 statesman whose memory was still so fresh. One of 
 these stories, told by that prince of raconteurs, Mr. 
 George Russell, takes us back to the days of the Berlin 
 Congress. It relates how Odo Russell had prevented 
 Disraeli from addressing the Congress in French : 
 
 Sir Philip (afterwards Lord) Currie came to Lord Odo 
 Russell ^ and said, " The Chief has prepared a French 
 speech for to-morrow and we shall be the laughing-stock 
 of Europe. Can't you stop him ? " " It's a delicate 
 negotiation but I will try ". He went to Disraeli's 
 room : " My dear lord, I hear you propose to speak 
 in French to-morrow". "Such is my intention". 
 " But this will be a terrible disappointment. Your 
 French is perfect, but everybody can talk French. 
 What the ambassadors are expecting is a speech in 
 English from the greatest living master of the language. 
 Are you going to disappoint them ? " Disraeli spoke 
 in English. Query : Was he taken in by the flattery 
 or did he see through it ? 
 
 Another anecdote carries us back to early Victorian 
 days. The artist Landseer was dining with the Queen 
 and the Prince Consort. He told a story of a dog which 
 he sent back to fetch a five-pound note he had lost on 
 the road. " And did the dog bring the note ? " asked 
 the Queen. " No, Ma'am, he brought five sovereigns ". 
 The Queen is reported to have laughed " consumedly ". 
 But the sequel is more amusing than the joke. At night 
 
 ^ British Ambassador in Berlin. 
 
SOME STORIES 271 
 
 an equerry came to Landseer to say, " The Prince begs 
 Mr. Landseer not to tell such foolish stories. How 
 could he suppose that the Queen would believe such 
 nonsense ? " As a study in three characters this 
 anecdote deserves to survive. 
 
 Many stories are told of his late Majesty, King 
 Edward VII. But a joke ascribed to him when still, 
 and apparently destined for ever to be, Prince of Wales, 
 is surely one of the best of bons mots ever uttered. 
 " We hear a great deal ", said the genial Prince, " about 
 the Eternal Father ; but I am the only man afflicted 
 with an Eternal Mother ". Even Mr. Stead felt himself 
 able to pardon much for that truly royal jest. 
 
 This recalls a story told by Lord Rosebery d propos 
 of a strike being bad for the Government. Lord 
 Aberdeen wrote a letter to Sir Robert Peel saying that 
 the birth of a Prince of Wales would make them popular 
 — " though I'm not aware ", he added, " that we were 
 in any way concerned in his production ". 
 
 Recording a social event in a great salon Cook gives 
 us one of his thumb-nail sketches of Lord Kitchener. 
 These efforts at lightning portraiture sometimes conflict 
 with one's hero-worships. " Kitchener ", writes Cook, 
 " is rather repellent to look at — a sort of squint, red face 
 and slightly blotchy nose, but a fine figure of a man. 
 He talks little, but is a sort of noble savage ". Cook 
 seems to have been rather disappointed in this man of 
 iron. " I wish ", he writes in 1915 to Mrs. Carruthers, 
 " Lord Kitchener in fact was more like the Lord 
 Kitchener of the popular legend : the strong, ruthless 
 devotee of hard efficiency. I suppose the War Office 
 with its strangling traditions is too strong for him ". 
 
 It is obvious from these notes that relations between 
 Lords Kitchener and Milner were not always entirely 
 affectionate. Nor, apparently, were the Field-Marshal 
 
272 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 and Lord Morley exactly bosom friends. Mr. Morley 
 vetoed King Edward's strong pressure to make Kitchener 
 Viceroy of India. Kitchener, it is said, was almost 
 childishly vexed, though at that time Mr. Morley was 
 right. Later, however, the appointment might well have 
 been made. Yet just before the war when some one 
 remarked to Lord Morley, " So Kitchener will be the 
 next Viceroy ", he replied, " Only over my dead body ". 
 
 Kitchener discountenanced the idea that the cowp de 
 grace for Germany could come in the East and he foretold 
 that Italy would be the first neutral to come in. The 
 Bantam brigade, he said, were like the Gurkhas. On 
 another occasion Cook hears that it was Kitchener who 
 assured Mr. Asquith before the Newcastle speech that 
 there was no shortage of munitions. 
 
 The Field-Marshal himself contributes to the humour 
 of the diaries. One of his gems is a story of the Boer 
 War. " But I'm a field - cornet ", pleaded a captive. 
 " If you were the 'ole b — y band, you'd 'ave to 'ave it ". 
 
 It is well for people to preserve their idols, so Cook's 
 iconoclastic phrases must be quoted with reserve. Here, 
 however, is his first impression of Cecil Rhodes, whom he 
 visited in London with Mr. Hawksley in February 1896 : 
 
 His expression is not quite Uke his pictures, in some phases 
 more sinister, but when smiling more simple — a curious squeaky 
 voice, closely bitten nails and rather protrudingly fat. He was 
 sitting alone in a very big room, over the fire — unopened telegrams, 
 notes, cards, on the table. Talked with his feet over the fire. 
 
 About Garrett^ — ^how a week before the Jameson 
 Raid he had come and said, " Look here, Mr. Rhodes, 
 I can't stand this country. You are all too fat and 
 lethargic. There's nothing stirring ". " I smiled and 
 advised him to wait. A week later he came again and 
 I hoped it was hot enough now ". 
 
 ^ Edmund Garrett, editor of the Cape Times. 
 
SOME STOKIES 273 
 
 I cannot find any record of Cook having ever met 
 Mr. Lloyd George on these various festive occasions. 
 But if that ripening genius did not assist in the symposia, 
 he was frequently the object of their wit and humour. 
 Some of the stories reflect the feelings entertained in 
 the earlier days for Mr. Lloyd George by those who were 
 afterwards to be his colleagues in office. A nightmare 
 said to have haunted the aspiring statesman's slumbers 
 was probably a Tory imagining. Mr. Lloyd George is 
 said to have dreamt he was at the door of Inferno, 
 whither he was no doubt despatched in the daily impre- 
 cations of his enemies. There he noticed a company of 
 poor folks and begged for their admission. But Satan 
 said, " No ; they cannot be admitted. These are they 
 who accepted your land campaign and are, therefore, 
 too green to burn ". The Lloyd George of the early 
 days of this century was reckoned among the arch- 
 enemies of all who " thought imperially ". It is 
 true he informed the present writer even in the 
 Boer War crisis that he was as good an Imperialist 
 as any who assumed that name, but few of us 
 anticipated the time when he would be the head of 
 a coalition consisting of the whole body of Unionism 
 and that right section of Liberals which carries on the 
 tradition of Liberal Imperialism. 
 
 Of W. T. Stead, as may be expected, the stories 
 told are innumerable. Stead went down in the Titanic, 
 and some one remarks on the irony of the great journalist 
 being mvolved in such a highly sensational occurrence 
 and yet being unable to report it, at least for newspapers 
 on this side Jordan. Stead is well pictured in an 
 authentic story referring to his later life. He had 
 written an article for the Daily Chronicle about Mr. 
 W. O'Brien which threatened a libel action, and the 
 editor sent his secretary to see the author about it. He 
 
 T 
 
274 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 found Stead asleep on the sofa in Mowbray House and 
 waited for him to wake. " Hullo, what do you want ? " 
 " Mr. Donald, editor, has sent me to ask you about 
 O'Brien ". " O'Brien, O'Brien, don't talk O'Brien to 
 me. Don't you know that the ghost of Charles I. walks 
 the streets of London every day ? Go to the Eustace 
 Miles restaurant any day at limch and you will see him ". 
 " And did you ever reach O'B. ? " asked Cook. " Yes, 
 but after a long excursion through Mr. Stead's prison 
 experiences, etc.". 
 
 On one occasion Cook put to the test one of Stead's 
 " spook " experiences. In January 1906 Stead told 
 Cook he had been " spook-writing ", that is, in telepathic 
 communication with Jameson and Garrett. Jameson 
 had nothing to say, but Garrett remarked that he had 
 been with Rhodes at the moment when the news of 
 the Raid came. A month later Cook asked Rhodes if 
 there was any truth in this statement, " the only testable 
 and definite part of Stead's report ". Rhodes said, 
 " Certainly not ". But Stead's faith in his presentiments 
 or " sign-posts ", as he called them, was proof against 
 all such discouragement. 
 
 An entry in 1900 records a dinner with South African 
 gold magnates. Dr. Hillier reports how Mr. Barney 
 Bamato, when Solly Joel was arrested for treason, 
 exclaimed, " Impossible ! If it was robbery I could 
 believe it ". 
 
 One or two episcopal stories linger in the memory. 
 The Bishop of London, on starting for Egypt by sea, 
 said that his grace before meat would be, " For what 
 we are about to retain may the Lord make us truly 
 thankful ". A passage from a sermon by the same 
 prelate must have amused the congregation : " I have 
 been with a dying woman whose only fear of death 
 was that she might meet Germans. I assured her she 
 
SOME STORIES 275 
 
 would not, and I saw her when just dead and from the 
 smile on her face I was sure she had not ". 
 
 Of the brief and detached sallies the supply would 
 transcend available space. The very best of the pun 
 species relates to Lord French and his territorial title. 
 It was reported that the Field-Marshal proposed to call 
 himself Viscount French of Ypres, but " ribald men at 
 the front " suggested " of St. Omer " or " Loos ". 
 
 Another successful effort in " paronomasia " was 
 the dubbing of the Jewish regiment the " Jordan 
 Highlanders ", whose motto was to be " No advance 
 without security ". Lord Rosebery must also bear all 
 the responsibility for having expressed a hope that 
 " Peggy's delivery would not be so slow as Crewe's ". 
 
 And, speaking of titles, I recall a pretty story by Miss 
 Violet Markham of a Yankee " who paid the Heralds' 
 College £400 to provide him with ancestors, and then 
 £800 to push them up when found ". 
 
 Mr. Asquith's wit is always pleasant, as when he 
 called the son of a certain well-known Peer " a chip of 
 the old blockhead ". At a domestic party, when Miss 
 Elizabeth Asquith was afraid with some reason that he 
 might be bored with the recitations and suggested he 
 should get up a bridge party in another room : " No ", 
 he replied heroically, " as I said to the Pope, nous irons 
 jusqu'au bout ". 
 
 An official at the Foreign Office reported an incident 
 which does unquestionable injustice to two great men. 
 He had been seeing Lord Salisbury off to Contrexeville 
 in great spirits. A Frenchman was asked if Contrexeville 
 was lively. "No, but now that Lord Roberts and 
 Lord Salisbury are there, the demi-monde will doubtless 
 arrive ". Lord Salisbury was very much amused at 
 this. 
 
 The Colonial Office is the scene of another of these 
 
276 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 selections. The Countess of Warwick had called there 
 to make inquiries about Jameson and his party. Think- 
 ing that she was not being treated with sufficient con- 
 sideration, her ladyship said, " I don't think you know 
 who I am ". " Oh, yes ", replied the official, "I do ; 
 you're Letty Lind ". 
 
 The War Office fairly maintains its reputation as 
 the " clown " of the public departments. Durmg the 
 war a hospital in France wired to that office for a battery 
 and received this reply : " Shells sent to-day, guns 
 follow ". 
 
 A pretty humour is attributed to the Earl of Lonsdale, 
 who, as is well known, was a friend of the German 
 Emperor before the war. On being asked, in 1916, 
 what his worship thought of the Kaiser now, he is 
 reported to have replied, " Well, it only shows how 
 careful one ought to be in picking up acquaintances on 
 the Continent ". 
 
 A story illustrating Lord Rosebery's " gentlehood " 
 fills one day of the Diary. At a County Council dinner 
 ice pudding was served. A Councillor sitting next to 
 Lord Rosebery said, " I expect your lordship doesn't 
 know it, but this pudduig is stone-cold ". R. : " Thank 
 you so much ; it's most curious ". He beckons to the 
 butler who leaves the room and on his return whispers 
 to his lordship, who, in turn, says to the County 
 Councillor, " It seems it's some new dish the cook has 
 invented — an ice pudding ". 
 
 Another story, perhaps worth rescuing from oblivion, 
 is that when Sir J. M'Garel Hogg, Chairman of the old 
 Metropolitan Board of Works, was raised to the peerage 
 he took the title of Magheramorne. The footman at 
 a house where he used to visit said, " Sir J. M'Garel 
 Hogg, I think ". " No, Lord Magheramorne ". The 
 outlandish name was too much for him and the new 
 
SOME STORIES 277 
 
 peer was announced as " The late Sir James M'Garel 
 Hogg". 
 
 Sometimes Cook supplies a personal touch which is 
 worth many pages of formal biography. A well-informed 
 friend tells him that General Botha plays a capital game 
 of bridge. The friend had asked one of Botha's officers 
 whether the General ever played during the South 
 African War. " Yes, when he could get a young English 
 officer to play with ". The conclusion of the story is 
 delightful : "It was rumoured that Botha sent out 
 commandos with that object ". 
 
 The Diary reveals Cook as an ideal interviewer and 
 reporter. A good example is furnished by his precis of 
 the speeches delivered at an Alpine Club dinner in 
 December 1902. Near him sat J. W. Cross, George 
 EHot's husband, photographed by Cook as " a middle- 
 aged, red-haired man, not prepossessing ". 
 
 LesUe Stephen, looking very lean and weak, made an excellent 
 speech. If he had long been absent from these dinners, it was 
 not from failure of sympathy. He loved the Alps as much as 
 ever and did not renounce the faith or deplore the time he had 
 spent on scrambles which he might have devoted to the study of 
 federal institutions. He well remembered Freeman's wrath at 
 his taking away that historian's most promising pupil, Bryce, 
 to the Alps. But he didn't regret it. For one thing, as a matter 
 of ethics, his principle was, when you have once found a sohd 
 satisfying pleasure, stick to it. And Alpine pleasures left no 
 aftertaste, except of dehghtful memories and of warmest friend- 
 ships. 
 
 But Alpinism no longer needed defence. At one time stem 
 regard for veracity compelled the Alpine Club to boast. Now 
 they could afiord to be modest and charitable, and to remember 
 of non-Alpinists what a Trinity man said of members of the 
 smaller colleges : " Do not let us forget that they also are God's 
 creatures ". 
 
 He had to couple with his toast of visitors the Swiss charge 
 d'affaires and Traill. A 'pro'poa of the former, he said, " The 
 
278 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 Swiss are going in mucli for railway guards ; don't let them 
 forget that they are also guards of Paradise ". Of the connec- 
 tion between Alps and literature, he said they had inspired the 
 poetic outburst of this century. Wordsworth had found in the 
 English Lakes that microcosm of the Alps — " The silence that is, 
 etc.". Byron had found his iaspiration there. Coleridge had 
 first proclaimed Mont Blanc a monarch, and Shelley laid the 
 scene of his greatest work on the Caucasus. Tennyson had 
 the misfortune to be born in the fens, but there was no better 
 instance of his wonderful power of putting a picture than his 
 description of the view from Milan Cathedral — " How faintly 
 flushed, etc.". 
 
 Traill made some good points in. his reply (he had lately con- 
 tributed an article to one of the Reviews, enumerating sixty or 
 more minor poets). Mount Parnassus was now so well trodden 
 and so certain to be provided before long with ropes that Alpinists 
 would avoid it. 
 
 Among the speeches at another dinner, at the 
 Authors' Club, Cook especially mentions that of Mr. 
 Griffiths, the well - known American Consul - General. 
 Among his stories was one of Ho wells, to whom a 
 prolific writer said, " I don't know how it is but my later 
 novels do not strike me as so good as my earlier ". 
 " My dear sir, they are quite as good ; it is your taste 
 that has improved ". 
 
 Cook records many conversations with that infinitely 
 wise savant and statesman, Lord Haldane. An entry 
 in the Diary runs thus : 
 
 Haldenstein was before Mr. Justice Darling, who addressed 
 him by that name. The Associate whispered, " Since the war he 
 has dropped his stein". "And who has picked it up — Lord 
 Haldane ? " 
 
 This reminds us that no man suffered more from the 
 war-spirit in this country in its baser manifestation than 
 Lord Haldane. That a man should have been devoted 
 to German literature or music brought him under the 
 
SOME STORIES 279 
 
 political suspicion of persons who probably knew very 
 little of either. Lord Haldane told a party who were 
 dining with him that he was accused of being an illegitim- 
 ate brother of the Kaiser, of being married to a German, 
 and of having a German mother. Yet, said Lord Grey 
 of Fallodon to Cook on another occasion, " Haldane is 
 the one of us who has least to reproach himself with. 
 He gave us the Expeditionary Force and the Territorial 
 system. What we must all bear the blame of is that, if 
 we could have foreseen, we ought to have provided arms 
 and equipment to enable us to put a million men on the 
 Continent in the first three months. But ", he added 
 with some verisimilitude, " Parliament would never have 
 sanctioned it ". Cook reports Haldane as having said 
 to Mr. Asquith, " It would have been better if you 
 could have had Kitchener to manage the war and me 
 to manage the War OflB.ce ". Many thought so at the 
 time and think so still. But, of course, the irrational 
 persecution of the wisest head in England — it would 
 not surprise some of Lord Haldane 's friends if one day 
 he discovered the philosopher's stone — made that ideal 
 arrangement impossible. 
 
 Cook's neighbours at dinner frequently favoured him 
 with personal impressions of leading people of the time. 
 Thus Mrs. Asquith talked about Mr. Arthur Balfour 
 (1895), and was duly reported in Cook's private daily 
 chronicle. She said that Mr. Balfour's only real interests 
 were science, music and metaphysics. What he really 
 loved was scientific lectures — listening to Lord Rayleigh 
 and such men. He had very few intimate friends. He 
 often said, and truly, that absence from politics would 
 be no deprivation to him. But, when he played, he 
 played the game to the last point. His one great ad- 
 miration was for his uncle, whom he admired immensely 
 as one better in his own lines than himself. He used to 
 
280 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 deerstalk, and was a capital shot, but had given it up 
 now. Society amused Mm, but he was in it and not of 
 it, and he was very unsusceptible. Balfour had told 
 Mrs. Asquith that he was very dissatisfied with his 
 book ^ — afraid he had not been able to put his thoughts 
 clearly. Mrs. Asquith seems to have succeeded in giv- 
 ing a faithful and vivid delineation of a character to 
 whose charm Cook more than once bears personal 
 witness. 
 
 In 1908 Asquith became Prime Minister, and Cook 
 comments thus : " My memory went back to that time 
 with Emmie (Mrs. Cook) at Admiral Maxse's when 
 ' Margot ' was there, and she discussed whether she 
 should marry Rosebery, Balfour or Asquith, and which 
 would be Prime Minister first ". 
 
 Of Morley, Ruskin and Gladstone much has already 
 been said in this book. The Morley references are per- 
 sistent. Here, for example, is one which scarcely 
 accords with the austere and ascetic reputation of the 
 subject. "Dinner at St. James' Club — very swagger. 
 J. M. highly praised the Bollinger 1904 as a divine 
 drink ". In fact the British public, usually very shrewd 
 in its assessments, has not been so successful with 
 Mr. Morley. The impHcations of the popular title of 
 " Honest John " are rather a misfit. Morley is honest 
 beyond question, but that does not specially distinguish 
 him from his fellows. A rough and rugged simplicity is 
 not his peculiar attribute. In fact, the interlocutors in 
 the Diary ascribe to him with quite a curious agreement 
 a certain feminine vanity as an unmistakable ingredient 
 in one of the most charming personaHties of our age. To 
 these popular misconceptions was due the shock of sur- 
 prise when " Honest John " accepted a peerage. In fact, 
 Lord Morley was by no means insensible of the decora- 
 
 ^ The Foundations of Belief was published in 1896. 
 
SOME STORIES 281 
 
 tive effect of a title or of the pomp and circumstance of 
 high office. It is interesting to hear that Lord Morley 
 was paid £1500 for his lAfe of Cobden, and £10,000 for 
 his Gladstone. The sales of the Gladstone, Cook tells 
 us (1911), amounted to over 100,000, which includes 
 10,000 copies sold in the United States. 
 
 The biographies of men of action are usually more 
 interesting than those of literary or artistic people, 
 whose best memorial, as a rule, is their own works. 
 Character is the staple of biography, and character is 
 formed less in the study or the studio than in the arenas 
 of strife. 
 
 Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille, 
 
 Sich ein Charakter in dem Strom der Welt.^ 
 
 Yet humanity is always curious about the private life 
 and conversation of those who have achieved distinction 
 in any department of life, and Cook's acquaintanceship 
 in literary and artistic circles was almost as extensive 
 as his political friendship. In the Diary we pass from 
 Belgravia to Bohemia in the most staccato manner. 
 Consecutive entries in July 1901 take us to an esoteric 
 political meeting at Mr. Asquith's and to a luncheon at 
 Mr. Swinburne's. Cook's record of the poetic sym- 
 posium is as follows : 
 
 Went down to Putney to lunch with Theodore Watts and 
 Swinburne. Watts' room on ground floor, where we had luncheon 
 (all rather frowsy — anchovy sauce in streaks). Swinburne came 
 in late — a short man and fat, now nearly bald. Both of them in 
 carpet slippers. Swinburne very deaf — only addressable when 
 T. Watts pulled chair round and shouted, " Our friend here is 
 speaking of Mat. Arnold ". This set him off talking in a curious 
 falsetto, very emphatic voice (his hand shaking violently at meals 
 and in a way like a child). " M. A.'s best things, Strayed Reveller, 
 
 ^ " A talent is shaped in solitude, a character in the stream of the world ". 
 
282 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 Resignation and the two elegies — nothing else occurs to me. 
 Sohrab good, but only a prize poem. Ulysses is more. M. A. did 
 nothing which somebody else has not done better. Tennyson 
 imitative, too, could not have written as he did without Homer 
 and Virgil — yet there is something else. M. A.'s ear awful — ^he 
 had none. Ulysses very un-Homeric. Only English can under- 
 stand the Odyssey, for it is all home. And Tennyson far less 
 grand conception than Dante's ". And he rolled out the Dante 
 — " that's the perfection of poetry ". He talked also of Sam 
 Butler, Bacon and Shakespeare. 
 
 After lunch we went up to Swinburne's room on the first floor 
 — stacked everywhere with books. He browsed around, show- 
 ing me his treasures for about an hour — ^large paper Kelmscotts 
 given him by W. Morris (including Atalanta — " but he should have 
 made it Erechiheus, which is a real Greek poem ") ; first Italian 
 editions of SheUey — " the only good ones, beautiful type and 
 Shelley corrected the proofs carefully : the English, I suppose 
 he thought would be all right, and they are fuU of blunders " ; ^ 
 an illustrated edition of Notre Dame, with a Meissonier of Louis 
 XL — " Wonderful ! Now if Irving would get up like that, I 
 would go to see him. Curious that Ruskin should have admired 
 Meissonier. The only time he came to rooms of mine he was 
 dehghted at seeing those engravings of Turner, for Rossetti and 
 Ned Jones ^ did not care much about Turner, but I was brought 
 up on him (he used to visit my family) and simply revel in 
 everything of his ". Watts said Swinburne was a very great 
 admirer of John Ruskin, but he himseK not. Watts said 
 Swinburne a limpet — would never go anywhere except for sea- 
 bathing. 
 
 We get a good many glimpses of George Meredith in 
 these daily notes. In October 1892 Cook and Ms wife 
 are at the "Maxses" with Meredith, Miss Margot 
 Asquith and others. " Meredith ", we read, " was rather 
 tottery from incipient spinal paralysis, not sure of his 
 
 ^ Cook adds a note — ^Also " Sidonia the sorceress ", of which Swinburne said, 
 " A real work of genius, but very horrible, the most horrible in literature. 
 Tennyson said, ' I would not have missed it for anything, but I would not read 
 it again for anything ' ". 
 
 * Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Bart. 
 
SOME STORIES 283 
 
 legs. A very brilliant talker, but a little too affected 
 and set ". He suggested for the new paper about to be 
 started for Cook the names of " Torch " or " The P.M.". 
 Admiral Maxse, as is well known, was the model for 
 Meredith's " Beauchamp ". '* It was pleasant ", writes 
 Cook, " to see Meredith and ' Beauchamp ' walking 
 about, Meredith chaffing him about the ladies ". 
 
 It is interesting to notice how far an acquired reputa- 
 tion will carry a man. Cook relates a story told by 
 " R. Smith ", who had devilled for Sir Charles Russell 
 (afterwards Lord Russell of Killowen). Russell had a 
 consultation on an insurance case, and had not looked 
 at any of the papers. On the way from court to 
 chambers he asked R. S., " What is against us ? " S. 
 said, " Our doctor reported the life a good one ". Russell 
 began the consultation : " Well, gentlemen, isn't this 
 rather awkward about our doctor ? " and for the rest 
 merely asked questions. The clients were much im- 
 pressed : " That's it, Sir Charles, you've put your hand 
 on our weak spot ". After the cross-examination of 
 Pigott, in the great Parnell case, R. S. went to coach 
 Russell in another case. " It's no good, my boy ", he 
 said ; "I can't take it in. That sort of thing takes it 
 out of one ". 
 
 Among the young men of personal charm and 
 brilliant promise who perished in the war was Mr. 
 Asquith's son, Raymond. Cook quotes a verse from 
 Raymond's skit, " A Threnody by T. H. Warren ^ on 
 the Death of a Viscount " : 
 
 Dear Viscount, in whose ancient blood 
 
 The azure of the bird of March, 
 
 The purple of the ripening larch 
 Are mixed in one magenta flood. 
 
 Cook heard that Raymond Asquith's dying words 
 
 * Afterwards Sir T. H. Warren, Professor of Poetry at Oxford. 
 
284 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 were (with a smile), " To think that I should be dying 
 for my comitry as a lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards ". 
 This anthology from Cook's daily jottings might be 
 indefinitely prolonged. These selections will indicate 
 the range of his interests and the catholicity of his 
 friendships. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 DEATH AND CHARACTER 
 
 Se il mondo sapesse il cor ch' egli ebbe, 
 Assai lo lodo e piii lo loderebbe. 
 
 (" If the world might know the heart he had within him, much as it 
 praiseth, it would praise him more,") — Dante, Paradiso, vi. 141-142. 
 
 Cook's death, so far as the expectation of his friends 
 was concerned, happened suddenly. Sir Frank Swetten- 
 ham had received a letter from him only a few days 
 before, in which no reference to any illness occurred. 
 Other friends, however, had noticed a change, and the 
 present writer, meeting him some time before the end, 
 had been struck by the alteration in his personal appear- 
 ance. He died at Rose Cottage, Southstoke, Oxon, on 
 September 30, 1919, of pneumonia, of which he had 
 already suffered from two attacks. But a worse symp- 
 tom had been the persistent malady in his hand, which 
 was declared by his own physician to be writer's cramp, 
 but by a specialist whom he consulted to be incipient 
 paralysis, no doubt the more correct diagnosis. His 
 death at the age of sixty-two, in the prime of his powers, 
 was an imexpected blow to his friends and relatives, but 
 one shrinks from naming it premature in the thought of 
 the immense work, much of it permanent in character 
 and destiny, which he had accomplished. 
 
 Private and public recognitions of his virtues and 
 services were many. " I feel his loss keenly ", wrote 
 
 285 
 
286 LIFE OF SIR EDWAED COOK 
 
 Sir Frank Swettenham, "for a wiser, kinder, truer 
 gentleman it would be hard to find, and I never met 
 another man with whom I would have shared the 
 directorship of the Press Bureau. With him it was to 
 halve the troubles and double the pleasures of that 
 strange post ". And again : "It did not need five 
 years of the closest association to show me that he was 
 one of the best, the kindest and the wisest of men. I 
 don't think we were any of us lazily inclined, but he 
 always tried to do more than his share of the work, and 
 he often succeeded ". 
 
 The President of the Board of Education wrote to Mr. 
 A. K. Cook : 
 
 The Athen^um, Pall Mall, S.W.I, 
 October 2, 1919. 
 
 My dear Cook — I was greatly distressed, on opening my 
 paper this morning, to read of your brother's death, and the shock 
 was the greater since I was not aware that he had been iU. For 
 sheer unostentatious competence upon a very high level he had 
 few equals in this country, and surely there was never a life more 
 worthily or completely filled. On (?) the Warden and Fellows 
 he was a tower of strength, disdaining no detail, however small, 
 and addressing himself with absolute self -surrender to every form 
 of minute, useful and tedious labour. We shall all miss him very 
 greatly. So, too, will the country, for there are few men — indeed, 
 I cannot recall any man — in the world of journalism, who unite 
 in so rare and satisfactory a manner his qualities of sobriety, 
 exactness and taste. — Yours sincerely, 
 
 Herbert Fisher. 
 
 From another high ofiicial in the Board of Educa- 
 tion (Sir L. A. Selby-Bigge, K.C.B., Permanent Sec- 
 retary) came a letter of touching reminiscence : 
 
 Whitehall, London, S.W., 
 October 9, 1919. 
 
 The death of your brother, of which I only heard when I got 
 back from Ireland this week, is a great grief to me. I owe him 
 
DEATH AND CHARACTER 287 
 
 a great deal from the time when he was a big boy and I was a 
 little boy in College, and he made me read Ruskin — sometimes 
 when I wanted to play fives. He taught me more than any one 
 I have known. I have had a good many dealings with him lately, 
 and hoped that this country would get a good deal more useful 
 work out of him before he was laid on the shelf, but I expect the 
 Press Bureau finished him. 
 
 I had a great affection and respect for him, and he was about 
 my oldest friend. I feel very sad. If I have done anjrthing 
 solid and useful in my life it is mainly due to him. You may 
 like to receive my tribute of gratitude and affection. 
 
 Mr. Alexander Wedderburn, K.C, wrote to Mrs. 
 Vincent, Sir Edward's sister : 
 
 I have just got your wire, and am greatly grieved, but the 
 loss of old friends is the penalty of increasing years. There were 
 few like your brother. I shall always like to remember that in 
 all my years of work with him on the Ruskin Edition there was 
 never a jar between us. His admirable judgment always seemed 
 — and was — ^right. 
 
 Later on his representatives and I will have to consider what 
 to do about the joint gift of our books promised to Oxford. 
 He and I were to have arranged them together, but it wiU be 
 saddened work now. 
 
 The last passage of this letter refers to a most valu- 
 able gift of books relating to Ruskin, which were pre- 
 sented by Sir Edward and Mr. Wedderburn to Oxford 
 University. 
 
 Mrs. Carruthers (Miss Violet Markham) in the course 
 of a letter from Cologne to Mr. A. M. Cook, written some 
 months later, says : 
 
 You say that people who did not know him looked upon 
 your brother as " an austere sphinx ". Of course that is an 
 utter travesty. He was not a man who wore his mind any 
 more than his heart on his sleeve for casual fools to peck at. 
 But the nobUity of his character was rooted in its deep humanity 
 and wide sympathies, and surely only the very obtuse could have 
 failed to notice the twinkle in his eye when his countenance other- 
 
288 LITE OF SIE EDWARD COOK 
 
 wise seemed grave. It will be a lifelong regret to me that we had 
 seen so little of each other of late. 
 
 And in a postscript : 
 
 I hope jou won't continue to regret the years given to Ruskin. 
 Ruskin has had his period of echpse, but his work will, I believe, 
 always remain a clarion call to the generous youth of succeeding 
 generations. To have made that message clearer and more in- 
 telligible is, I believe, a greater public service to have rendered 
 than to have been inamersed in the sewage (forgive my language) 
 of current politics. 
 
 In this letter Mrs. Carruthers alludes to a criticism of 
 Cook's manner and temperament rather than his char- 
 acter, which is too general for a biographer de bonne foi 
 to disregard. Many who came only into superficial 
 contact with Cook complained of a want of warmth 
 and sympathy. He was likened to a glacier or an ice- 
 bei^ exhaling a chilliness into the surrounding air. I 
 confess to some very slight experience of this sort in 
 the early days of my association with Cook. But my 
 prevailing impression of Cook is one of genial summer 
 sunshine rather than of winter glaciation, and I should 
 myself say that a sunnier and happier nature was never 
 lodged in human flesh. It is true he was not a man of 
 indiscriminate bonhomie or an expert in the mere forms 
 and gestures of human fellowship. Mrs. Cook once 
 said to me : " Teddy makes few friends ". All this is 
 true, but it Is also true that no man was ever more loyal 
 and devoted to the friends whose adoption he had tried. 
 This memoir is much at fault if it has not afforded ample 
 evidence of Cook's real kindliness and generosity of 
 heart. The tributes of his friends are conclusive in this 
 matter. Lord Rosebery's reference to Cook as "a 
 delightful friend " has already been quoted. This was 
 written in 1920, but the charm of Cook's friendship 
 receives testimony at much earlier dates. Lord Curzon, 
 
DEATH AND CHARACTER 
 
 writing in 1898, speaks of '' my good fortnne in retain- 
 ing a friendship wiiich in onr common Oxford days it 
 was always a pride to me to Lave won ". 
 
 But it is in the home-life and tie " little unremem- 
 bered acts " that a man's true nature is expressed. 
 Some vivid glimpses of Cook in his more private life 
 are afiorded by a few reminiscences written down by 
 Mrs. H. B. Irving (Miss Dorothea Baird), his sister-in- 
 law : 
 
 I can remember very cleady the days from '85 on"w-ard= at 
 West Hampstead, brightened by the advent of my sister and 
 brother-in-law, whose Sunday visit was the great affair of our 
 week. He had an enormoiis capacity for being young and imder- 
 standing the point of view of childhood — a capacity which those 
 who did not know him in the family circle had no idea of. My 
 sister idealised all children, and he respected her ideal Looking 
 'lack, I think we realised that he enjoyed playing with us ; he 
 was really interested. He was always very tender with tiny 
 children, but after my sister's death he seemed to lose a great 
 deal of the power of speaking their language, thongh to the end 
 of his life his love for them was manifest. 
 
 One of his most delightful characteristics was his genius icxr 
 hohday-makrng. He had every qnaiity necessary to the perfect 
 traveller. Two holidays spent with them in Northern Italy are 
 not to be foi^otten. He never fussed, but accepted aH environ- 
 ments and got the best out of each, and his sense of humour on 
 the one hand, and his great knowledge of art and literature on 
 the other, lighted up every turn in our wanderings. He had a 
 wonderful faculty for making tea on all occasions, beautifully 
 and without any mess, while my sister sketched, aad, desjate 
 his learning, he never appeared academic to the Tg««MWP> d 
 adolescence. 
 
 HiR memory was extraordinary, and he loved quoting any 
 beautiful lines that the scenery called up in his mind. Both my 
 sister and he hked to travel ofi the beaten paths, tramfiBg 
 through snow and over glaciers down all the pleasant vaSeyB of 
 the Italian Alps from Monte Rosa to Mont Blanc. Thougji no 
 one could call >ii-m an athlete he was a good walker. He had a 
 
 U 
 
290 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 great affection for guide-books, especially one written by a 
 certain early Victorian Mr. King, whose efforts to overcome 
 frightful difficulties in climbing mountains with a wife in a 
 crinoline always amused us. He was very fond of the " Sacra- 
 mentes " of Varallo and Orta and the Passion plays of the Lakes. 
 I remember at Varallo finding Mr. Sam Butler groping in a Httle 
 grated cavern, one of a series illustrating the Story of the Cross, 
 and nearly taking him for one of the painted clay figures them- 
 selves. 
 
 My brother-in-law had a keen admiration for and under- 
 standing of the young girl. There was nothing that he would 
 not do to make things delightful and pleasant for her. I think 
 he even beheved in Ruskin.'s theory that she was worth wait- 
 ing seven years for. Yet with his kindness one always felt 
 that he was rather a stickler about overstepping conventional 
 bounds. His solicitude and affection, however, for me, when I 
 finally decided to make the stage my profession, were remark- 
 able, and both he and my sister without a word took it for granted 
 that I should make my headquarters with them, and while on 
 tour they came to criticise and help me whenever we were near 
 enough to London for them to get away. When I was with them 
 between tours it always seemed to me wonderful how, after a 
 heavy week's work, Teddie would come home on a Saturday 
 afternoon, apparently thinking of nothing but the little treat he 
 had provided for all three of us, when a pint bottle of champagne 
 crowned our dinner, and we went off gaily to the upper boxes or 
 the dress circle to see the latest successful drama. 
 
 He loved also a holiday on the Thames, and generally secured 
 a brief three days at Whitsuntide. I remember such a holiday 
 on the Upper River, when, after successfully manoeuvring " the 
 stripling Thames at Bablock Hythe ", he and I by changing 
 places in mid-stream unfortunately fell into the river. This 
 contretemps did not upset him in the least. We merely dripped 
 our way to a cottage, and in half an hour he was continuing his 
 journey to Lechlade in the Sunday best of the old cottage 
 labourer. 
 
 Strangers, though cognisant of his brilliant literary gifts and 
 his extraordinary width of knowledge, did not realise that other 
 and more human side. Whenever those he loved came in touch 
 
DEATH AND CHARACTER 291 
 
 with him, they realised that he drew from his environment every 
 ounce of material as well as spiritual and mental gain. He appre- 
 ciated the cider cup at Godstow as well as the beauty of the white 
 and purple fritillaries and the blue hyacinths of Eynsham. A 
 dinner in Paris was enjoyed and considered with as much vital 
 interest as the galleries we had done during the day, and a bathe 
 in the Lido at Venice was never incompatible with appreciating 
 the full beauties of an Italian sunset. 
 
 I think he never got quite reconciled to the freedom which 
 was necessary to a girl taking up a profession such as mine, and 
 from being brother and playmate (I had no brothers and my 
 father was dead) he tended to become graver, and in all diffi- 
 culties, until when on my wedding day he gave me away, he was 
 behind me ready to act if necessary on my behalf and make easy 
 with his wise counsel the difficult paths which naturally beset 
 the yoimg person of twenty thrown upon the world on her own 
 resources, 
 
 I must leave psychologists to explain how a man of 
 such a lovable and kindly disposition can have pre- 
 sented, as many seem to think, such an icy exterior 
 to the world. It is likely enough that this manner 
 was the result of shyness, the protective armour- 
 plate assumed by a too vulnerable sensibility. The 
 curious thing was that any such impressions were 
 always being corrected by the geniality of mouth and 
 eyes, which indeed are truer mirrors of the soul than 
 gesture and handshake. But though I believe a more 
 kindly and generous heart never beat than Sir Edward 
 Cook's, it is no doubt true that justice, rather than 
 philanthropic sentiment, was the basis of his character, 
 and justice is a much rarer and more difficult virtue than 
 some persons think. To stand up to one's enemies is 
 easy enough, but to stand up to one's friends and even 
 to oneself in the name of justice is a much higher spiritual 
 exercise, of which Cook was fully capable. 
 
 It was this quality of calm and equable justice which 
 
292 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 gave Sir Edward Cook that upholding power acknow- 
 ledged by all who came within his orbit. We have 
 seen him in his early youth the wise counsellor of 
 his coevals. This influence, largely the outcome of his 
 singularly wise judgment, persisted throughout his life. 
 Mrs. Carruthers writes (1908) in one of those letters 
 which are so remarkable for a keen criticism of life : 
 
 I am glad to say, in spite of all the small and petty and sordid 
 things one rmis up against so constantly, the finer and better 
 elements in human nature seem to me far to outweigh the others. 
 So far from being crushed by the sense of human depravity, I am 
 always being moved by the nobility and self-sacrifice which 
 dignify so many humble hves, and shine like great fights in others 
 more fortunately placed. It is perhaps rather surprising to 
 come into middle fife with such a faith, but I can only say it 
 deepens in me year by year, and without it existence would be 
 meaningless and all work a farce. I am so very glad to think 
 you feel the same, though you being ijou could hardly feel differ- 
 ently. That steadfast power you have which means so much 
 to all your friends and makes your written word such a message 
 to many people could only come from a positive attitude towards 
 Hfe. 
 
 And in another letter : 
 
 You httle reahse how much you count to aU whose fives are 
 touched by yours, and to whom fife itself is a better thing because 
 they have known the influence of your high faith and purpose. 
 
 Such tributes could scarcely have been elicited from 
 the friends of a sphinx or a Rhadamanthus. The sub- 
 conscious, as distinct from the articulate, influence 
 exercised by Cook was indeed remarkable. Such a man 
 becomes an embodiment of what is best and highest in 
 the world, and his death seems to remove a part of the 
 indispensable stay and support of the moral order. 
 
 It has often been asked why Cook never entered 
 Parliamentary life. After his exclusion from daily 
 
DEATH AND CHARACTER 293 
 
 journalism lie had once more a choice of Parliamentary 
 candidatures offered to him. But Cook was wise for him- 
 self as well as for others, and it was no doubt his own 
 perfect self-knowledge which diverted him from these 
 paths. He was not specially qualified either in physique 
 or in spirit for the sordid and shifting melly of party and 
 Parhamentary life. No doubt there were ofi&ces under 
 the Crown which he would have appropriately and 
 successfully filled. A not unhappy thought prompted 
 a rumour at one time that he was likely to become the 
 British Ambassador at Washington. He had many 
 qualifications for success in that high station. He was 
 once described as the best post-prandial speaker in Eng- 
 land ; his gift in that line, together with his sound 
 political judgment, his ardent patriotism, his intellectual 
 culture, and that " quiet dignity and gentle bearing " ^ 
 which was his, might have made him an ideal repre- 
 sentative in the American capital. 
 
 But Cook realised himself in his own way. He has 
 enriched our literature with many works of permanent 
 worth, left a beneficent impress upon the politics of 
 his country, and bequeathed to his own profession of 
 journalism a high example of moral purpose and literary 
 art which, we may hope, it will long continue to honour 
 and to emulate. 
 
 ^ Happily chosen words in a review of the second volume of Literary Recrea- 
 tions, written in the Book Monthly by Mr. W. B. Kemphng of the Daily Chronicle. 
 
A LIST OF BOOKS AND MAGAZINE ARTICLES 
 BY E. T. C. 
 
 1880. (1) " The Connection between Poetry and Painting", Temple Bar 
 Magazine, July, pp. 351-361. 
 (2) " Acting, Natural and Acquired ", Temple Bar Magazine, July, 
 pp. 400-403. 
 
 1882. (3) The Irish Land Act, 1881 [44, 45, Vic. c. 49] : its origin, its 
 principles and its working. A rejoinder to the Hon. G. C. 
 Brodrick [i.e. to his lecture on the Irish Land Act of 1881, 
 published in Frazcr's Magazine, Jan. 1882], being, with 
 additions, a paper read before the Palmerston Club [Oxford]. 
 Pp. 72. Blackwell, Oxford. 
 
 1888. (4) A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery : including by 
 special permission notes collected from the works of Mr. 
 Ruskin. With Preface by J. R. Pp. vii-ix, xviii + 703, 
 Macmillan. 
 
 First edition, both in two volumes and in one. Seven 
 editions revised and rearranged foUow — the eighth in 1912. 
 (5) "Home Affairs, Reviews of", Westminster Review. Nine 
 monthly articles between Sept. 1887 and May 1888. 
 
 1890. (6) Studies in Ruskin : some aspects of the work and teaching of 
 John Ruskin, with reproductions of drawings by J. R. in the 
 Ruskin Drawing School, Oxford. Pp. xiv + 334. G. Allen, 
 Orpington. 
 
 A large paper quarto edition, and a smaller without the 
 autotypes. 
 (7) Half-holidays at the National Gallery. First edition with 42 
 reproductions, second with 70. A fifth edition, pp. xvi-t-92, 
 in 1906. Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 With supplementary " National Gallery Pictures ", pp. 96 of 
 reproductions appearing in 1893. 
 
 1897. (8) London and Environs, by Emily C. Cook [Mrs. E. T. Cook]. 
 With chapters on the British Museum, the National Gallery 
 and South Kensington, by E. T. C. Darlington's Handbooks. 
 A fifth edition in 1904. 
 
 295 
 
296 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 1898. (9) A Popular Handbook to the Tate Gallery. Pp. ix + 298. 
 Macmillan. 
 (10) The Passing of Gladstone : his life, death and burial. Re- 
 printed from the Daily News. Pp. 208. Simpkin, Marshall 
 & Co. 
 
 1901. (11) Rights and Wrongs of the Transvaal War. Pp. xi + 378. 
 
 E. Arnold. 
 
 A new and revised edition, pp. xi + 393, in 1902. 
 
 (12) "J.Ruskin": Dictionary of National Biography, Supplement, 
 
 vol. iii. pp. 305-327. 
 
 (13) "Ruskin and the New Liberalism", New Liberal Review, 
 
 Feb., pp. 18-25. 
 
 (14) "The Foreign PoUcy of Lord Rosebery ", Contemporary 
 
 Review : I. July, pp. 1-12 ; II. Aug., pp. 153-176. 
 
 (15) The Foreign Policy of Lord Rosebery : two chapters in 
 
 Recent Politics, 1886 and 1892-5. A repubhcation of the 
 above articles, with alterations and additions ; and an 
 Appendix with illustrative excerpts from Lord Rosebery's 
 speeches. Pp. 88. A. L. Humphreys. 
 
 (16) "Lord Rosebery and the Liberal Party", New Liberal 
 
 Review, Aug., pp. 11-17. 
 
 (17) "Paralysis of Parliament", Quarterly Review, Oct., pp. 
 
 601-636. 
 
 (18) "Some Editorial Experiences", Universal Magazine, Dec, 
 
 pp. 61-73. 
 
 1902. (19) Ruskin on Pictures. A collection of criticisms by J. R. not 
 
 heretofore reprinted and now re-edited and rearranged. 
 Vol. I., Turner at the National Gallery and in Mr. Ruskin' s 
 collection, pp. xvi-f467; Vol. II., Academy notes and 
 notes on Prout and Hunt, pp. xiii + 375. G. AUen. 
 
 (20) " Lord Rosebery and the Copperheads ", Contemporary 
 
 Review, Jan., pp. 1-12. 
 
 (21) "The Art of Legislation", Quarterly Review, April, pp. 
 
 466-485. 
 
 (22) "The Colonial Conference", Quarterly Review, July, pp. 
 
 315-341. 
 
 (23) " Ruskin and his Books : an interview with his Publisher ". 
 
 Strand Magazine, Dec, pp. 709-719. 
 
 1903. (24) A Popular Handbook to the Greek and Roman Antiquities 
 
 in the British Museum. Pp. xxii + 794. Macmillan. 
 
 (25) The Works of John Ruskin, Library Edition. Edited by 
 
 E. T. C. and Alexander Wedderburn. 39 vols., 1903-1912. 
 Vol. 38, BibUography and Catalogue of Drawings ; vol. 
 39, General Index, pp. 689. 
 
 (26) " Colonial Preference — the Colonial View ", New Liberal 
 
 Review, July, pp. 756-764. 
 
 (27) " Mr. Gladstone as Foreign Minister ", Monthly Review, 
 
 Nov., pp. 70-86. 
 
LIST OF BOOKS 297 
 
 1904. (28) "The Colonies and Mr. Chamberlain", New Liberal 
 
 Review, Feb., pp. 20-32. 
 (29) " The Next Government ", Contemporary Review, Aug., 
 pp. 153-161. 
 
 1905. (30) " Bm-ied Turners : Selected Treasures at the National 
 
 Gallery ", Pall Mall Magazine, May, pp. 515-528. 
 
 (31) " Hidden Treasures at the National Gallery ". A selection of 
 
 studies and drawings by J. M. W. Turner, R.A., now pub- 
 lished for the first time, with some account of them and a 
 sketch of Turner's life and reproductions of a number of his 
 finished works. Pp. 96 foUo. Pali Mall Press. 
 A new and popular edition, 1906. Pp. 98. 
 
 (32) "Is the Government Indispensable?" "A review of Lord 
 
 Lansdowne's Foreign Policy ", Contemporary Review, Sept., 
 pp. 332-343. 
 
 1907. (33) " Liberal Colonial Policy ", Contemporary Review, April, 
 pp. 457-468. 
 (34) " Book Wars : Ruskin as the Father of the Net System ", 
 Book Monthly, May, pp. 553-556. 
 
 1909. (35) Edmund Garrett : a Memoir. With portrait. Pp. x -f 284. 
 
 E. Arnold. 
 
 (36) "]VIinisters and their Critics", Contemporary Review, Mar., 
 
 pp. 257-263. 
 
 (37) " The Story of a Great Literary Undertaking : the editing 
 
 of Works, Life and Letters of J. Ruskin ", Pall MaU 
 Magazine, Oct., pp. 517-531. 
 
 1910. (38) "The Jubilee of the CornhUl", CornhiU Magazine, Jan., 
 
 pp. 8-27. Reprinted with some alterations in Literary 
 Recreations as " Fifty Years of a Literary Magazine ", 
 p. 77. 
 
 (39) " The Issue and the Record ", Contemporary Review, Jan., 
 
 pp. 1-16. 
 
 " The concurrence of the Peers and the Crown to a tax 
 is only necessary to clothe it with the form of a law. The 
 gift and grant is of the Commons alone ". — W. Pitt. 
 
 (40) "The Elections and After", Contemporary Review, Mar., 
 
 pp. 258-272. 
 
 1911. (41) The Life of John Ruskin: with portraits. Vol. I. pp. 
 
 XXV -t- 540 ; Vol. II. pp. xiv + 615. G. Allen. 
 (42) "The Election — Before and After", Contemporary Review, 
 Jan., pp. 1-10. 
 
 1912. (43) The Homes and Haunts of J. Ruskin. With 28 illustrations 
 
 in colour from original drawings, and 16 in black and white, 
 by Emily M. B. Warren. Pp. xviii -f 218. G. Allen. 
 (44) "The PoUtical Prospect", Contemporary Review, Mar., 
 pp. 305-316. 
 
298 LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COOK 
 
 1912. (45) " W. T. Stead ", Contemporary Review, May, pp. 613-617. 
 
 (46) " The Political Prospect ", Contemporary Review, Oct., 
 
 pp. 457-467. 
 
 (47) Federal Home Rule : What Federation means. By E. T. C, 
 
 E. T. John, M.P., and H. A. Watt, M.P. Pp. 16. Daily 
 Chronicle. 
 
 1913. (48) The Life of Florence Nightingale. With illustrations. Vol.1. 
 
 pp. xxxi + 507 ; Vol. II. pp. xiv -1- 510. MacmiUan. 
 
 A Danish translation by A. Kromann in 2 vols. 1917. 
 Hagerup, Copenhagen. 
 
 1913. (49) "Lord Loreburn's Intervention", Contemporary Review, 
 
 Oct., pp. 457-466. 
 
 1914. (50) " Eight Years of Liberal Imperialism ", Contemporary 
 
 Review, Jan., pp. 1-11. 
 
 (51) " The Art of Biography", National Review, April, pp. 266-284. 
 
 Reprinted with slight addition in Literary Recrea- 
 tions, p. 1. 
 
 (52) Dulwich College Catalogue of Pictures: revised and com- 
 
 pleted to the present time. Pp. xxxv + 365, Darling & Son. 
 
 (53) How Britain Strove for Peace : a record of Anglo-German 
 
 negotiations, 1898-1914, from authoritative sources. Pp. 
 39. Macmillan. 
 (64) Britain and Turkey : the causes of the rupture set out in 
 brief form from the diplomatic correspondence. Pp. 31. 
 Macmillan. 
 
 (55) Addresses on Practical Imperialism and the Ideals of Public 
 
 Health. Victoria League, May 21. Pp. 11. 
 
 (56) " IMr. Chamberlain", Contemporary Review, Aug., pp. 153- 
 
 164. 
 
 (57) Why Britain is at War : the causes and the issues set out in 
 
 brief form from the diplomatic correspondence and speeches 
 of Ministers. Pp. 24. Macmillan. [Translated into nine 
 foreign languages, including Chinese.] 
 
 (58) Britain and the Small Nations: her principles and her 
 
 policy. Pp. 8. Victoria League Pamj)hlet. 
 
 1915. (59) Delane of the Times. Makers of the Nineteenth Century 
 
 Series. Pp. x + 319. Constable. 
 (60) "Reply to Bethmann-HoUweg ", Times of Jan. 27. With 
 headlines : A Scrap of Paper, Quibbles of the Chancellor, 
 Sir E. Grey's reply, The Misuse of Documents, and In- 
 troductory Note — "The Secretary for Foreign Affairs 
 authorises the publication of the following observations 
 upon the report of an interview granted by the German 
 Chancellor to an American correspondent ". 
 
 1916. (61) The Press Censorship : an interview. Pp.12. Burrup & Co. 
 (62) Recollections of Charles Morley : in Memoir prefaced to book 
 
 by C. M. entitled " Travels in London." 
 
LIST OF BOOKS 299 
 
 (63) Britain's Part in the War. Pp. 11. An Introduction to 
 64. Victoria League Pamphlet. 
 
 1917. (64) Britain's Part in the War. By the Dowager Countess of 
 
 Jersey and E. T. C. Pp. 62. Victoria League Pamphlet. 
 
 1918. (65) Literary Recreations : the Art of Biography — Some Remarks 
 
 on Ruskin's Styk^ — The Art of Indexing — Fifty Years of a 
 Literary Magazine — Literature of Modern Journahsm — 
 Words and the War — A Study of Superlatives — The Poetry 
 of a Painter (Turner) — The Second Thoughts of Poets. 
 Pp. X + 329. Macmillan. 
 
 1919. (66) More Literary Recreations : Travelling Companions — The 
 
 Classics in Daily Life — A Ramble in PUny's Letters — The 
 Art of Editing — Poets as Critics — A Short Study in Words 
 — Single-poem Poets — The Charm of the Greek Anthology 
 (with Appendix of List of Translations in English from the 
 Greek Anthology). Pp. xxiv + 395. Macmillan. 
 
 1920. (67) The Press in War-time : with some account of the official 
 
 Press Bureau. Pp. xv-f200. MacmUIan. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Adams, Keighley, Lowenfeld, and 
 Astor, purchasers of P.M.G., 116 
 
 Africa, South, 178 ff. ; Government 
 adopt an interim despatch suggested 
 in D.N., September 22, 1899, 187 
 
 Agreements of editors with newspaper 
 proprietors, 120, 123, 127, 158 
 
 Aristotle's Poetics, a projected edition, 
 40 
 
 Arnold, Sir Edwin, 128 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, 21 ; Swinburne on, 
 281 
 
 Asquith, H. H., 12, 13 ; his wit, 275 
 
 Asquith, Mrs., on Balfour, etc., 279 
 
 Asquith, Raymond, 283 
 
 Athletics at school, 8 
 
 Balfour, A. J., a few words with, in 
 
 1885. 90, 95 ; his fascination, 147 ; 
 
 Mrs. Asquith on, 279 
 Bamett, Canon, 66, 82 
 Baumann, A. A., 15, 22 
 Botha, L., a story, 277 
 Boyle, J. B., printer of D.N., letter 
 
 from, 156 
 Brett, R. (Lord Esher), on Greece in 
 
 1885, 94, 95 ; 133 
 Browning and Tennyson, 129, 144 
 Bryce, J. (Lord), 132 
 Buckle, G. E., 7, 181, 201 
 Buckmaster, Lord, 246 ; letter from, 
 
 252 
 Bullying at school, 7 
 
 Cadbury, G., 195, 196, 202 
 
 Campbell-Bannermann, H., leader of 
 Liberal party, 177 
 
 Carnegie, A., 41, 128 
 
 Churchill, Lord R., interviews with, 
 in 1885, 88, 89, 91, 93 ; letter from, 
 in 1886, 97 ; his conversation, 147 
 
 Civil Service examination, 35 
 
 Clayden, P. W., 199 
 
 Coleridge, the first Lord, letter on the 
 best books, 73 
 
 Cook, E. T., birth in 1857, 3 ; goes to 
 Winchester 1869, 4 (Fellow 1903, 
 11) ; Oxford 1876, 10 ; on the staff 
 of P.M.O. 1883, 41 ; Assistant- 
 Editor of P.M.G. 1885, 68 ; editor 
 of P.M.G. 1890, 106 ; editor of 
 W.G. 1893, 128; editor of Daily 
 News 1896, 153 ; leader-writer on 
 Daily Chronicle 1901-1911, 219, 
 237 ; knighthood 1912, 237 ; K.B.E. 
 1917, 249 ; Joint Director of Press 
 Bureau 1915, 246 ; death 1919, 285 
 Books : Guide to National and 
 Tate Galleries, 82 ; Rights and 
 Wrongs of the Transvaal War, 214 ; 
 Studies in Buskin, 76 ; Library 
 Edition of Ruskin, 224 ff. ; Life of 
 Ruskin, 227 ; Life of F. Nightingale, 
 229 ; Life of Delane, 230 ; Literary 
 Recreations, 249 ; The Press in 
 War-time, 250 
 
 Cook, Mrs. E. T., marriage 1884, 62 ; 
 death 1903, 221 ; her Guide to 
 London, 221 
 
 Curzon, G. N. (Lord), at the Oxford 
 Union, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20; a 
 dinner with, 147 ; letters from, 33, 
 240, 288 
 
 Cust, H., 62, 134 
 
 Daily Chronicle, E. T. C. leader writer 
 
 on for ten years, 1901-1911, 218 
 Daily News, E. T. C. editor of 1896, 
 
 153 
 192 
 196 
 
 and 
 
 its circulation, 191 ; sold, 
 final articles quoted from, 
 the " Cry of the Children ", 
 ' No Room to Live ", 198 
 
 301 
 
302 
 
 LIFE OF Sm EDWAED COOK 
 
 Darling, Mr. Justice, a story, 278 
 
 Delane, Life of, 230 
 
 Disraeli, his French, 270 
 
 Divinity examination at Oxford, 31 
 
 Donald, R., 219 
 
 Drage, G., 19 
 
 Editors and writing, 231 
 Editorship, offers of, 206 
 Edward, King Edward VII., a jest, 
 
 271 
 Edwards, C, and strikes, 170 
 
 Fearon, W. A. (Canon), 204 
 
 Fellowship examinations, 34 
 
 Fisher, Rt. Hon. H., 286 
 
 Fisher, W. J., 205, 219 
 
 Fowler, Sir H., 175 
 
 Fox, H. F., letters to, 20, 23, 25, 26, 
 
 27, 28, 31, 34, 37, 40, 59 ; 32 
 French, Viscount, a ribald jest on, 275 
 Friederichs, Miss, 123 
 Fumiss, H., 159 
 
 Garrett, F. Edmund, at P.M.G. and 
 W.G., 112, 115, 122, 123, 139, 202 
 verses on sale of P.M.G., 137 
 in South Africa, 179, 272, 274 
 Memoir of, 124, 228 
 
 Garvin, J. L., 215 
 
 GeU, P. L., 65 
 
 George, Lloyd, sale of D.N., 194, 195, 
 196, 199 ; a story, 273 
 
 Gladstone, W. E., article on his Jubilee 
 in 1882 in Oxford Chronicle, 39 ; 
 125 ; interview with, in 1890 on 
 Pamell, 110; his dinner conversa- 
 tion in 1892, 129, 130 ; welcomes 
 the W.G., 137 ; meets him at the 
 Durdans in 1893, 144 ; dinner with 
 in 1893, 146 ; a visit to Hawarden 
 in 1895, 147 ; an anecdote, 239 
 
 Gould, F. C, 123, 139 ; a letter from, 
 155 
 
 Granville, Lord, on defence of Belgium 
 in 1887, 98 
 
 Greece, kept quiet in 1885-86, 95 ; 
 English phil-Hellenism of 1897, 
 and war with Turkey, 165 
 
 Greenwood, F., first editor of P.M.G., 
 43 £E. ; buying Suez Canal shares, 
 232 
 
 Haldane, Viscount, 201, 278 
 Harcourt, Sir W., M.P. for Oxford 
 
 city, 16, 19 ; letter on Oxford 
 
 Union, 21 ; Liberal leadership, 142, 
 
 160, 176 
 Harwood, Rev. W. H., 173 
 Hill, W., 98, 118, 123 
 Hogg, Sir J. M'G., 276 
 Home Rule, 49, 84 
 Horton, Rev. R, F., New College 
 
 Essay Society, 19, 27 ; on Prof. 
 
 Driver, 32 ; on Romanism, 173 
 Howells, W. D., a story, 278 
 Hudson, R., 196 
 
 Iddesleigh, Lord, death, 98 
 Imperial Liberal Council, 182 
 Indexing, 227 
 
 Irving, Sir H., on best books, 74 
 Irving, Mrs. H. B., reminiscences, 289 
 Iwan-Miiller, E. B., 190 
 
 James, Henry, a suppressed letter on 
 newspapers, 75 
 
 Jameson Raid, 142 
 
 Journalism, commercialism, 211 ; 
 independent and party, 174, 206, 
 233 ; New Journalism, 213 ; sensa- 
 tionalism, 232 ; truculence, 174 ; 
 Palmerston on newspapers, 234 
 
 Kempling, W. B., 293 n. 
 Kitchener, Lord, 271 
 
 Landseer, the Queen and Prince 
 
 Consort, 270 
 Leslie, H., 104, 117 
 Lessing's Laocoon, 29 
 Liberal Imperialists, 223 
 Liberal League, 222 
 London, Bishop of, 274 
 Lonsdale, Earl of, 276 
 Low, Sir Sidney, 17, 56 
 Lucy, Sir H. W., 159 
 
 M'DonneU, S., 189 
 
 Manning, Cardinal, 105 
 
 MargoUouth, Prof., 27 
 
 Markham, Violet (Mrs. Carruthers, 
 C.H.), on Life of Florence Nightin- 
 gale, 229; letters to, 241, 249; 
 letters from, 287, 292 ; a story, 275 
 
 Massingham, H. W., letter to, 216 ; 
 202 
 
 Matheson, P. E., 190 n. 
 
 Maxse, Adm., 140, 282 
 
 Maxse, L., 121, 157 
 
INDEX 
 
 303 
 
 Meade, F., 252 
 
 Meredith, G., 282 
 
 Mills, J. Saxon, at D.N., 179, 194, 
 199; in South Africa, 183; 216, 
 219 
 
 Milner, A. (Viscount), at the Oxford 
 Union, 18 ; letter from, in 1880, 42, 
 in 1883, 41, in 1886, 61 ; at the 
 P.M.O., 55; leaving the P.M.O., 
 66 ; E. T. C.'s friendship with and 
 great admiration of, 223 ; other 
 references, 12, 125, 143, 179, 200 
 
 Morley, Arnold, on D.N. and Non- 
 conformists, 171 ; 158, 192 
 
 Morley, C, 98, 116, 117, 123 
 
 Morley, J. (Viscount), interview with, 
 37 ; gives a testimonial for Carnegie, 
 41 ; editor of P.M.O., 47, 120 ; to 
 an impatient contributor, 210 ; 
 circumstances of his becoming Irish 
 Secretary, 49 ; letter on sale of 
 P.M.G., 125 ; on Rosebery and 
 Harcourt, 162 ; on Harcourt's 
 resignation, 176 ; speech at dinner 
 to E. T. C, 238, and letter, 240 ; 
 Kitchener for Viceroy, 272 ; his 
 charm, 280 ; other references, 1, 12 
 
 National Gallery, Popular Guide to, 82 
 Newnes, Sir G., founds the W.G.,\2Q; 
 
 letters to and from, 154 
 Nightingale, F., Life of, 229 
 Norman, Sir H., 98, 189 
 NorthcUffe, Lord, 231 
 Nottingham, professorship, 40 
 
 Omar Khayyam, 28, 215 
 Oppenheim, H., 158, 194 
 Oxford, 12 ; the Union, 13 fE. 
 Oxford Chronicle, contributions to, 38 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette, its early history, 43 ; 
 
 its Extras, 71 ; sale of, 113 ; a writer 
 
 on E. T. C, 213 
 PameU, his fall, 107 
 Paul, Alex., 159, 193 
 Paul, H. W., 22, 158, 193 
 PhiUips, C, 190 
 Poetry and Painting, an early essay 
 
 quoted from, 28 
 Press Bureau, 245 ; daily work at, 
 
 248 ; book on, 251 
 
 Rashdall, Dean Hastings, on E. T. C. 
 at Oxford, 19, 33, 34 
 
 Reid, Sir R. (Lord Lorebum), 17G 
 
 Rejected addresses, 254 fi. 
 
 Ridding, Bishop, 4, 9, 10 
 
 Rhodes, C, 50, 272 
 
 Robertson Scott, 202 
 
 Robinson, A., 33, 34 
 
 Robinson, Sir J., 193 
 
 Rodd, Sir Rennell, 16 
 
 Rogers, Dr. Guinness, 170, 201 
 
 Rosebery, Lord, first meeting with, 
 16 ; writes on sale of P.M.G., 126 ; 
 talk with in 1892, 130 ; becomes 
 leader, 140 ; a visit to the Durdans 
 in 1892, 144 ; the difficulties of 
 leadership, 161 ; retirement in 1896, 
 164 ; on sale of D.N., 195, 200 ; a 
 remark of J. Chamberlain on, 222 ; 
 his wit, 275, 276; on E. T. C, 
 147 
 
 Ruskin : early allusions to, 26, 31 ; 
 National Gallery Guide, 82 ; two 
 talks with in 1887 and 1888, 76 ff. ; 
 library edition, 224 ; Life of Ruskin, 
 227 ; Studies in Ruskin, 76 ; other 
 references, 75, 207 
 
 Russell, Lord, of Killowen, 283 
 
 Russell, E. R., 125 
 
 Salisbury, third Marquis of, a letter 
 on R. Churchill's resignation, 97 ; 
 Gladstone on, 148 ; stories of, 267, 
 275 
 
 Seeley, J. R., Expansion of England, 
 51 
 
 Selby-Bigge, Sir L. A., on E. T. C. at 
 Winchester, 4 ; 286 
 
 Severn, Mrs. A., 227 
 
 Shaw, G. B., on the colour of the 
 1F.(?., 134 ; a journalist should be 
 hated, 138 
 
 Shearman, Mr. Justice, 17 
 
 Smith, W. H., an interview with, in 
 1885, 92 
 
 Spender, J. A., assistant editor of 
 P.M.G., 112, 115 ; sale of P.M.G., 
 123 ; editor of W.G., 155 ; letter 
 from, 155 ; his obituary notice of 
 E. T. C, 121, 229, 230, 251 ; other 
 references, 139, 143 
 
 Stead, W. T., assistant editor to J. 
 Morley at P.M.G., 48 ; on expert 
 and journalist, 49 ; editor of 
 P.M.G., 50 ; and Rhodes, 50 ; his 
 " gospel according to P.M.G.", 
 52 ; Truth about the Navy, 53 ; 
 
304 
 
 LIFE OF Sm EDWAED COOK 
 
 and builders, 
 
 Lord Fisher on, 53 w. ; " The 
 Maiden Tribute ", 64 ; letter from 
 HoUoway Gaol, 69 ; Russian 
 journey and letters, 100 ; leaves 
 P.M. 6., 104 ; stories about, 273 
 
 Stephen, Sir J. F., 105 
 
 Stephen, L., speech at Alpine Club 
 Dinner, 277 
 
 Strikes of engineers 
 settled in 1898, 168 
 
 Sumner, Lord, on E. T. C. at the 
 Oxford Union, 14 
 
 Sunday Sun, 220, 224 
 
 Swettenham, Sir F., 246, 285 ; letters 
 to, 250, 251 
 
 Swinbiime, a lunch with, 281 
 
 Tennyson, 131, 150 ; Tennyson and 
 
 Browning, 129, 144 
 Thomas, Moy, 159 
 
 Thompson, H. Y., 47, 102, 104, 112 ff. 
 Toms, C. F., father of the chapel of 
 
 the D.N., 202, 203, 209 
 Toynbee, A., 43 
 Truth, contributions to, 37 
 
 University extension in London, 40 
 
 Victoria and Albert Museum, 242 n. 
 Victoria League, Lady Jersey on, 242 
 Vincent, J. E., 33 
 
 Walker, Rev. E. M., 16 
 Watts-Dunton, T., letters from, 201, 
 
 240 
 Watson, W., 131 
 Webbe, H. R., 27 
 Wedderbum, A., library edition of 
 
 Ruskin, 224 ; gift of Ruskin books 
 
 to Oxford, 287 
 Wells, J., Warden of Wadham, on 
 
 speaking at the Union, 17 
 Westminster Gazette, its start in 1893, 
 
 132 ; its title and colour, 133 ; its 
 
 preface, 134 
 Whitehom, H., father of the chapel 
 
 of the D.N., 208 
 Wise, B. R., 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 
 
 25, 26 
 Wolseley, Viscount, on books, 74 
 Wordsworth, Gladstone on, 131 
 Wykehamist, 6, 8, 10 
 
 THE END 
 
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