The Life of Froude by Herbert Paul

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--
* Life of Molteno, vol. i. p. 337.
--

Neither Froude nor Carnarvon made sufficient allowance for Colonial
independence and the susceptibilities of Colonial Ministers. Many of
Froude's expressions in public were imprudent, and he himself in his
Report apologised for his unguarded language at Grahamstown, where
he said that Molteno's reply to Carnarvon's despatch would have
meant war if it had come from a foreign state. Yet in the main their
policy was a wise one, and they saw farther ahead than the men who
worked the political machine at Cape Town. Froude was too sanguine
when he wrote, "A Confederate South African Dominion, embracing all
the States, both English and Dutch, under a common flag, may be expected
as likely to follow, and perhaps at no very distant period." But he
added that it would have to come by the deliberate action of the
South African communities themselves. That was not the only
discovery he had made in South Africa. He had found that the
Transavll, reputed then and long afterwards in England to be
worthless, was rich in minerals, including gold. He warned the
Colonial Office that Cetewayo, with forty thousand armed men, was a
serious danger to Natal. He saw clearly, and said plainly that
unless South Africa was to be despotically governed, it must be
administered with the consent and approval of the Dutch. He dwelt
strongly upon the danger of allowing and encouraging natives to
procure arms in Griqualand West as an enticement to work for the
diamond owners. The secret designs of Sir Theophilus Shepstone he
did not penetrate, and therefore he was unprepared for the next
development in the South African drama. The South African Conference
in London, which he attended during August, 1876, led to no useful
result because Molteno, though he had come to London, and was
discussing the affairs of Griqualand with Lord Carnarvon, refused to
attend it. This was the end of South African Confederation, and the
permissive Act of 1877, passed after the Transvaal had been annexed,
remained a dead letter on the Statute Book.

Although the immediate purpose of Froude's visits to South Africa
was not attained, it would be a mistake to infer that they had no
results at all. Early in 1877 the annexation of the Transvaal, to
which Froude was strongly opposed, changed the whole aspect of
affairs, and from that time the strongest opponents of Federalism
were the Dutch. But the credit of settling with the Orange Free
State a dispute which might have led to infinite mischief is as much
Froude's as Carnarvon's, and as a consequence of their wise conduct
President Brand became for the rest of his life a steady friend to
the British power in South Africa. Ninety thousand pounds was a
small price to pay for the double achievement of reconciling a model
State and wiping out a stain upon England's honour.

More than four years after his second return from South Africa, in
January, 1880, Froude delivered two lectures to the Philosophical
Society of Edinburgh, in which his view of South African policy is
with perfect clearness set forth. He condemns the annexation of the
Transvaal, and the Zulu war. He expresses a wish that Lord
Carnarvon, who had resigned two years before, could be permanent
Secretary for the Colonies. "I would give back the Transvaal to the
Dutch," he said. Again, in even more emphatic language, "The
Transvaal, in spite of prejudices about the British flag, I still
hope that we shall return to its lawful owners."* What is more
surprising, he recommended that Zululand should be restored to
Cetewayo, or Cetewayo to Zululand. He had predicted in 1875 that
Cetewayo would prove a troublesome person, and few men had less of
the sentiment which used to be associated with Exeter Hall. The
restoration of Cetewayo, when it came was disastrous both to himself
and to others. Frere understood the Zulus better than Froude or
Colenso. The surrender of the Transvaal, which was a good deal
nearer than Froude thought, was at least successful for a time, a
longer time than Froude's own life. He did not share Gladstone's
ignorance of its value; he knew it to be rich in minerals,
especially in gold. But he knew also that Carnarvon had been
deceived about the willingness of the inhabitants to become British
subjects, and he sympathised with their independence. It illustrates
his own fairness and detachment of mind that he should have taken so
strong and so unpopular a line when the Boers were generally
supposed in England to have acquiesced in the loss of their liberties,
and when his hero Sir Garnet Wolseley, to whom he dedicated his English
in Ireland, had declared that the Vaal would run back to the Drakensberg
before the British flag ceased to wave over Pretoria.

--
* Two Lectures on South Africa, pp. 80, 81, 85.
--

Froude's South African policy was to work with the Dutch, and keep
the natives in their places. He had no personal interest in the
question. It was through Lord Carnarvon that he came in contact with
South Africa at all, and there were few statesmen with whom he more
thoroughly agreed. When Disraeli came for the second time into
office, and for the first time into power, Froude was well pleased.

In 1875, after his legal disqualification had been removed, he was
again invited to become a candidate for Parliament. But he did not
really know to which party he belonged.

"Four weeks ago," he wrote to Lady Derby on the 3rd of April, "the
Liberal Whip (Mr. Adam) asked me to stand for the Glasgow and
Aberdeen Universities on very easy terms to myself. I declined,
because I should have had to commit myself to the Liberal party,
which I did not choose to do. Lord Carnarvon afterwards spoke to me
with regret at my resolution. He had a conversation with Mr.
D'Israeli, and it was agreed that if possible I should be brought in
by a compromise without a contest. But it appeared doubtful
afterwards whether the Liberals would consent to this without fuller
pledges than I could consent to give. I was asked if I would stand
anyhow (contest or not), or whether I would allow myself to be
nominated in their interest for any other place when a vacancy
should occur. I said, No. (I would stand a contest on the
Conservative side, if on any.) I was neither Conservative nor
Liberal per se, but would not oppose Mr. D'Israeli. So there this
matter lies, unless your people have as good an opinion of me as the
others, and want a candidate of my lax description. But indeed I
have no wish to go into Parliament. I am too old to begin a
Parliamentary life, and infinitely prefer making myself of use to
the Conservative side in some other way .... I am at Lord
Carnarvon's service if he wishes me to go on with his Colonial
affairs. I came home from the Cape to be of use to him."

The Colonial policy of the Liberals Froude had always regarded with
suspicion. Even Lord Kimberley's grant of a constitution to the Cape
he interpreted as showing a centrifugal tendency, and Cardwell's
withdrawal of troops from Canada was all of a piece. Disraeli, on
the other hand, who never did anything for the Colonies, had been
making a speech about them at Manchester, wherein all manner of
Colonial possibilities were suggested. They did not go, if they were
ever intended to go, beyond suggestion, and in 1876 the sudden
crisis in Eastern affairs superseded all other topics of political
interest.

When the Eastern Question was first raised, Froude had taken the
side of the Government.

"I like Lord Derby's speech," he wrote to Lady Derby on the 19th of
September, 1876, "to the Working Men's Association. So I think the
country will when it recovers from its present intoxication. Violent
passions which rise suddenly generally sink as fast if there is no
real reason for them. It is impossible that the people can fail to
recollect in a little while that the reticence of which they
complain is under the circumstances inevitable.

"Gladstone and his satellites are using their opportunities,
however, with thorough unscrupulousness. It is possible that they
may force an Autumn Session, and even force the Ministry to resign-
but woe to themselves if they do. They will promise what cannot be
carried out, and will perhaps, in fine retribution for the Crimean
War, bring the Russians to Constantinople. It will not be a bad
thing in itself, but there will be an end of the English Minister
who brings it about."

Again, three days later, to the same correspondent:

"I admire the Premier's speech. It is what I expected of him. The
Liberal leaders are behaving scandalously, with the exception
perhaps of Lord Hartington. The Cabinet I trust will now decide on
an Autumn Session to remove so critical a matter out of the hands of
irresponsible mobs. I was surprised to hear the war in Servia
attributed to the secret societies. Cluseret I know has intended to
ask for service with Turkey, with a view to a war, against Russia,
and has been withheld only by some differences with General Klapha,
the Turco-Hungarian, from doing so. I had a long letter from him to-
day, in which he expresses his restlessness characteristically, J'ai
la nostalgic de la poudre."

Afterwards Froude followed Carlyle, and went with Russia against
Turkey. The "unspeakable Turk" was to be "struck out of the question
and Bismarck invited to arbitrate. Such was the oracular deliverance
from Cheyne Row, and Froude obeyed the oracle. He attended the
Conference at St. James's Hall in December at which Gladstone spoke,
and Carlyle's letter was read, sitting for the only time in his life
on the same platform with Freeman. Next May, when war between Russia
and Turkey had actually begun, when Gladstone was about to move his
famous resolutions in the House of Commons, there appeared in The
Times* another remarkable letter from the same hand. This time,
however, it was no mere question of style, though "our miraculous
Premier" was a phrase which stuck. Carlyle evidently had information
of some design for giving Turkey the support of the British fleet in
the neighbourhood of Constantinople, and was not very discreet in
the use he made of it. The Cabinet were supposed to be divided on the
question of helping Turkey by material means, which of course
meant war with Russia, and the Foreign Secretary, Lord Derby, was
known to be in favour of peace. A year later Lord Carnarvon and Lord
Derby had both left the Cabinet rather than be responsible for a
vote of credit which meant preparation for war, and for calling out
the Reserves.

--
* May 5, 1877.
--

Froude was in complete sympathy with the retiring ministers, and he
regarded it as a profound mistake for England to quarrel with Russia
on behalf of a Power which had no business in Europe at all. From
his point of view the presence at the Colonial Office of so
sympathetic a Minister as Carnarvon was far more important than the
difference between the Treaty of San Stefano and the Treaty of
Berlin. Of the Afghan War in 1878 he strongly disapproved.

The following extracts from letters to Lady Derby show the phases of
thought on the Eastern Question through which Froude passed, and are
interesting also because they represent him in an unfamiliar light
as the champion of parliamentary Government against the secret
diplomacy of Lord Beaconsfield. Arbitrary rule might be very good
for Irishmen. As applied to Englishmen Froude disliked it no less
than Gladstone or Bright.

"February 16th, 1877.--The Opposition have no hope of making a
successful attack on the present Parliament--but they are resolute.
They know their own minds, and Gladstone (I know) has said that he
has but to hold up his finger to force a dissolution and return as
Prime Minister. I too think you are deceived by the London Press.
Another massacre and all would be over. The Golden Bridge you speak
of I conclude is for Russia; but if it was possible for the Cabinet,
without changing its attitude, to make such a bridge, there would be
no need of one. England has been, and I fear still is, the one
obstacle to measures which would have long ago brought the Turk to
his senses. I cannot but feel assured that you have thrown away an
opportunity for securing to the Conservative party the gratitude of
Europe and the possession of office for a generation. If more
mischief happens in Turkey it will be on you that public displeasure
will fall, and you may need a bridge for yourselves and not find
one. I croak like a raven. Perhaps you may set it down to an almost
totally sleepless night."

"April 30th, 1877.--You destroy the last hope to which I had clung,
that Lord Derby, though opposed to Russian policy, would not consent
to go to war with her. I remain of my old opinion that England
(foolishly excited as it always when fighting is going on) will in
the long run resent the absurdity and punish the criminality of
taking arms in a worthless cause. I am sick of heart at the thought
of what is coming, here as well as on the Continent. I have begged
Carlyle to write a last appeal to The Times. We must agitate in the
great towns, we must protest against what we may be unable to
prevent. The Crimean War was innocent compared to what is now
threatened, yet three years ago there was scarcely a person in
England who did not admit that it was a mistake. I do not know what
may be the verdict of the public about a repetition of it at the
present moment. I know but too well what will be the verdict five
years hence, and the fate which will overtake those who, with
however good a motive, are courting the ruin of their party."

"December 22nd, 1877.---The passion for interference in defence of
the Turks seems limited (as I was always convinced that it was) to
the idle educated classes. The public meetings which have been, or
are to be, go the other way, or at least are against our taking a
part on the Turkish side. The demonstrations which Lord B. expected
to follow on the first Russian success have not followed. The
Telegraph and Morning Post have used their whips on the dead Crimean
horse, but it will not stir for them. It will not stir even for the
third volume of the Prince Consort's Life. But I am very sorry about
it all, for the damage to the Conservative party from the lost
opportunity of playing a great and honourable part is, I fear,
irretrievable."

"December 27th, 1877.--The accounts from Bulgaria and Armenia turn
me sick. These sheep, what have they done? Diplomalists quarrel, and
the people suffer. The management of human affairs will be much
improved when the people tell their respective Cabinets that if
there is fighting to be done the Cabinets must fight themselves, and
that the result shall be accepted as final. Nine out of ten great
wars might have been settled that way with equal advantage so far as
the consequences were concerned, and to the infinite relief of poor
humanity."

"March 10th, 1878.--I met Lord D. at the club the other night. He
looked As Prometheus might have looked when he was 'Unbound.' He was
in excellent spirits and talked brilliantly. Not one allusion to the
East, but I guessed that he had a mind at ease."

"April 8th, 1878.--I wish I knew whether the Cabinet has determined
on forcing war upon Russia at all events, or if Russia consents to
go into the Conference on the English terms; the Cabinet will then
bona fide endeavour after an equitable and honourable settlement.
Lord B.'s antecedents all point to a determination to make any
settlement impossible. He has succeeded so far without provoking the
other Powers, but such a game is surely dangerous, backed though he
by every fool and knave in England."

"July 15th, 1878.--I gather that the Opposition is too disorganised
to resist; and if Parliament endure to be set aside, and allow the
destinies of their country to be affected so enormously by the sole
action of the Crown and the Cabinet, a change is passing over us the
results of which it is impossible to estimate. We do, in fact, take
charge of the Turkish Empire as completely as we took the Empire of
the Moguls. In a little while we shall have to administer on the
Continent as well as in Cyprus, and then will arise a new Asiatic
army. This will bring wars with it before long, and a proportionate
increase of the power of the Executive Government. If Parliament
abdicates its authority now, what may we not anticipate? I have long
felt that the House of Commons could not long continue to govern the
great concerns of the British Empire as it has done. I certainly did
not expect that it would yield without a struggle--nor will it.
Sooner or later we shall see a fight against the tendency which is
giving so startling an evidence of its existence--and what is to
happen then?"

"July 21st, 1878.--Lord Derby's speech was as good as it could
possibly be. What he says now all the world will say two years
hence. How deeply it cut appeared plainly enough in the scenes which
followed. It must be peculiarly distressing to you--distressing in
many ways, for I feel as certain as ever that the end of it all will
be irreparable damage to the Conservative party. One would like to
know Prince Bismarck's private opinion of the Premier and private
opinion also of the nation which has taken him for their chosen
leader. Of course he will dissolve while the glamour is fresh; and
before the effects of the bad champagne with which he has dosed the
country begin to appear--first headache and penitence, and then
exasperation at the provider of the entertainment."

"November 24th, 1878.--The evil shadow of the Premier extends over
the most innocent of our pleasures. I had been looking forward to a
few days at Knowsley as the most enjoyable which I should have had
during the whole year. Yet I knew how it would be. Daring as he is,
he could not venture on an entire defiance of public opinion.
Parliament of course would have to meet, and equally of course you
and Lord D. would have to come up. I conclude the object to be to
get up a Russian war after all. The stress laid by Lord Cranbrook on
the reception of the Russian Embassy as the point of the injury will
make it very difficult for the Russians to be neutral. If this is
what the Ministry really intend, they may have their majority in
Parliament docile, but I doubt whether they will have the country
with them. I am sure they will not if Hartington and Granville
support Lord Lawrence.

"I interpret it all as meaning that the Premier knows that his
policy has thoroughly broken down in Europe, and at all risks he
means to have another try in the East."

It was Froude's opinion, right or wrong, that Lord Beaconsfield
might have settled the Irish question if he had left the Eastern
question alone. He understood it, as some of his early speeches
show, and he might have "established a just Land Court with the
support of all the best land-owners in Ireland."* Why the Land Court
established by Gladstone in 1881 was unjust Froude did not explain.
Some of the best landlords, if not all, supported it, and it
relieved an intolerable situation.

--
* Table Talk of Shirley, p. 180.
--

CHAPTER VIII

FROUDE AND CARLYLE

When James Spedding introduced Froude to Carlyle he made
unconsciously an epoch in English literature. For though Froude was
incapable of merging himself in another man, as Spedding merged
himself in Bacon, he did more for the author of Sartor Resartus than
Spedding did for the author of the Novum Organum. Spedding's Bacon
is an impossible hero of unhistorical perfection. Froude's Carlyle,
like Boswell's Johnson, is a great man painted as he was. When the
original head master of Uppingham described his school as Eton
without its faults, there were those who felt for the first time
that there was something to be said for the faults of Eton. Carlyle
without his paradoxes and prejudices, his impetuous temper and his
unbridled tongue would be only half himself. If he were known only
through his books, the world would have missed acquaintance with
letters of singular beauty, and with the most humourous talker of
his age. He was one of two men, Newman being the other, whose
influence Froude felt through life, and the influence of Newman was
chiefly upon his style. Of Newman indeed he saw very little after he
left Oxford, though his admiration and reverence for him never
abated. It was not until he came to live in London after the death
of his first wife that he grew really intimate with Carlyle. Up to
that time he was no more than an occasional visitor in Cheyne Row
with a profound belief in the philosophy of that incomparable poem
in prose, The French Revolution. Carlyle helped him with his own
history, the earlier volumes of which show clear traces of the
master, and encouraged him in his literary work.

Mrs. Carlyle was scarcely less remarkable than her husband. Although
she never wrote a line for publication, her private letters are
among the best in the language, and all who knew her agree that she
talked as well as she wrote. Froude thought her the most brilliant
and interesting woman he had ever met. The attraction was purely
intellectual. Mrs. Carlyle was no longer young, and Froude's
temperament was not inflammable. But she liked clever men, and
clever men liked her. She was an unhappy woman, without children,
without religion, without any regular occupation except keeping
house. Her husband she regarded as the greatest genius of his time,
and his affection for her was the deepest feeling of his heart. He
was at bottom a sincerely kind man, and his servants were devoted to
him. But he was troublesome in small matters; irritable, nervous,
and dyspeptic. His books harassed him like illnesses, and he groaned
under the infliction. If he were disturbed when he was working, he
lost all self-control, and his wife felt, she said, as if she were
keeping a private mad-house. It was not quite so private as it might
have been, for Mrs. Carlyle found in her grievances abundant food
for her sarcastic tongue. Whatever she talked about she made
interesting, and her relations with her husband became a common
subject of gossip. It was said that the marriage had never been a
real one, that they were only companions, and so forth. Froude was
content to enjoy the society of the most gifted couple in London
without troubling himself to solve mysteries which did not concern
him.

Thrifty as she was, Mrs. Carlyle was not fitted by physical strength
and early training to be the wife of a poor man. She was too anxious
a housekeeper, and worried herself nervously about trifles. Her
father had been a country doctor, not rich, but able to keep the
necessary servants. In Carlyle's home there were no servants at all.
His father was a mason, and the work of the house was done by the
family. Why should his wife be in a different position from his
mother's? There was no reason, in the nature of things. But custom
is very strong, and the early years of Mrs. Carlyle's married life
were a hard struggle against grinding poverty. Carlyle was grandly
indifferent to material things. He wanted no luxuries, except
tobacco and a horse. He would not have altered his message to
mankind, or his mode of delivering it, for the wealth of the Indies.
What he had to say he said, and men might take it or leave it as
they thought proper. He never swerved from the path of integrity. He
did not know his way to the house of Rimmon. The mere practical
ability required to produce such a book as Frederick the Great might
have realised a fortune in business. Carlyle just made enough money
to live in decent and wholesome comfort.

From the first Carlyle's conversation attracted Froude, and dazzled
him. But he felt, as others felt, that submission rather than
intimacy was the attitude which it suggested or compelled. There was
no republic of letters in Carlyle's house. It was a dictatorship,
pure and simple. What the dictator condemned was heresy. What he did
not know was not knowledge. Mill was a poor feckless driveller.
Darwin was a pretentious sciolist. Newman had the intellect of a
rabbit. Herbert Spencer was "the most unending ass in Christendom."
"Scribbling Sands and Eliots" were unfit to tie Mrs. Carlyle's
shoe-strings. Editing Keats was "currying dead dog." Ruskin could only
point out the correggiosity of Correggio. Political economy was the
dismal science, or the gospel according to McCrowdie.* Carlyle's
eloquent and humourous diatribes were wonderful, laughter-moving,
awe-compelling. They did not put his hearers at their ease, and
Froude felt more admiration than sympathy.

--
* McCulloch, the editor of Adam Smith, was meant
--

In 1861, when Froude had been settled in London about a year, he
received a visit from the great author himself. Carlyle did not take
to many people, but he took to Froude. Perhaps he was touched by the
younger man's devotion. Perhaps he saw that Froude was no ordinary
disciple, and would be able to carry on the torch when he
relinquished it himself. At all events he expressed a wish to see
him oftener in his walks, in his rides, in his home. Nothing could
be more flattering than such an invitation from such a man. Froude
responded cordially, and became an habitual visitor. Like all really
good talkers, Carlyle was at his best with a single companion, and
there could be no more sympathetic companion than Froude. But there
was another object of interest at Cheyne Row, and Froude felt for
Mrs. Carlyle sincere compassion. She was often left to herself while
her husband wrote upstairs, and she suffered tortures from
neuralgia. It seemed to Froude that Carlyle, who never had a day's
serious illness, felt more for his own dyspepsia and hypochondria
than for his wife's far graver ailments. In this he was very likely
unjust, for Carlyle was tenderly attached to his "Jeanie," and would
have done anything for her if he had thought of it. But he was
absorbed in Friederich, whose battles he would fight over again with
the tired invalid on sofa. If woman be the name of frailty, the name
of vanity is man. Carlyle was fond of his wife, but he was thinking
of himself. His "Niagaras of scorn and vituperation" were a vent for
his own feelings, a sort of moral gout. The apostle of silence
recked not his own rede, nor did he think of the impression which
his purely destructive preaching might make upon other people. He
himself found in the eternities and immensities some kind of
substitute for the Calvinistic Presbyterianism of his childhood. To
her it was idle rhetoric and verbiage. He had taken away her
dogmatic beliefs, and had nothing to put in their place. Her "pale,
drawn, suffering face" haunted Froude in his dreams. In 1862 Mrs.
Carlyle's health broke down, and for a year her case seemed
desperate. Her doctor sent her away to St. Leonard's, and in no long
time she apparently recovered. After that her husband took more care
of her, and provided her with a carriage. But her constitution had
been shattered, and she died suddenly as she drove through Hyde Park
on the 21st of April, 1866, while Carlyle was at Dumfries, resting
after the delivery of his Rectorial Address to the University of
Edinburgh.

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