Descended from a bishop

Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Winchester and a force for Anglo-Catholocism in the mid-19th century, died 150 years ago today. His detailed diary underpins a three-part biography partly written by his son Reginald, though, unfortunately, it says nothing about his criticism of Darwin for which he is much remembered. Reginald, however, does include an anecdote about his father speaking at a British Association debate on Darwin: when he made a comment about monkeys in a zoo having no connection with his ancestors, a learned professor responded: ‘I would rather be descended from an ape than a bishop.’

Wilberforce was born in Clapham, London, the third son of William Wilberforce (also a diarist, see - God’s work against slavery). He studied mathematics and classics at Oriel College, Oxford, where he became associated with the Oxford Movement. In 1828 he married Emily Sargent, and they had five children that survived infancy, but then Emily herself died young, in 1841. The year of his marriage he was ordained and appointed curate-in-charge at Checkenden near Henley-on-Thames. Two years later he took over as rector of Brighstone, Isle of Wight.

Wilberforce published hymns and sermons as well as stories and tracts on social subjects. In the second half of the 1830s, he edited the letters and journals of Henry Martyn (see - My unprofitable life), and co-authored with his brother, Robert, a biography of his father. He rose up the church ranks quickly, becoming archdeacon of Surrey and canon of Winchester, and served as rector of Alverstoke, Hampshire, between 1840 and 1845. In 1841, he was appointed chaplain to Prince Albert, and in 1847 became Lord High Almoner to Queen Victoria, a post he held until 1869.

In the mid-1840s, Wilberforce became Dean of Westminster and Bishop of Oxford. When John Henry Newman, leader of the Oxford Movement, converted to Roman Catholicism, Wilberforce used his influence to try to keep the Movement together. He was a frequent critic of liberal bishops and is particularly remembered for attacking Darwin’s theory of evolution. In the 1850s, he founded one of the first Anglican theological colleges. In 1869, he was appointed Bishop of Winchester. He died on 19 July 1873. See Wikipedia, the Winchester Cathedral website or Anglican History for further biographical information.

For much of his life, Wilberforce kept a fairly detailed diary. This was used, and quoted, extensively for a three volume biography - Life of the Right Reverend Samuel Wilberforce - put together first by A. R. Ashwell, and then, after Ashwell’s death, by Wilberforce’s son, Reginald (John Murray, 1880-1882). All three volumes are freely available at Internet Archive.

Here are several extracts from Wilberforce’s diary, showing his politicking, his easy relations with royalty, and a good deal of self-analysis too. Only once, as far as I can tell, does Wilberforce mention Darwin in his diary. Reginald’s text, accompanying that one mention, bemoans the lack of any further reports by his father on the Darwin debate, but does include an interesting anecdote.

4 February 1855
‘Prepared sermon for St. Mary’s, Princes Street, Lambeth a most miserable population in Lambeth, through which I passed which quickened me in my sermon. To Chapel Royal in the afternoon, and walked back with Gladstone. Lord John has ‘utterly’ failed in forming a Ministry. Thank God. Lord Palmerston now sent for. He was invited by Lord Derby to join with Gladstone and Sidney Herbert. At first he was unwilling, and at night declined. Gladstone and Sidney Herbert ready to serve. Gladstone though feeling acutely the evil of Shaftesbury’s suggested Bishops would not feel clear on that ground of refusing not a fair constitutional ground. Dined with the Bishop of London. He agrees as to Convocation course. The Archbishop came to him yesterday. Had heard from Dean Elliott, and others, as to impropriety of allowing Convocation to meet in Ministerial interregnum. Second letter by a friend from Shaftesbury who is to move about it in the House of Lords to-morrow. The Bishop (London) said he thought Lord Aberdeen’s letter settled it. That he was in till another appointed and no right to suppose there would be a change; rather insulting to Lord Aberdeen and not very civil to the Queen (whose will he expressed) now to alter. The Archbishop: ‘Quite a relief to find that your opinion; it was my first opinion, and I shall be prepared to state it to-morrow in the House.’ ’

7 February 1855
‘Off to Windsor, to Chapter (of the Garter), and saw the Queen afterwards. She was cheerful and very affable. Went after Chapter to Clewer. Long conversation with Mrs. Monsell. Things quiet in House; but Miss –– very unsettled in mind. Fear that she will ultimately Romanize. Dear –– is acted on by these women far too much, and kept from heartily and with a strong English tone putting down the sentimentalism which leads to Rome. Dear fellow! he is good, and gentle, and loving beyond praise. But I am always trying to keep him from that perilous neighbourhood.

In the evening a large party. I had a talk with Lord Aberdeen about Palmerston’s Church preferment. Suppose Montagu Villiers must be a Bishop. But Palmerston will beware of Shaftesbury, for fear of Gladstone, &c. Lord Aberdeen natural, simple, good, and honest as ever. A longish talk on politics with good Stockmar, Lord Aberdeen’s honesty, Lord Palmerston’s ambition. He agreed with me that Lord Palmerston was a great take-in, but that it was necessary that bubbles should burst. He would have much preferred seeing Gladstone and Herbert join with Lord Derby. On the Continent it is constitutional liberty which is reproached by our failure at Sebastopol. They say, If England with all her strength cannot make head against the Autocrat, who could that has a constitutional Government, &c.? As to the Royal Family, he said, ‘The Prince of Wales is the strongest of all. He can bear great fatigue. He takes most after his father’s family. The Princess Royal is a thorough Brunswick. She is very clever indeed, has great imagination and varied powers; her picture of “The New Year” full of ability, &c. Prince Albert is not a strong man; a little would throw him down. The Duke of Kent was the ablest of that family. The Duke of Cambridge and King William the Fourth the kindest but the most stupid.’

20 March 1856
‘To Windsor Castle. The Confirmation of Princess Royal interesting she devout, composed, earnest; youngest sister much affected the Queen and Prince also. The Queen spoke most kindly to me after: all very kind. On to London large Confirmation at St. James’s  felt constrained, and very unlike my own. Then to London House. Met Dr. Todd, who spoke hopefully of Bishop. Saw him, very low, very affecting state, spoke of himself as dying. I certain to succeed him, and no one to whom he could more happily entrust his Diocese, &c. About himself, his keen sight of past sins; no hope but simply in Christ’s sacrifice for him. A great struggle between conscience and faith. Pray for me. A most affecting sight in one so good. How awful to all the vision of sin in the light of God’s countenance.’

23 March 1856
‘Very low all day, blessed Easter day as it was. But felt so bitterly my desolateness: my darling Emily gone or all would be too gladsome for earth. My Herbert! Robert and Henry worse than gone. Beloved Mrs. Sargent 76; Ella married. The three boys, will they be taken as they grow up? God’s will be done.’

20 May 1860
‘Up in good time and prepared sermon on ‘All are yours.’ Preached at St. James’s, great crowd; collected 176l. Then back to my rooms and finished (Darwin review) [for the Quarterly Review]. Walked across the Park with Gladstone, he rather subdued; he said, ‘If the next twenty years alter as much the position of those who govern England, &c.’

Reginald Wilberforce’s text accompanying the above diary extract says this: ‘From June 27 to July 3 the British Association was at Oxford: it is much to be regretted that the reports of the debates are of the most meagre description. From those which we possess, it is to be gathered that the Bishop on two occasions took part in the discussions. First in the Geographical Section, when, after the reading of some of Dr. Livingstone’s recent letters, Mr. Craufurd, the President of the Ethnological Society, argued against the scheme of extending commerce and Christianity in Central Africa, on the ground of the great difficulties that had to be overcome and of the incapacity of the natives to receive such benefits. The Bishop spoke against these inferences, and, when supporting an opposite view, carried his audience by the force of his argument. Secondly, in the Zoology and Botany Section, where a discussion took place on the soundness or unsoundness of the Darwinian theory. The Bishop, who, as the last-quoted Diary entry shows, had just reviewed Mr. Darwin’s work ‘On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection,’ made a long and eloquent speech condemning Mr. Darwin’s theory as unphilosophical and as founded on fancy, and he denied that any one instance had been produced by Mr. Darwin which showed that the alleged change from one species to another had ever taken place. In the course of this speech, which made a great impression, the Bishop said, that whatever certain people might believe, he would not look at the monkeys in the Zoological as connected with his ancestors, a remark that drew from a certain learned professor the retort, ‘I would rather be descended from an ape than a bishop.’

14 July 1863
‘Survey my Life. What wonderful advantages - my father’s son, his favourite, and so, companion. My good mother, such surroundings. My love for my blessed one, compassing me with an atmosphere of holiness - my ordination - my married life - my ministerial. Checkendon, its bliss, arid its work opening my heart. Brighstone, Alverstoke, the Archdeaconry, the Deanery, Bishopric, friends. My stripping bare in 1841. My children. Herbert’s death-bed. How has God dealt, and what have I really done - for HIM? Miserere Domine is all my cry.

Cuddesdon Chapel. After meditation on Death, resolve:
(I) to take periodic times for renewing this meditation;
(II) to strive to live more in the sight of Death;
(III) to commend myself more entirely as dying creature into the Hand of the only Lord of Life.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 19 July 2013.

Audience with the King

‘Audience of the King [Edward VII], . . [He] kept me for about twenty minutes, talking about Japan, the Garter mission, and gardens, such as Batsford, La Mortola & Miss Alice Rothschild’s at Grasse. I told him that Okuma had said that if Russia did not evacuate N. Manchuria, Japan would ask for an explanation. He also spoke of the troubles in Russia, and comparing those with the [French] revolution of 1789 I hazarded the opinion that the Russian Emperor’s ministers were better prepared than those of Louis XVI to put down rebellion. He spoke of my not returning to China, but that at present there was no post which could be given me. My services must not be lost. I replied that I had no desire to retire if I could be of use, and he said I must consider myself en disponibilité.’ This is from the diaries of Sir Ernest Mason Satow, a British scholar and diplomat born 180 years ago today, particularly remembered for his role in developing Anglo-Japanese relations.

Satow was born on 30 June 1843 to an ethnically German father and an English mother in Clapton, North London. He was educated at Mill Hill School and University College London, studying languages, and then joined the British Legation as a student interpreter. After training in Beijing, he was posted to Japan, to assist the British Minister Harry Smith Parkes. Satow published an article on the country’s political structure in the Japan Times’ British Policy section, and, once translated into Japanese, proved unusually influential. He became a secretary of the British legation in Japan in 1868.

Subsequently, Satow was agent, and then minister, to Siam (1884 to 1888), minister to Uruguay (1888 to 1893) and envoy to Morocco (1893 to 1895), Japan (1895 to 1900) and China (1900 to 1906) where he handled the Boxer Rebellion. In 1906, having been knighted in 1902, he returned to the UK where he was made a Privy Councillor. He left the Foreign Office, and moved to the village of Ottery St. Mary in Devon, but continued to act as British member of the permanent court of arbitration (1906 to 1912) and as one of the British plenipotentiaries at the second peace conference (1907), both at The Hague. Although unmarried, he had three children with his common law wife, Takeda Kané, in Japan, though one died in infancy and the other died aged 4. Satow, himself, died in 1929. Further biographical information is available at Wikipedia, The Gale Review and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (log-in required).

Apart from publishing several books on diplomacy and foreign policy, Satow kept diaries all his life - from 1861 to 1926. Some 47 handwritten volumes are held at the Public Record Office at Kew, West London, in accordance with his wishes. (Many of his rare Japanese books are now part of the Oriental collection of the Cambridge University Library and his collection of Japanese prints are in the British Museum.) A selection of Satow’s diaries were first edited by Ian Ruxton and published in 1998 by Edwin Mellen Press as The Diaries and Letters of Sir Ernest Mason Satow (1843-1929): a Scholar-Diplomat in East Asia. According to the publisher: ‘Sir Ernest Satow was the doyen of the British scholar-diplomats of the Meiji era in Japan. Satow’s genius made him a colossal figure of his time, deeply respected by the Japanese who knew of his profound scholarship and knowledge of their country, and the desired representative of Britain in Tokyo where he was appointed Minister in 1895-1900. His presence in Tokyo assisted the process of coming to an agreement in the negotiations of Anglo-Japan Alliance of 1902.’

More recently, Ruxton has taken it upon himself to edit, annotate and publish the diaries in a series of more comprehensive editions, most of which can be previewed at Googlebooks. These include: The Diaries of Sir Ernest Mason Satow, 1883-1888: A Diplomat in Siam, Japan, Britain and Elsewhere; The Diaries of Sir Ernest Satow 1889-1895: Uruguay and Morocco; The Diaries of Sir Ernest Satow British Minister in Tokyo (1895-1900); and The Diaries of Sir Ernest Satow British Envoy in Peking in Tokyo (1900-03). 

Here are several extracts (stripped of many footnote numbers).

24 October 1895
‘Telegram from Lord Salisbury instructing me to inquire of the Japse Govt, what explanation they have to give of “Thales” [a steamer that had been detained by the Japanese government]. Wrote a private note to Itō to say I shld. speak to F. M [foreign Minister Saionji] this afternoon, and hoping that he wld. be prepared to undertake that full satisfaction wld. be given by the Japse. Govt.

Münter [representative of Armstrong-Mitchell Co. Ltd.] came to call. Gave me the following information about Japse. plans. 4 1st class battle-ships of 15,000 tons; 3 1st class cruisers of 7000, 4 2nd class of 4500 like the Yoshino besides smaller craft. The cost to be 180,000,000 well, the Diet wld. be asked to vote, 50,000,000 being for armaments. He wants my good word. Perhaps the American people, consisting of Dun, Denison and Williams might be placated by giving them orders for the armour plates needed for the battleship wch. is to be constructed in Japan (1 cruiser of each class here also) The Japanese are guided by sentiment of gratitude for protection to Japse. interests during the war, and to [Henry Willard] Denison for his services in negotiating the Treaty of Shimonoseki. Williams has gone back to America to get plans.

Replied to him that I could not tout, as that wld not be worthy of a great Power like England, but wld. drop a hint that the performances of the Yoshino at the Yalu fight had pleased English people very much, and that if the Japanese being of the same opinion as to the superior qualities of English-built ships, go to England for their new vessels, English nation will be gratified at this mark of appreciation of what they can do. So as to let Itō understand that I am not merely proudly indifferent.

Münter said that as far as he could learn the Manne Dept, are all in favour of English ships. The French are quite out of it 1st the Unebi capsized and another built in France could never do her proper speed, in fact the unfortunate Chishima. She was left for a whole year on the hands of the builders, who finally had to make a sacrifice of part of the contract price

(What I said to Münter I said also to Thomson the other day.)

I added to Münter that I could not promise to speak at any precise time, but must watch my opportunity.

Dined with [British railway engineer Charles A. W.] Pownalls.’

25 July 1906
‘Audience of the King, to which I was introduced by Lord Ed[ward]. Pelham Clinton, whom I reminded that several years ago at Windsor he lent me a pair of knee breeches, Saburō having forgotten to put them in my portmanteau.

The King kept me for about twenty minutes, talking about Japan, the Garter mission, and gardens, such as Batsford, La Mortola & Miss Alice Rothschild’s at Grasse. I told him that Okuma had said that if Russia did not evacuate N. Manchuria, Japan would ask for an explanation. He also spoke of the troubles in Russia, and comparing those with the [French] revolution of 1789 I hazarded the opinion that the Russian Emperor’s ministers were better prepared than those of Louis XVI to put down rebellion.

He spoke of my not returning to China, but that at present there was no post which could be given me. My services must not be lost. I replied that I had no desire to retire if I could be of use, and he said I must consider myself en disponibilité. He asked about MacDonald, whether he was still as thin as he was. I said he was fairly well, except sometimes a little stomach trouble. If I might say so, I thought he was the right man in the right place. The Japanese liked his straightforward manners, and a soldier was well-suited to be Ambassador of a country where the military element was so powerful. He then talked of the staff, Geo[rge]. Barclay, who I said was an excellent worker, Francis Lindley & his wife. Then I praised Carnegie & the King remembered that he had a pretty wife. He asked about Jordan, who I said had a good knowledge of Chinese affairs, having been long at Peking before he went to Seoul. He asked me about China, & I was proceeding to say something about her waking up, when he interrupted me by saying that he had read my private letters. Then he mentioned Sir Edward Grey as an excellent Foreign Minister, in which I concurred, adding Lord Lansdowne’s name. So he asked me whether I had seen him, to which I said No, as I thought he was out of town. No, said H.M. he was here last night & spoke in the debate on the Army in the House of Lords, which shows that he is well-informed, for that part of the debate was not reported in the “Times” of this morning. On my going away he said that my services would receive recognition.

Later in the day, while Bliss was with me, came an official notice from the Clerk of the Council & a private letter also (Almeric Fitzroy) that I am to be sworn of the Privy Council on the 28th which was what H[is].M[ajesty]. meant.

Went on to Emma Sturges, who kept me to lunch: and told her what the King had said about my future. (However it turns out I shall be contented.) Then to Gould, the dentist, to have my teeth cleaned or scaled as they call it: found a young assistant named Sergeant in his absence. Then back to Jermyn Street, where Bliss came & talked in his interesting manner, and then to call on Mrs. Ker at 11 Pelham Place near Thurloe Square. Returning left a card on Count Mutsu at the Japanese Embassy and met Milne Cheetham at the door, and we had half an hour’s talk. He believes he will be sent to Buenos Aires at the end of the year. While he was with me came a note from Mr. John Morley, asking me to name a choice of days in the first part of next week. I wrote back that I was entirely free and would leave it to him to fix the day & hour. Mme. Vieugué has been writing & telegraphing to me to go to tea or dinner, but I am engaged every day.’

2 August 1906
‘Capt. W.F. O’Connor, the trade agent at Gyantse [Tibet], called by appointment. He wanted me to tell him about the Dalai Lama being allowed to return to Lhasa with an escort of Russian Buriats, and the payment of the Tibetan indemnity by China, both of which he considered were valuable cards in the Chinese game. I replied that these were topics on which the India Office could inform him if they wished to, and that as he did not come to me accredited by his own official superiors, I did not consider myself authorized to say anything. He lamented the refusal of H.M.G. to allow an agent to be stationed at Lhasa, and thought we had sacrificed 3000 men for nothing. I disagreed with him, and told him that when the adhesion agreement was published he would see how good our position is. As to the suzerainty question, as it had been omitted from the adhesion agreement, the argument might be used that it did not exist, as was argued by the Boers in relation to the South African Convention of 1884. We could not always expect to get our own ideas adopted by our official superiors, and I had often experienced that myself. He is a tall, thin, sandy haired youngish man of say 30 or 35, very opiniative and given to argufying; was evidently much dissatisfied that I did not at once tell him all I knew and sympathize with his ideas.

To lunch with Sam [Satow]; he has an old attendant who was apprenticed many years ago to old Frederick Toulmin’s dispenser, and knew all the Upper Clapton families of 50 years ago: they kept their carriages and considered themselves aristocratic!

Dropped into St. Paul’s [Cathedral] to have a glance at the decorations. St. George’s Chapel for the order of St. Michael & George did not impress me much, and the banners of the Knights look too new, as they cannot help doing. It seems a useless expense.

Left a card for Sir Edward Seymour at Queen Anne’s mansions, and went down to Chislehurst to dine with Arthur & Agneta [Allen]. A violent thunderstorm broke out just before I left.’

The French lack of delicacy

‘The French people do not seem to think it wrong to cheat or lie, or the least disgraceful to be told they do.’ Such was the view of a precocious 14 year old called Mary Browne while in France in the summer of 1821. There is very little information about Mary, who died all too young 190 years ago today, but she is remembered because of a small diary she left behind and which was published a century or so after her birth.

Mary Browne was born at Tallentire Hall in Cumberland on 15 February 1807, descended on her father’s side from a family of yeoman and on her mother’s side from the Royal Stuarts and Plantagenets. As a child she was considered somewhat stupid and slow by her governess, but there was no evidence of this by the time she was 14 and being taken on a four-month tour to France. She developed into a keen naturalist and observer of nature, and seems to have had some talent for drawing. However, she died young, aged only 26, on 30 May 1833.

While in France with her family in 1821 Mary kept a diary. Somehow this survived until the early years of the 20th century and was published, in 1905, by John Murray. The diary - which is freely available online at Internet Archive - is notable partly because of the way Mary wrote so critically of the French, and partly because of her naive but charming sketches alongside the text.

25 April 1821
‘We arrived at London about eleven o’clock: all the hotels we enquired at being full, we drove to the British Hotel, Jermyn Street. We passed through Cavendish Square, which was very pretty, but I was rather disappointed at not seeing London till I was in it. After we had rested, we walked through Burlington Arcade: it was quite cool and pleasant, although the weather was as hot as the middle of summer. There were rows of shops along each side, which had many pretty things in them, particularly artificial flowers; not far from this is the Egyptian Temple, which has sphinxes, etc., carved on it: we saw the Opera House, which is a very fine building. Regent’s Street and Waterloo Place are built of white stone. Regent’s Street (when finished) is to extend a long way; at the bottom of it is Carlton House, which is very much blackened by the smoke: there is a great contrast between it and St. James’s Palace, the latter being built of red brick, and looks like a prison. In the evening we saw the lamps in Regent’s Street, which was lighter than any other street I saw; one house was illuminated. We saw Waterloo Bridge.’

26 April 1821
‘We went to see the panorama of Naples: it was a beautiful view, there were a number of vessels in the bay; after one had looked long at them, one could fancy they were moving: in one of the boats there were some ladies sitting under a crimson canopy; in another some fruit; in one place there were some men fishing for mullet in a kind of round net, with fishes jumping through it; there was a man swimming with a basket in one hand, and several other figures; the ships were painted very gay colours, the water and the sky were as clear as crystal, and the whole so natural that one could hardly persuade oneself that it was not reality. The next panorama we saw was the battle of Waterloo: it was not near so pretty as Naples, it seemed all confusion; the farmhouse, however, was very natural, also some of the black horses. We next went to the panorama of Lausanne: the Lake of Geneva was very like Keswick Lake, but the lower end not so pretty; the mountains did not look very high. There were a great number of trees; some of them had on kind of covers, which looked like tombstones; the white railings and the shadows of the trees were remarkably natural; there were several figures, the prettiest was a little child learning to walk.

We went to St. Paul’s, and just walked through it. I thought it very fine, but spoiled by the blackness. I had no idea of the height till I observed some people in the gallery, who looked no bigger than flies; the pillars were very thick. In our way to St. Paul’s we passed by Perry’s glass-shop; in the window there was a curtain of glass drops, with two tassels; it had a very pretty effect, and when the sun shone it appeared all colours, but when we entered the shop it was quite beautiful, there were such numbers of large glass lamps hanging from the ceiling, and chandeliers, etc., in all parts. We saw the jugs belonging to a dessert-set for a Spanish nobleman, which was to cost twelve hundred pounds. Also a picture of a lamp which the King had had made there: it was gilt dragons with lotuses in their mouths; in these the lamps were placed so as to be quite hid. I should think it would be more curious than pretty. We passed by Green Park, and saw Lord William Gordon’s house, which has a very nice garden. We drove through Hyde Park; the trees were very pretty, and the leaves far out; we passed very near the Serpentine. It was excessively hot weather.’

27 April 1821
‘We saw the Western Exchange [on Bond Street], which is something like a large room full of shops; from that we went to Miss Linwoods Exhibition. The pictures were exactly like paintings; there was a railing before them, so that one could not see very near them; some of the prettiest were Jephtha’s Daughter, a nymph turning into a fountain, a little girl and a kitten, some children on an ass, a girl and a bird, a woodman and a lobster; in a smaller room were several pictures of our Saviour, the finest was a head; there was no railing before them, and when one looked near and could see the stitches, they looked quite rough; we went along a passage and looked through a kind of grating in which there was a head of Buonaparte, in another a lion’s den; but the most amusing thing was some children in a cottage; underneath a shelf lay a little black-and-white dog, which we were afraid to go near thinking it was alive; Catherine said she saw its eyes moving. The streets in London were a great deal prettier than I imagined, such numbers of shops, carriages, etc. - indeed the whole far exceeded my expectation. There were a great many carriages in Bond Street driving backwards and forwards.’

28 April 1821
‘We left London about half-past nine o’clock; we passed close by Westminster Abbey, which is prettier than St. Pauls; we had a beautiful view of London from Westminster Bridge, where I think it looks best, all the ships look so lively on the river, and London appears so large. Somerset House is one side of the Thames; we had another view after we were out of the city, where we saw London much better than when we were coming in; we saw the Monument and the Tower at a distance: it was delightful weather, the leaves were quite out; we saw a great number of butterflies, one kind of a bright yellow (that I had never seen before). The country looked very pretty, but the cottages were not so nice as those in Hertfordshire; we had several views of the Thames; we slept at Canterbury.’

20 May 1821
‘We all now began to feel very uncomfortable; everything was so very different to the things in an English house. From the drawing-room to the kitchen all was uncomfortable, and the habits of the people were so dirty and untidy that our three English servants begged that they might do the work themselves instead of having a foreigner to assist them. Stephens our courier was gone, so that we had often to go with Carruthers (our cook) to the market to speak for her. [. . .] Notwithstanding all our care we frequently were cheated; they will try every possible means sometimes when the market-people set down what we had bought, they would write down a few more pence than they had before charged, or contrive some other way for getting money. The provisions at Versailles were fully dearer than in England. One of the best shops in the market was Madame Segan’s, although she, as well as the rest, would cheat if she could. The butter was very bad in France. Madame Segan’s was the best, but as there was no salt in it, and they only got it once a week, it did not keep good. The butcher’s meat (except the pork and veal) is not good: they have a curious custom of blowing it up so as to look very large. The French bread being made of leaven is very sour; we got English bread from a baker at Versailles. Another good shop for eggs, etc., is The Black Hen.

Madame Vernier, the woman whom we took the house from, was a restaurateur next door, so we often got some dishes from her. Her chef de cuisine used sometimes also to come to our house to make dishes. It was very curious to see his proceedings; the beginning of all his dishes was the same, a large piece of batter and a little flour; to this he often added some bouillon. [. . .] The French can make a dish out of almost anything. One day he began to tell us a long story about a place where he used to dip the children, and to show us what he meant he took little Caroline in his arms and pretended to bathe her. This cook was a true French figure; he used to come in with his white nightcap and apron on, and a sharp pointed knife hung by his side. After scraping up the charcoal with his fingers he used to dip two of them into the pan, and putting them to his mouth he used to say, “Trés bon, trés bon.” He was, however, a civil enough old man in his way.

Another curious figure was our water-woman. She was a remarkably ugly, vulgar-looking old woman, and like all the old French women, an immense size. She used to wear a brown petticoat, a tattered apron, and a knitted woollen body. Notwithstanding her uncouth appearance, however, she was by far the most polite old woman I saw in France. Though upwards of seventy, she one day sang us some songs very well. When she came she used to make a curtsy and enquire after us all in the civilest manner possible. Indeed she was nearly the only person whose manner was at all like what I expected. Although one hears so much of French politeness, I do not think that the French are near so polite as the English. The men make better bows, etc., but in other things there is a kind of forwardness in the manners of the people that I cannot admire. If you are walking in the street and a person happens to run against you or hit you with his stick (which frequently happens), he never thinks of saying anything except calling out “eh!” laughing, and then walking on.’

21 May 1821
‘The French people do not seem to think it wrong to cheat or lie, or the least disgraceful to be told they do. Sometimes when we thought anything we were buying dear, and told the shopkeeper that we had bought the same thing cheaper in another shop, she answered, “O madame, vous ne pouvez pas; c’est impossible.” ’

1 June 1821
‘There were a great many people in the gardens, and the variety of colours resem- bled a bed of tulips. Some of the people were very oddly dressed. One woman had on a most extraordinary cap composed of pink satin and very pretty lace; she had a gold chain round her neck, a white gown, and pink cotton apron. (Her cap was not at all common.) The French are very fond of colours, and put them on with very bad taste. We saw some people with perhaps a pink handkerchief, a blue sash, a coarse cotton gown, a yellow bonnet, and green shoes. We saw one lady in church with a yellow bonnet spotted with every colour; and another lady with one side of her bonnet one colour, and the other another colour. The ladies are in general very plain. We were told that a lady having tried to persuade an English gentleman that the French ladies were pretty, he took her to one of the great waterworks, where she could see ten thousand people, and told her that he would give her a gown worth five hundred francs if she could find three handsome women. The lady tried, but was obliged to acknowledge that she could not. The French women have not good figures: the old women are very fat, and the others are as flat as two boards. [. . .]

The French children are old-fashioned, dull, grave, and ugly: like little old women in their appearance. The babies are wrapt up in swaddling-clothes like mummies, and they wear queer little cotton hats. The nurses carry them very carefully hanging on their arms; they say that nursing them, or tossing them about, makes them mad. Some of the children have long hair hanging down their backs and little hats stuck on the tops of their heads and little ridicules in their hands.’

28 June 1821
‘Carruthers saw our bread-baker standing at the street door talking to some women, with nothing on him but a small apron. The French do not seem to have any idea what delicacy is.’

24 August 1821
‘We set off five minutes before seven. It was very foggy. There is a pretty hill and a good deal of wood going out of Arundel. After the fog cleared away it was excessively hot; every person looked half roasted. There were a number of pretty cottages; most of which, and even some of the sheds, were covered with vines, roses, and jessamines; there were also many remarkably fine hollyoaks before the doors. Every person looked clean and neat; there seemed to be no poverty: we did not meet with a single beggar. It was delightful to see the green fields full of sheep and cows, all looking so happy. There were several boats full of ladies on the Thames. We saw London some time before we were in it; it only appeared like a great deal of smoke. We scarcely saw any soldiers in London - very different to Paris! We arrived at the New Hummums, Russell Street, at half-past four.

In the evening we went to Drury Lane and saw the Coronation. The first play was very ugly. The first scene of the coronation was a distant view of Westminster Abbey. There were a number of soldiers and people painted at a distance. The procession was very long and beautiful. The herb-women walked first, strewing the way with flowers; they were dressed in white, and pink roses on their heads, and the first had on a scarlet mantle. The king had on a crimson velvet robe with an immense long train covered with gold stars, and borne by seven pages. The second scene was the inside of Westminster Abbey: the ceiling was covered with scarlet drapery; there were a great many chandeliers, and one could not imagine anything more magnificent. There were painted people in the galleries, and real people at one end. There was a great deal of music and a large harmonica. The king went up to the altar, and they put on him a purple crown. In the third scene there came in a sailor who sang a curious song about the coronation. The fourth scene was the banquet. There were gold plates and such a number of lights that they made my eyes quite sore. The champion came in on horseback and threw down the glove: two other men on horseback followed him: the horses reared and plunged: a man in armour made of rings stood on each side of him. It was altogether beautiful. It was very hot.’

25 August 1821
‘Before we set off we went to Covent Garden market, and saw some beautiful fruit in the shop windows; we had not time to go through it, but what we saw was not to be compared to the flower-markets in Paris. We did not see anything here very pretty. It was excessively hot when we set off. We passed several pretty houses, and we stopped at Hampstead Heath to see Mr. and Mrs. Spedding. We dined at Welwin, not a very good inn. There were several nice little girls dancing along with bundles of corn on their heads. We slept at Antonbury Hill. It was a nice inn, and the people were civil.’

29 August 1821
‘We set off at seven, happy to think we were near the end of our journey. No person in the inn was ready. It was a dull morning. We passed Windermere and breakfasted at Ambleside. After this we passed some beautiful mountains very much wooded, and Rydal Water, a pretty little lake, and also Grasmere. As soon as we passed the boundary wall and entered Cumberland the sun came out and shone brightly for a little while. We saw the blue mountains peeping up behind, and the clear mountain streams. We passed Thirlmere, which is more like a river, and Helvellyn, an ugly mountain. We saw Keswick Lake; arrived at Keswick by one o’clock, and stayed there till three. After we had left this, a flock of sheep ran on before the carriage for above a mile with a man and his dog after them. The sun shone as we went up Whinlatter; and we saw the end of Bassenthwaite; the sixth lake we saw to-day. The time seemed very short till we reached Cockermouth, where we saw the new bridge they were building. At last we arrived in safety at Tallantire.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 30 May 2013.

The bluff to Old Snuffy

‘In the afternoon Lt. Wheeler and I came to a rapid where we deemed it advisable to wait for the Picture [a boat]. I climbed the bluff to Old Snuffy [one of the brown dolomite tongues in the Bright Angel Shale]. Near the water line are rocks with scolithus, loosely aggregated sandstone, Potsdam sandstone? It must be 75 feet thick on the granite.’ This is from the diary of Grove Karl Gilbert, one of the founders of geomorphology, written during an early expedition under the command of the pioneering explorer and cartographer, George M. Wheeler.

Gilbert was born in Rochester, New York, on 6 May 1843. He was home schooled for much of his childhood, and, though not always healthy, was an attentive student. He graduated from the University of Rochester, and tried teaching but soon resigned his first job. In 1863, he took an apprenticeship at Ward Natural Science Establishment, at Cosmos Hall on the Rochester campus, which manufactured and distributed scientific equipment for schools. He avoided the Civil War, most likely because of poor health. In 1869 he took part in the second Ohio State Geological Survey as a volunteer assistant; and, in 1871, he joined the Wheeler Survey, one of the four great surveys of the American West. In 1874, he married Fanny Loretta Porter; and in 1875, he was transferred to the John Wesley Powell survey, which took him to Utah. In 1877, he published his first important monograph, The Geology of the Henry Mountains. 

Following the creation of the U.S. Geological Survey in 1879, Gilbert was appointed Senior Geologist. In 1884 he was placed in charge of the Appalachian division of geology, and in 1889, upon the creation of the division of geologic correlation, he was placed at its head. In 1890, he published his History of the Niagara River, but in 1892 he relinquished his position as chief geologist. Although wrongly attributing the origins of a crater in Arizona to volcanic activity, he correctly concluded that the craters on the moon were caused by meteorites and not volcanoes. He joined the Harriman Alaska Expedition in 1899. Two weeks after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, he took a series of photographs documenting the damage along the San Andreas fault. 

Gilbert, much honoured in his lifetime, won the Wollaston Medal from the Geological Society of London in 1900. He was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in 1902. He was awarded the Charles P. Daly Medal by the American Geographical Society in 1910. And, he is the only geologist to ever be elected twice as President of the Geological Society of America. ‘Gilbert,’ Wikipedia says, ‘is considered one of the giants of the sub-discipline of geomorphology, having contributed to the understanding of landscape evolution, erosion, river incision and sedimentation. He died in 1918. Further information is also available Encyclopaedia Britannica, and EOS.

Although Gilbert was a lifelong diarist, the many diaries he left behind have been described as ‘colourless’. Here is an extract from William M. Davis’s memoir on Gilbert - as found online at the National Academy of Sciences: ‘During Gilbert’s apprenticeship at Cosmos Hall he formed the habit of keeping a concise diary, and this habit was pursued all through his life. Brief entries were made in small pocket-books concerning the persons he met and the places he visited; and 51 of these consecutive annual records have been preserved, beginning in 1868 and continuing to 1918; the last entry was made only a few days before his death. It is a great privilege to look over the personal records of such a man, not in the way of peering curiosity but in a reverent spirit, with the memory of the man constantly present, and with much of the sadness that one feels when standing alone and in silence by the grave of a trusted friend. A sincere interest is aroused by every item that teaches something of his habit of thought, something of his inner nature, something of the powerful and beautiful personality that so greatly aided the progress of geology in America and that endeared itself so warmly to all his associates.

Unhappily, entries in the diaries are for the most part colorless records of fact, with very few expressions of opinion or of feeling. There are occasional blank periods, and these are prolonged when the diary was replaced by field notebooks during many seasons of work in the West. Annual summaries of travel and other leading topics are found in many of the later books. Mention is frequently made of stops on journeys westward or eastward at Rochester to see parents or elder brother; or at Jackson, Mich., to see a sister; but there is nothing written to indicate the warm affection that united the diminishing family. Instead of drifting apart in later years by reason of separated residence, the survivors seemed to grow closer and closer together. Brief extracts from the diaries will be found on later pages, where they occasionally serve to fix the dates of journeys and or to clear up matters that would otherwise remain obscure.’

That said, one of his diaries has been transcribed, by George Simmons, and is available online at Colorado Plateau River Guides (CPRG) website. CPRG says that when presented with this manuscript by Simmons ‘we almost fell dead’. This is a very significant piece of literature,’ it continues, ‘that has, to our knowledge, never been published. The trip occurred in the fall of 1871, before John Wesley Powell’s second expedition through the Grand Canyon. This is one of three factors which led to the decision by Powell to abandon the rest of his expedition at Kanab Creek in 1872. Lt. George M. Wheeler was in charge of the expedition in which Grove K. Gilbert was the geologist. This is the third expedition to reach Diamond Creek.’ 

Here are several extracts.

26 September 1871
‘The gravel that underlies Fortification Rock and Table Mountain, is newer than Black Canon lavas and older than the basalt of those peaks. The river bluffs above are of more recent gravels. Think the lower (red) bed of Table Mountain is lava - the yellow above gravel. The same beds north of the river bear the same relation to the basalt that forms the Table Mountain there.

At Fortification Rock were pictured the Butte itself the sculptured gravel opposite and some sand-worn rocks. We left the spot at about 1 P.M. and to Vegas Wash - 2 or 3 miles - had to tow up a steep hill made by the debris from the wash. The slack water above this dam gave us easy work nearly to Callville, a distance of ten miles(?). All the way the banks show gravel bluffs of coarse and fine material, half consolidated so as to give rough semi-castellated forms.’

6 October 1871
‘I propose to call our boat (No. 3) the Trilobite. We

managed to get off from Camp Crossing at about 10 A.M., just in time to miss the swimming of the mules. Mr. Marvine accompanies us so far as to get a glimpse of the mouth of the Canon and then returns. We camp outside the Canon and Hecox and I start to climb the wall. Hecox sickens (morally) at the first third of the climb, and returns. I do not reach the top until after sunset though I started at about 1 P.M. It is the hardest climb I ever undertook.’

8 October 1871
‘This morning we got ready early and I walked back to

meet Lt. Wheeler who with O’Sullivan had camped a mile below. With him I revisited the springs on the north shore and we named them.

A large one of the crater style with flowers we called Tufa Spring and Tufa Springs would be a good name for the group. Another larger one with a fantastic canopy of tufa is Grotto Spring.

A third is Baptismal Fountain.

A fourth (now dry) and hanging against a larger one is the Holy Water Fountain.

A dripping spring where tufa a foot from the water projects far over it. Starting our boat along we find yet other springs on both shores. Many of them voluminous. At one are some scrubby trees a foot or two in diameter but with the habit of the water willow. The leaf is small and unequally cordate [sketch omitted] the leaves on sprouts being rounder than those on old stems.

Verdure is to be seen at many points on the bank and referable to springs. It is confined however to the sandstone doubtless because the limestone is not so pervious [barometric readings omitted].

In the afternoon Lt. Wheeler and I came to a rapid where we deemed it advisable to wait for the Picture.

I climbed the bluff to Old Snuffy [one of the brown dolomite tongues in the Bright Angel Shale]. Near the water line are rocks with scolithus, loosely aggregated sandstone, Potsdam sandstone? It must be 75 feet thick on the granite [sketch and description of geologic section omitted].’

16 October 1871
Hecox and I were out of camp last night on account of boat accident, and the camp missed us for we had food and beds, and our boat crew went without either. They had however some bread in the morning when we came up and some of them made up all deficiencies by a good hearty grumble lasting through the day. Tonight Lt. Wheeler puts us on short allowance of flour - four pounds a day for seven men (the full ration is 7 lbs. 12 oz.). Our bacon is gone, and beans and rice are scant, but coffee is in plenty and will outlast every other item. Our flour will hold out at this rate six days and those must bring us to the Diamond River or back to the crossing, the former if possible. I make out from lves map and Newberry’s section that we are not to expect any great change in the character of the canon at Diamond River, but merely a retirement of the Red Wall from the immediate cliff. It is now far enough back to be out of sight except through canon vistas.

The granite cliff continues to show much schistose rock gneiss, chlorite slate, etc.

Basalt veins (as I can only suppose them to be for I have no time to examine them) have appeared along the cliff at many (3 or 4) points today though we have come but 1 1/2 miles.

Our work of today was the completion of the passage of Double Rapid. On the upper half Salmon and Hecox broke loose in a boat and brought up in an eddy between the two falls and on the wrong side. Indians had to swim the river and climb around to them (a work of 2 hours) to row them over when they succeeded in getting them up. Once above the rapid we found deep slow running water (with slight interruption) for 1 1/2 miles when we encamped and drew our daily ration or half ration. Drew the Picture up for repairs.

The force of the current in high water is here so great that no small gravel remains on the surface of the bottom - only large boulders. These give the rapids quite different character as regards navigation. Standing ground is generally convenient for men on the tow line. Sunken rocks are likewise abundant and the water is much tossed. The towing force does not have to wade, but pulls hand-over-hand. The steersman and bowman have to be on the alert.

Astronomical Obseravations tonight: Camp 28.’ 

Vladimir Ivanovich in Hollywood

‘We had a tour of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio. It is a huge institution, located on fourteen acres of land. Everything here is large scale [. . .] We were shown the stores, set installations of entire streets and even towns, a huge set with a pool into which a submarine dives (this has been prepared for the new production of The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne), fragments of different shootings (for instance, the scene where a huge live boa constrictor is winding around the body of a half naked girl).’ This is from a diary kept when the influential Russian theatre director Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko visited Hollywood. Nemirovich-Danchenko - who died 80 years ago today - was a co-founder of the famous Moscow Art Theatre.

Nemirovich-Danchenko was born in 1858 into a Russian noble family of mixed Ukrainian-Armenian descent in western Georgia. His father was an officer in the Imperial Russian army. He was educated in Tbilisi, where he was already keen on drama, and then at Moscow State University. He left his studies to work in the theatre, first as a theatre critic, then as a playwright - his first play, Dog-rose, was staged in 1881 - and then also as a teacher. By 1891, he was installed as a teacher at the Moscow Philharmonic Society, where he trained many future famous actors. He espoused new ideas such as the need for longer rehearsals and less rigid acting styles.

In 1898, Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski (later to be renowned for his Method Acting) and Nemirovich-Danchenko founded the Moscow Art Theatre. This was conceived as a venue for naturalistic theatre, in contrast to the melodramas that were the main form of theatre in Russia at the time. Its first season featured plays by Ibsen, Aleksey Tolstoy and Shakespeare, but it was not until it staged several of Chekhov’s plays that the theatre became famous. Chekhov had envisioned that fellow playwright and friend Maxim Gorki would succeed him as the theatre’s leading dramatist but this was not to be. The theatre went into decline, until that is it took on international tours. With tensions growing between the two co-founders, Nemirovich-Danchenko set up, in 1919, a musical theatre studio branch. This was reformed into the Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theatre in 1926.

In 1943 Nemirovich-Danchenko established the Moscow Art Theatre School, which is still extant. He was awarded the State Prize of the USSR in 1942 and 1943, the Order of Lenin, and the Order of the Banner of Red Labor. He died in Moscow on 25 April 1943. Further information is available from Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, IMDB, and Moscow Art Theatre. 

Nemirovich-Danchenko did not leave behind any diaries as far as I know, or certainly none that have been translated into English. However, a close associate of his, Sergei Bertensson who joined the Moscow Art Theatre in 1918, did keep a diary during a trip, taken with Nemirovich-Danchenko, to the United States in the 1920s. This was translated by Anna Shoulgat into English, edited by Paul Fryer, and published by the Scarecrow Press in 2004 as In Hollywood with Nemirovich-Danchenko, 1926-1927: The Memoirs of Sergei Bertensson. A few pages can be previewed at Googlebooks and Amazon.

According to the publisher: ‘Sergei Bertensson’s diary of his trip to Hollywood with Russian theatre great Nemirovich-Danchenko is a unique record of an extraordinary and under-documented chapter in film and theatre history. For a year Bertensson followed his employer as he met with directors, producers, and stars, forever discussing projects that would never be realized. Some of the leading figures in Hollywood history appear in this record, including Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and John Barrymore. Bertensson’s observations of life in Hollywood on the eve of the talkies revolution provide us with a compelling snapshot of movie history in the making, seen from the unusual perspective of an outsider.’

Here are a few extracts.

6 October 1926
‘The whole day has been spent on the reading of the script of François Villon; however, we have finished it. Vladimir Ivanovich likes the denouement, but on the whole he has found lots of vague and absurd details.’

10-11 October 1926
‘Vladimir Ivanovich remains keen on The Snowmaiden and fantasizes on this subject a lot.

The scheduled lessons with Marceline Day did not take place. She did not come, having informed us that she had been called for shooting. We went to see how a big mass scene on the square before Notre Dame de Paris was shot at the Universal studio. This involved about 600 people. There was much noise, animation, banal gesticulation, and swinging of hands. Barrymore himself, in the comic makeup mask of “the king of fools,” sitting on the head of a statue of a horse, played with full nerve, was brave, vivid, and graceful like a statue.

When I met Ms. Day there, I suggested that she should continue her lessons with Vladimir Ivanovich on the next day, but she became somehow confused and said that first she had to discuss this with Considine. When Barrymore finished his scene, Vladimir Ivanovich told him about this. The former got awfully angry and called it a shame and a disgrace and promised to sort it out by the evening.’

15 October 1926
‘We had a tour of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio. It is a huge institution, located on fourteen acres of land. Everything here is large scale: the wardrobe - a four-story house, the storage of props and furniture - a four-story building as well, and it has enough furniture to furnish approximately 250 apartments. On a permanent basis they have thirty-four directors, fifteen “stars,” a group of actors (fifty people), 1,200 technical staff members, and 250 administrative people. The work is simultaneously carried out on seven to eight stages. They produce thirty movies a year, among them such big productions as Ben Hur, The Big Parade, and others. 

We were shown the stores, set installations of entire streets and even towns, a huge set with a pool into which a submarine dives (this has been prepared for the new production of The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne), fragments of different shootings (for instance, the scene where a huge live boa constrictor is winding around the body of a half naked girl). During one of the shootings Vladimir Ivanovich was photographed together with the “stars” Alice Terry and Ramon Navarro.

Upon completion of the tour, we were introduced to the director of the studio, Thalberg.

We had to wait for him for about ten minutes. Thalberg is a young man; he is not yet thirty, but his authority is absolutely unlimited, and he receives an enormous salary plus a royalty from the completed movies. He is said to be exceptionally smart and good at business. We stayed with him for just a few minutes and left with a strong impression that the whole organization was hallmarked with bad taste. As if after visiting the backstage of the Moscow Art Theatre you happen to visit the backstage of a provincial theater. If at Schenck’s studio there is not enough artistic atmosphere, here you do not feel such atmosphere at all. This is just a big and perfectly arranged factory.’ 

24-25 October 1926
‘We continued reading Camilla. We observed how a short love scene between Barrymore and Marceline Day was shot. The usual cliché: on her part - self-admiration and pleasant smiles; on his part - banal operatic gestures and movements (and he seems to feel uncertain and awkward inside).

The set is ultrarealistic. A piece of stone castle, a real stone staircase and landing leading to it; below there is a large garden and a pool with a fountain. The garden is a huge hedgerow made up of natural greenery, pruned in the style of Versailles. The entire garden is laid out with pieces of live green turf, and among this grass there are artificial trees with paper rose camellias. Paper roses decorate the branches of the bushes, fringing the castle windows. They persuade that in a photograph the artificial will brilliantly merge with the natural and will give quite a real picture. The arrangement of this garden demanded no less than two days of the most thorough work and lots of money.

Vladimir Ivanovich sent Mary Pickford a bouquet of flowers. He was greatly impressed with her artistry.’

Hammer out a little idea

Today marks the 180th anniversary of the birth of Henry James, one of the US’s finest writers, and a major figure in 19th century literary realism. He was not a diarist as such, but jotted regularly in diary-like notebooks, developing ideas for stories he was hoping to write. As such, the notebooks, held by the Houghton Library at Harvard, are considered an important resource not only for understanding Henry James but for insights into the creative process.

James was born in New York City on 15 April 1843 into a wealthy family which travelled often to Europe where he was taught by tutors. His father was a Swedenborgian theologian, and his brother became a philosopher. Although briefly enrolled at Harvard Law School, James soon decided to be a writer, publishing short stories and contributing to magazines such as Nation and Atlantic Monthly. He continued to journey to Europe, where he met Ruskin, Darwin and Rossetti as well as literary figures including Turgenev and Flaubert.

In 1876, James settled permanently in London, and devoted himself to literature and travel. In his early novels - including Daisy Miller and The Portrait of a Lady - as well as in some of his later work, James contrasts the sophisticated, traditional Europeans with innocent brash Americans. After unsuccessfully trying to become a playwright he wrote some of his greatest novels, such as The Aspern Papers, The Turn of the Screw and The Ambassadors.

Later in his life, James lived in Rye, on the Sussex coast. He became a British citizen in 1915 and received the Order of Merit from King George V in 1916. He died the same year. Further biographical information is available from Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, or the Poetry Foundation. James’s sister, Alice, is remembered largely because of a diary she kept which was published posthumously - see The Diary Review: Geyser of emotions, and The Diary Junction.

Henry James did not so much keep a diary as notebooks, and there are 16 volumes (1878 to 1916) held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University. According to the Library, James used the diaries largely to work out plots, problems of narration and point of view, as well to record addresses, appointments, and days, good and bad. The diaries were edited by F. O. Matthiessen and Kenneth B. Murdock and published by Oxford University Press in 1947 as The Notebooks of Henry James. The full text can be read online at Internet Archive. A more comprehensive (and less annotated) edition, put together by Leon Edel and Lyall Powers, came out in 1987 as The Complete Notebooks of Henry James (also Oxford University Press).

Generally speaking, James’s biographers have found the diaries of his sister, Alice, and his secretary, Theodora Bosanquet more useful than his own notebooks - see for example Henry James, a Life by Leon Edel, and Henry James at Work by Theodora Bosanquet. Here, though, are a couple of extracts.

8 May 1892 [about what would become Owen Wingrave]
‘Can’t I hammer out a little the idea - for a short tale - of the young soldier? - the young fellow who, though predestined, by every tradition of his race, to the profession of arms, has an insurmountable hatred of it - of the bloody side of it, the suffering, the ugliness, the cruelty; so that he determines to reject it for himself - to break with it and cast it off, and this in the face of every sort of coercion of opinion (on the part of others), of such pressure not to let the family honour, etc. (always gloriously connected with the army), break down, that there is a kind of degradation, an exposure to ridicule, and ignominy in his apostasy. The idea should be that he fights, after all, exposes himself to possibilities of danger and death for his own view - acts the soldier, is the soldier, and of indefeasible soldierly race - proves to have been so - even in this very effort of abjuration. The thing is to invent the particular heroic situation in which he may have found himself - show just how he has been a hero even while throwing away his arms. It is a question of a little subject for the Graphic - so I mustn’t make it ‘psychological’ - they understand that no more than a donkey understands a violin. The particular form of opposition, of coercion, that he has to face, and the way his ‘heroism’ is constatée. It must, for prettiness’s sake, be constatée in the eyes of some woman, some girl, whom he loves but who has taken the line of despising him for his renunciation - some fille de soldat, who is very montée about the whole thing, very hard on him, etc. But what the subject wants is to be distanced, relegated into some picturesque little past when the army occupied more place in life - poetized by some slightly romantic setting. Even if one could introduce a supernatural element in it - make it, I mean, a little ghost-story; place it, the scene, in some old country-house, in England at the beginning of the present century - the time of the Napoleonic wars. - It seems to me one might make some haunting business that would give it a colour without being ridiculous, and get in that way the sort of pressure to which the young man is subjected. I see it - it comes to me a little, He must die, of course, be slain, as it were on his own battle-field, the night spent in the haunted room in which the ghost of some grim grandfather - some bloody warrior of the race - or some father slain in the Peninsular or at Waterloo - is supposed to make himself visible.’

12 January 1895 [about what would become The Turn of the Screw]
‘Note here the ghost-story told me at Addington (evening of Thursday 10th), by the Archbishop of Canterbury: a mere vague, undetailed faint sketch of it – being all he had been told (very badly and imperfectly) by a lady who had no art of relation, and no clearness: the story of the young children (indefinite number and age) left to the care of servants in an old country-house, through the death, presumably, of parents. The servants, wicked and depraved, corrupt and deprave the children; the children are bad, full of evil, to a sinister degree. The servants die (the story vague about the way of it) and their apparitions, figures, return to haunt the house and children, to whom they seem to beckon, whom they invite and solicit, from across dangerous places, the deep ditch of a sunk fence, etc. – so that the children may destroy themselves, lose themselves by responding, by getting into their power. So long as the children are kept from them, they are not lost: but they try and try and try, these evil presences, to get hold of them. It is a question of the children ‘coming over to where they are’. It is all obscure and imperfect, the picture, the story, but there is a suggestion of strangely gruesome effect to it. The story to be told – tolerably obviously – by an outside spectator, observer.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 15 April 2013.

Set up the box

‘Decided to spend the day photographing. Saddled pony and started for the mountain taking camera and plate changing box with a dozen plates and during the forenoon made eight exposures, all on rock subjects.’ This is the famous early American photographer, William Henry Jackson, born 180 years ago today, writing in his diary on a formative mission to photograph the Union Pacific railway line in 1869.

Jackson was born in Keeseville, New York, on 4 April 1843, the first of seven children. His mother was a talented painter, and influenced William Henry who was something of an artistic prodigy. As young as 15, he started working as a retoucher in photography studios. In 1862 he joined the Union Army though saw little if any action in the American Civil War, since his unit was usually on garrison duty. He returned to Vermont in 1863, and to working in a studio. In 1866, after a broken engagement, he went West, working as a bullwhacker for a freighting outfit. He sketched landmarks and lifestyles along the Oregon Trail. On returning from the west in 1868, he opened his own photographic studio in Omaha, Nebraska, and, while travelling in the surrounding area, took many of his now-famous photographs of American Indians.

In 1869, Jackson won a commission from the Union Pacific to document the scenery along the various railroad routes for promotional purposes, and this led to him being invited to join a geologic survey to explore the Yellowstone region. He was then the official photographer of the US Geological and Geographic Survey of the Territories, and became one of the most important national explorers. His photographs are credited with helping convince Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park, the first such park in the US. In 1879, he opened a studio in Denver, Colorado, and established a large inventory of national and international views. Commissions for railroads followed in the early 1890s, and in the mid-1890s he took many photographs for the World’s Transportation Commission.

Thereafter, Jackson became a partner in the Detroit Photographic Company which acquired exclusive rights to use a form of photography processing called Photochrom, allowing the company to mass market postcards and other materials - many taken by Jackson - in colour. The company went out of business after the war, and Jackson moved to Washington, D.C. in 1924, where he produced murals of the Old West for the new US Department of the Interior building, and wrote two autobiographies. He is also credited with being a technical advisor for the filming of Gone with the Wind. He died in 1942, aged 99. Further information is readily available on the internet, at Wikipedia, for example, National Park Service, and the University of Chicago Library.

The New York Public Library holds a large archive of Jackson’s papers, including many of his diaries. According to the information online: ‘The diaries vary in depth and breadth of coverage, as well as in format. Some are original holograph journals. Others are holograph or typed transcripts made by Jackson from the originals. Some which appear to be transcripts are Jackson’s narrative reconstructions based on the original diaries; others are memoirs based on brief notes. These “diaries” as a whole cover his nine months in the Vermont Regiment, 1862-1863; his first trip West in 1866-67; the opening of his studio in Omaha; his photography along the line of the Union Pacific Railroad in 1869; his “photographic campaigns” with the U.S. Geological Survey, 1870-1878; his travels abroad with the World’s Transportation Commission, 1894-1986; and his years in retirement, 1925-1942. There are no diaries covering his years as a commercial photographer in Denver, 1879-1897, and only one diary (1901) and one notebook related to the 27 years he worked for the Detroit Photographic Company (later Detroit Publishing Company).’

The Diaries of William Henry Jackson was published in 1959 by Arthur H. Clark Co. as part of The Far West and the Rockies Historical Series. This is freely available to view online at the Hathi Trust. Photographs of the original pages from the June- September 1869 diary are available to view online at the New York Public Library website, as is a typescript of the same.

24 June 1869
‘The morning was cloudy but we thought promised a fine day so we went to work & set up the box. Worked around the streets from different quarters until about noon when it commenced raining & we stopped. Kept it up at intervals all P.M. Heard that some of the demi-monde wanted some large pictures of their house. Hull & I thought we would go around & see if we couldn’t get a job out of them. Talked it up a while but they seemed indifferent. I called for a bottle of wine soon after they began to take considerable interest in having a picture taken. Had another bottle & then they were hot and heavy for some large pictures to frame & began to count up how many they should want. So we left promising that if the weather permitted we would surely be on hand & make their pictures. Just before six the rain came down in torrents, making rivers in every street. As it slacked up a little we got our instruments out & made three or four negatives of the flood, getting some very good effects. This evening was but a repetition of the last.’

25 June 1869
‘Silvered paper in the morning and attended to printing all day. Not a good day for outside work so we did not make any negatives. Got along very well with printing & even after toning our pictures looked first-rate - but the fixing bathfixed them & we were very much disappointed, some of them turning out poorly. Printed up about 4 or 5 dozen. Shall probably get quite an order from McLelland for them. After supper sat in Sumner’s store listening to tough yarns from John & his brother of fighting scrapes &c. After taking a look in the Gold Room we retired early.’

26 June 1869
‘Morning opened bright. Got things out at once to make negatives. Set the box up in the yard & made a few up town of Rollins House, Ford House &c., &c & them went down to the depot securing half a dozen different views. After dinner went over to Madame Cleveland’s to make the group of the girls with the house. Weather was just hazy enough to soften the light down for an out-door group. Made three exposures - first two not good but the last very good. Occupied the rest of the afternoon varnishing and retouching the negatives made.’

27 June 1869
‘Yesterday I received a letter from & in the evening wrote one to Mollie. This A.M. slept until 7 & then went over to John’s & commenced sivering paper at once. Kept steadily at printing until about 2 P.M. getting off about 12 sheets of paper. The pictures printed well, but in toning came up mealy much to our disgust & to add to our troubles got them overtoned - had toning all done by 4 O’clock & by 5 had 20 of Madame Cleveland’s shebang all mounted. Concluded to wait until to-morrow before we delivered them. After tea took our usual walk to the depot to see the Western train come in. Things begin to look as though we should sell quite a number of pictures & it is time we did for the last two days I have been just about strapped.’

25 September 1869
‘Decided to spend the day photographing, Saddled pony and started for the mountain taking camera and plate changing box with a dozen plates and during the forenoon made eight exposures, all on rock subjects. In passing the plate box from one to another in coming down over the rocks it slipped out of hand and in falling was damaged so that it would not work. This put an end of picture making for the time being and we all went back to camp and spent the afternoon fishing. Just before sunset, however, I repaired the plate holder and exposed the remaining plates on fish subjects.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 4 April 2013.

I have been relapsing

‘All my associations here are bad, and I can hardly shake them off. All the old feelings I have been trying to get rid of, seem revived: particularly vanity and wandering of mind.’ This is a typical self-recriminating entry from the short diary of Richard Hurrell Froude, born 220 years ago today. He is remembered largely because of his early association with the Oxford Movement though he died very young, within a few years of its formation.

Froude, the son of a clergyman, was born on 25 March 1803, at Dartington, Devon, and educated at Eton and Oriel College, Oxford, where he came under the influence of John Keble. He was also a friend of Isaac Williams. Froude went on to become a Fellow of Oriel in 1826. In 1832, he went abroad for health reasons, accompanied by his father, Archdeacon Froude, and John Henry Newman.

Not long after their return, Froude, Keble, Williams and others founded the so-called Oxford Movement for high church Anglicans wishing to move closer towards Anglo-Catholicism. Froude is particularly remembered for his essays in the Tracts of the Times which advanced the Oxford Movement’s opinions.

Still suffering from consumption, Froude went abroad again, this time to Barbados, but, not long after returning to England, he died at his father’s house in Devon in 1836. Further information is available from Wikipedia, the Anglican History website or the Bureau of Public Secrets.

Froude’s colleagues decided to include his short diary, which is full of self-recrimination, with his literary remains, published the year after his death in several volumes. Here are a few extracts from the start of the diary and one from near the end (all contained in the first of the volumes and freely available at Internet Archive).

2 January 1826
‘I ought to read six hours a day.’

1 February 1826
‘Oxford. All my associations here are bad, and I can hardly shake them off. All the old feelings I have been trying to get rid of, seem revived: particularly vanity and wandering of mind. I do not really care for any of their opinions; and I will try to act as if “I had root in myself.” I will try to do steadily what I ought to do; and, as far as I can control the impulse of the moment, will never let a desire to obtain their good opinion be the motive of any of my slightest actions.

I ought to spend an hour at Bp. Butler, or Lloyd, and an hour at Greek Testament, two hours at Greek classics, one hour at Latin, and as much time more as I can about my prize, &c.’

21 February 1826
‘I have been relapsing into idle ways, but will try to turn over a new leaf.’

23 February 1826
‘I have had a long idle fit, partly caused by circumstances; but I shall not throw it off without recording an idle day. K. says I ought to attend to nothing but my essay, till I have finished it.’

30 March 1826
‘The standing for the fellowship is over, and I have done a great deal better than I expected: I am silly enough to be nervous about the event; but I hope it is not for my own sake. I know it will be, in the best way, for my interest, if I do my part. It will not be any excuse for my past idleness if I succeed; and I am resolved at any rate to make a better use of my time for the future. I put this down to try to keep myself from caring for the event; but I am afraid it is of no use. It is one o’clock; it will be settled in ten hours.’

10 April 1826
‘I have had so long a spell of idleness, that I hardly know how to set to work to-day. I will try to make a good beginning to-morrow.’

12 April 1826
‘I have been a fool, and argued when it was bad taste to do so.’

11 May 1826
‘I have allowed myself to relapse into a most lax way, by idle speculations, and feel all the habits of regularity, which I have been trying for, deserting me.’

1 July 1826
‘I have got into a bad way, by writing down the number of hours. It makes me look at my watch constantly, to see how near the time is up, and gives me a sort of lassitude, and unwillingness to exert my mind.

I think it will be a bettor way to keep a journal for a bit, as I find I want keeping in order about more things than reading. I am in a most conceited way, besides being very ill-tempered and irritable. My thoughts wander very much at my prayers, and I feel hungry for some ideal thing, of which I have no definite idea. I sometimes fancy that the odd bothering feeling which gets possession of me is affectation, and that I appropriate it because I think it a sign of genius; but it lasts too long, and is too disagreeable, to be unreal. There is another thing which I must put down, if I don’t get rid of it before long: it is a thing which proves to me the imbecility of my own mind more than anything; and I can hardly confess it to myself; but it is too true.’

5 July 1826
‘Yesterday I was very indolent, but rather better; and then began to-day with the same slly idea in my mind; I will write it down if it bothers me much longer: but my energies were rather restored by reading some of my Mother’s journal at Vineyard. I did not recollect that I had been so unfeeling to her during her last year. I thank God some of her writings have been kept; that may be my salvation; but I have spent the evening just as idly as if I had not seen it. I don’t know how it is, but it seems to me, that the consciousness of having capacities for happiness, with no objects to gratify them, seems to grow upon me, and puts me in a dreary way.

Lord, have mercy upon me.’

7 July 1826
‘Spent the morning tolerably well; read my Mother’s journal and prayers, two hours: I admire her more and more. I pray God the prayers she made for me may be effectual, and that her labours may not be in vain; but that God in His mercy may have chosen this way of accomplishing them; and that my reading them so long after they were made, and without any intention of her’s, may be the means by which the Holy Spirit will awaken my spirit to those good feelings which she asked for in my behalf.

I hope, by degrees, I may get to consider her relics in the light of a friend, derive from them advice and consolation, and rest my troubled spirit under their shadow. She seems to have had the same annoyances as myself, without the same advantages, and to have written her thoughts down, instead of conversation.

As yet they have only excited my feelings, and not produced any practical result.

How immeasureably absurd will all this appear to me before long! Even writing it has done me good; I say this, that, when I read it over at some future time, I may not think I was a greater fool than I really was.’

25 March 1828
‘I am to day twenty-five years old; I have begun it with a specimen of my state. I did not know this morning that it was either my birthday or the Annunciation: and yet all the term, I have watched for the approach of Saints’ days for weeks before hand, while I had a holiday in prospect. This is very humiliating, and upon the whole I have every reason to be dissatisfied with myself for the conduct of this year.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 25 March 2013.

A dignified Speaker

John Evelyn Denison, Viscount Ossington, died a century and a half ago today. He was an unremarkable politician except for the fact that he held the office of Speaker in the House of Commons and kept a diary record of his 14 years in the post. Often dry and procedural, the diary comes alive when Denison writes about his own decisions being praised by others, not least the future Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. Denison also hands down occasional pearls of wisdom such as when the House was unexpectedly in a ‘a touchy, irritable state’ - ‘such is always the case with the sharpest hurricanes. The barometer gives no notice.’

Denison was born in 1800 at Ossington, Nottinghamshire, the eldest son of a wool merchant. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, and in 1820 on the death of his father inherited the Ossington estates with much land. He was said to be a progressive landlord, interested in agricultural improvements; and, later, he was president of the Royal Agricultural Society. In 1823, he became a Whig MP, and in 1827, he married Charlotte, daughter of William, Duke of Portland, but they had no children.

Throughout his life, Denison sat in Parliament for various constituencies, including Newcastle-under-Lyme, Hastings, South and North Nottinghamshire, and Malton. In 1857, he was chosen to be Speaker of the House of Commons, a position he retained until 1872, when he resigned and was created Viscount Ossington. He died a few months later, on 7 March 1873. A little further biographical information is available from Wikipedia or Nottingham University’s website for manuscripts and special collections.

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry (log-in required) on Denison says he was fairly well regarded as speaker: ‘A consolidator rather than an innovator (he prevented, for example, the introduction of printed notice of questions to ministers), he none the less defended the financial rights of the Commons against the Lords, deploring the latter’s action in rejecting the bill of 1860 repealing the paper duty, and opposing the Lords’ introduction of a financial provision into a divorce bill. The tories in 1862 hoped he might be encouraged to retire and be replaced by Spencer Walpole. Denison was the last speaker to speak and vote in committee, and he voted against the government on the budget on 9 June 1870. He was a dignified speaker but was thought by contemporaries sometimes lacking in firmness.’

For the 14 years that he held the post of Speaker, Denison kept a diary record of his duties and decisions. This journal was found in a box many years later. Considered initially too technical for public interest, it was only printed for private circulation. However, in 1900, John Murray decided it might sell to a wider audience and so published it as Notes from My Journal when Speaker of the House of Commons. This edition is freely available at Internet Archive.

The published diary is often dense with the detail of Parliamentary procedure, nevertheless Denison did a fair job of keeping it interesting with lucid explanations of issues that were, perhaps, out of the ordinary or worth setting down. And though he must have meant it to be a dry and official record, Denison does sometimes write about his personal feelings, especially when others have praised him for decisions! Here are several extracts.

30 April 1862
‘I have been named by the Queen as one of the Commissioners to represent Her Majesty on the occasion of opening the International Exhibition. I wrote to Lord Eversley to ask him how I should go dressed on such an occasion. He answered, in plain black gown and wig. I forwarded this opinion to the Lord Chancellor, who repelled the idea in a very amusing letter, and said he had settled to go in his gold gown; he saw no necessary connection between the gold gown and the gold coach. I have decided against the lumbering gold coach for many reasons: 1) I should probably stick fast in the new granite; 2) I should have to go at a foot’s pace while in company with others who could and would trot; 3) I could not bear to drag all the officers of the House and my servants on foot such a long distance. I am not going to Court to pay my respects to the Queen; I am not going with the House of Commons as a body, and at their head.’

1 May 1862
‘The opening of the International Exhibition took place this day at one o’clock. The House of Commons adjourned from Wednesday to six o’clock on Thursday to allow the attendance of the Ministers, of myself, and of the members generally at the ceremony. I had decided to go in my gold gown, but not in the lumbering gold coach. I borrowed a good London coach of Lord Chesham. I put my coachman and two footmen in their State liveries. I added good cloths, and bows of ribbon to my horses’ furniture.

At twelve, I set off to Buckingham Palace, taking Lord Charles Russell and the mace and my trainbearer in the coach. Arrived at Buckingham Palace they desired me to drive forward near the gate, as I was to lead the procession. Royal processions move in the inverse order of precedency, the lowest in rank going first. So my carriage was first, then Lord Palmerston, then Lord Derby, I think, Lord Sydney, the Lord Chancellor, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Prince Oscar of Sweden, the Crown Prince of Prussia, the Duke of Cambridge.

We were not ready till a quarter to one. We were to be at the Exhibition Buildings at one. I led the way at a fair trot. (Where should I have been in my gold coach - leading the way at a foot’s pace?)

We arrived at the building at one. The rest of the procession was arranged in the building, waiting for the Royal Commissioners to complete the line. I was to walk first (as I had led the way in my carriage). Lord Palmerston was desired to walk by my side. He said: “No, the Speaker should walk alone; I will follow”. I said: “Of course, as you please, but I should think it a great honour if we might proceed together”. Lord Palmerston said: “Oh, if you wish it, certainly”. [. . .]

As we walked along I could gauge the popularity of Lord Palmerston. The moment he came in sight, throughout the whole building, men and women, young and old, at once were struck as by an electric shock. “Lord Palmerston! Here is Lord Palmerston! Bravo! Hurrah! Lord Palmerston for ever!” And so it went on through the whole building. One voice: “I wish you may be Minister for the next twenty years”. “ Well, not unlikely,” said Lord Taunton, “he would only be a little more than a hundred.” ’

10 March 1863
‘We went in a special train from Paddington to Windsor, leaving 10:30, and being an hour on the road. Carriages were ready to take us to the chapel. Lady C posted down in her own carriage, leaving 8:30, reaching St. George’s Chapel at a quarter past eleven; she escaped much cold and draughts by this, and greatly preferred it. I went in my black velvet suit. The Lord Chamberlain said that was the proper dress. He told this to the Lord Chancellor, who, however, would go in his gold gown and his wig. The Lord Chamberlain said: We had no function to perform; we had no part to play in the ceremony, we were invited guests like others. I followed the advice of the Lord Chamberlain; the Lord Chancellor went in his gold gown. The seat allotted to me was the dean’s seat, close by the door. It was a very magnificent sight - rich, gorgeous and imposing. I don’t know how I could say enough about the magnificence of the spectacle. The pageant was admirably got up, and was well performed throughout. Beautiful women were arrayed in the richest attire, in bright colours, blue, purple, red, and covered with diamonds and jewels. Grandmothers looked beautiful: Lady Abercom, Lady Westminster, Lady Shaftesbury. Among the young, Lady Spencer, Lady Castlereagh, Lady Carmarthen, were most bright and brilliant. The Knights of the Garter in their robes looked each of them a fine picture - Lord Russell looked like a hero who could have walked into the castle court and have slain a giant. The Queen sat in her closet on the left hand side of the altar, looking up the chapel and high above it. But she did not affect any concealment. She looked constantly out of the window of her closet and sometimes leaned over, with her body half out of the window, to take a survey down the church. She was dressed in plain black up to the throat, with the blue ribbon over her shoulder, and a sort of plain mob cap.

As each of the royal persons with their attendants walked up the chapel, at a certain point each stopped and made an obeisance to the Queen: the Princess Mary, the Duchess of Cambridge, the Princess of Prussia, the Princess Alice of Hesse, the Princess Helena, the Princess Christian, etc.: each in turn formed a complete scene. The Princess Alexandra with her bridesmaids made the last and the most beautiful scene. The Princess looked beautiful, and very graceful in her manner and demeanour. When her eyes are cast down she has a wonderful power of flashing a kind of sidelong look.’

4 June 1863
‘Mr. Tollemache wishing to make a personal explanation as to some observations of Mr. Gladstone’s about the Committee on the Holyhead packet - Then rose Colonel Douglas Pennant - Mr. Gladstone explained - Then rose Mr. H. Herbert - I had to interfere. Mr. Herbert moved that the House do adjourn. Then Mr. Hennessey spoke, all attacking Mr. Gladstone - I had again to interfere. Then Lord Robert Cecil tried to get a stronger expression from me about Mr. Gladstone’s words, but without success. The whole thing was verging on great irregularity, reference to past debates, etc. Still a personal explanation could hardly be permitted, and so the thing grew in dimensions, always growing more irregular as it went on.

The House was in a touchy, irritable state; the slightest step on my part might have raised a storm. It was a flare up all in a moment. But such is always the case with the sharpest hurricanes. The barometer gives no notice.’

26 July 1866 [The Reform League had been established a year earlier to press for manhood suffrage and the ballot in Great Britain. It campaigned unsuccessfully for the Reform Bill in 1866, and successfully for the Rerform Act in 1867. This diary entry is dated three days after the so-called ‘Hyde Park Railings Affair’.]
‘Great anxiety prevailed about the condition of things between the Secretary of State, Mr. Walpole, and the Reform League. The parks had been invaded, the iron railings torn down. There had been an interview between Mr. Beales, the Chairman of the League, and Mr. Walpole, and Mr. Beales had posted placards to say that Mr. Walpole had given way, and that a meeting would be held in the park on Monday. There was a feeling that Mr. Walpole had displayed great weakness.

At the morning sitting of Thursday, 26th July, Mr. Disraeli came to me and spoke of the state of affairs, and asked me what I thought of an Address to the Crown, asking the Crown to grant the use of the park for the purposes of general recreation, but not for meetings on political or religious subjects. I said that on the first blush such a course seemed to me to be open to the greatest objection. Mr. Walpole had spoken positively as to the law of the case, without doubt or reservation. Sir George Grey had concurred with him, and had supported him. The House accepted the statement without question. They had therefore already all they could obtain by a fresh answer from the Crown to an Address. To show hesitation or doubt at such a moment would be ruinous. It would justify doubt on the other side, and so give colour to the pretensions of the League. To open the question by an Address to the Crown would bring forth stormy remonstrances from the Radicals, and counter propositions.

I urged the Government to stand firmly on the ground that had been taken. All that the public required was a show of firmness on the part of the Government; at present an impression prevailed that great weakness had been exhibited.

The Government stood to their declarations, and there was a satisfactory debate in the House of Commons in the evening. I congratulated Mr. Disraeli on the result. He said to me: “It has turned out very well. I followed your advice exactly.” ’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 7 March 1873.