Chapter XIV · (continued 2)

“29th Oct.—Herbert Spencer has written again about ‘Satan Absolved.’ He is disappointed at my not having stuck to his idea in the poem, but on the whole he approves. ‘Unquestionably,’ he says, ‘Satan’s description of man and his doings is given with great power, and ought to bring to their senses millions of hypocrites who profess the current religion. I wish you would emphasize more strongly the gigantic lie daily enacted, the contrast between the Christian professions and the Pagan actions, and the perpetual insult to One they call Omniscient in thinking they can compound for atrocious deeds by laudatory words.’

“1st Nov.—News of a great defeat of the British army before Ladysmith. Two of Her Majesty’s best regiments, the Royal Dublin and the Gloucester, laid down their arms to the Boers, 2,000 men of our most veteran troops. There seems now a chance of the whole British army capitulating before Buller and his men can relieve them from England. Letters from old Watts and Kegan Paul, both in sympathy about ‘Satan Absolved.’

“2nd Nov.—To Malwood with Anne and stopped to lunch. After it, old Sir William took me into his smoking room, and we talked over the whole South African case. The old man is, I think, secretly just as pleased as I am with the success of the Boers, though, when I said I should like to see the Boers established in Cape Town, he protested he could not go with me as far as that. However, he spoke strongly enough, and told me a number of most interesting things about Rhodes and Milner. When he was Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1893, Rhodes came to him about his railway project and humbugged him not a little. Sir William showed me a map on which Rhodes had marked his schemes, and he came again, when he was in England after the Raid, ‘to face the music.’ Sir William says he is an astonishing rogue and liar, but occasionally blurted out truths other rogues would hide, and he had boasted how he bought up everybody by putting them into good things on the Stock Exchange. He said that, though he, Rhodes, was certainly privy to the projected revolution at Johannesburg, he did not think he knew precisely of the Jameson Raid. The reason the Outlanders at the last moment would not rise was that they found out that Jameson intended to hoist the British Flag, and that did not suit them. They wanted to continue the Republic and run it themselves. As to Milner, Sir William said he was certain he was sent out on purpose to pick a quarrel with Kruger. He had seen a great deal of Milner while he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Milner came to wish him good-bye—and he had told him he knew why he was going. He knew, too, that Milner had told Lady Cowper at Panshanger before he left for the Cape, ‘If I come back without having made war I shall consider my mission has failed.’ Milner was an enthusiastic Jingo, but knew nothing of Statesmanship. Sir William also told me he had seen a good deal this year of Cromer, and had been charmed with him. He had found Cromer very moderate, hating Rhodes and hating Kitchener, and doing his best to keep them within bounds. He told me that if the Liberal Government had remained another fortnight in office they would have made Redvers Buller Commander-in-Chief, instead of Wolseley. Altogether my visit was a most interesting one. I wish I could remember a tithe of what he told me.

“3rd Nov.—A violent wind and rain, but we are snug here in our wood. Ladysmith is invested and isolated. There are reports of another defeat of White. I hope nothing will happen to Guy.

“10th Nov.—There is a severe article on ‘Satan Absolved’ in the ‘Chronicle’ quoting Newman, and complaining of my profanity. I have nice letters, however, from York Powell and Mallock.

“20th Nov.—At Inchmery. The Belgian Minister, who was here yesterday, tells me the Queen of Holland wrote to Queen Victoria to beg her to make peace with the Transvaal, as so many of her subjects were engaged in it. He says the Queen did not like the use of the word ‘subjects,’ and did not answer the letter. He considers that the war, as far as it has gone, has much damaged England’s prestige abroad. It has shown people specially that English officers, though brave, are without science. They all play too much instead of learning their work. He has been nineteen years in England, and is an Anglophile, but like all the rest he disapproves this war, and thinks it will result badly for us, even if in the end successful. We have suffered defeats which will encourage our enemies next time they quarrel with us.

“23rd Nov.—Fernycroft is shut up for the winter, and I have gone to Newbuildings, and am to start for Egypt on Wednesday. Fernycroft stripped of its leaves looks melancholy enough, and the thought of Egypt with its birds and butterflies is irresistible.

“They are making an immense fuss in the papers about the Emperor William’s visit to Windsor. He has come in spite of the disgust of his own people, who are furious against us on account of the Boer war. But I fancy he knows his own game, and hating us at heart has come to spy out the nakedness of the land with a fresh military eye. Our newspaper people, however, would go down on their bellies to him and lick his feet if they were allowed.

“24th Nov.—To Wotton to dine and sleep. They have fought a new battle in South Africa, and another in the Soudan, and announced them as two British victories—victories I suspect to order for the German Emperor’s benefit. The South African one seems nothing much to boast of besides 200 of our men lost, mostly of the Guards. The other is probably less bogus. Dear old Evelyn still sticks religiously to his political principles with me. We are the last of the anti-imperialist Conservatives.

“My poem is getting fearfully maltreated in the newspapers where I have no friend, as it attacks the country and Christianity alike, and what is worst, the newspapers themselves. This, however, was to be expected, and it is not the first time I have had the world on my back.

“25th Nov.—Back to Newbuildings and shot rabbits with Neville. I am closing my accounts of all kinds for the year, and shut up this journal in no sanguine mood of having anything happier to relate in the diaries of another year. The only thing I love now is my cat, and I am obliged, alas! to leave it behind.”