A Hidden Power
BENSON
By E. F. No two politicians whose feet were solidly marching along the road of their public and official careers can ever have refused between them so many appointments, rising_ in eminence, as the late Viscount Esher. He was asked by various Governments to be Under-Secretary for the Colonies, Under-Secretary for War, Governor of Cape Colony, Secretary of State for War and Viceroy of India. He declined them all. In addition to these posts he might have been Editor of the Daily News, of the New Review, author of the official Life of Lord Beaconsfield, and have been made a G.C.B. and an Earl. In fact, he could, by taking a selection only of these offices, have been one of the most widely known men of the day ; whereas he remained in the public eye quite the least known of those who have played so important a part in the affairs of his generation. This extremely interesting book of extracts from his Journal and Letters demonstrates—or at least sug- gests—how it was that a man intensely interested in political life did not covet administrative offices, and why, in spite of successive refusals of these, they were constantly offered him.
Reginald Brett, later Lord Esher, was educated at Eton, and there came under the spell of William Johnson, author of that rare and remarkable book of poems, -tonica. No public school master, except perhaps Arnold, had ever so much influence over the minds of his pupils, and his power over them was very much like that of Socrates over the youth of Athens. To his abiding influence, acting no doubt on a sympathetic nature, may be traced Lord Esher's contempt of recognition and of public distinctions. Why these distinctions continued to be pressed on him is equally clear. He had no touch of genius, nor of that ruthless driving power which delights in forcing its way through opposition. But he had a mind of singular sagacity and fairness, his, powers of obser- vation were very acute, his integrity was unquestionable, he was exceedingly discreet, and above all he had a personal charm of a feminine though emphatically not of an effeminate quality. By virtue of it, in conjunction .with his other gifts, he had, as Alfred Lyttelton said of him, a genius for in- fluencing people, and he would surely have made a great success of any of the posts that were so abundantly offered him." Yet he refused them all. It was not from indolence, for he was a very hard-worked man ; nor was it that he was unambitious, but his ambitions lay in other directions.
It is significant that Mr. Gladstone thought that the most interesting section in Lord Esher's Yoke of Empire was that which treated of the private relations between Queen Victoria and Melbourne in the first years of her reign. Almost every evening (nine days was the longest period during 1837 that the Queen did not have a long talk with him) he sat next her at dinner and beside her afterwards on a sofa, and in answer to her flood of questions discussed rooks and balloon-sleeves and Lord Bessborough's teeth and drunkenness at Eton and Henry VIII and the Opera and the right way to spell " thermometer " and the tit-bits most appreciated by cannibals. That kind of intimacy. with Sovereigns (and what it led to) fascinated him, and he accepted the Secretaryship to the Office of Works which gave hint the footing he wanted. It was amusing en passant to observe how the Queen's tea, just one poured-out cup of tea with a plate of sandwiches, was taken into the presence by an elderly man, like Palmerston, in a white tie supported by three gorgeous scarlet footmen in the conveyance of this Bel- shazzar's feast, to see a Highlander serve the wine at dinner, to see her drink her coffee while a page held .the saucer, to hear her contradict with a " Most certainly not," even to be
The Journal and Letters of Reginald Viscount Esher. Vol. I. Edited by Maurice V. Brett. (Nicholson and Watson. 25s.)
gently rebuked for inis:lireAcJ enthusiasm over Gladstone's funeral, for these developed froni such domestic intimacies, conducted on his side with tact and -charm, the secret behind- the-throne power that he coveted. He got it : it was he, for instance, who, when King Edward Was. taken ill just before the Coronation, instructed the doctors that they must forbid him to- go through with it, as he chaired he would do if he died in the Abbey, if there would be real danger to life, but that if it was only a risk he must be allowed to take it. Again, though only a member of the Commission to enquire into the - South African war, he became the controlling influence. by reason of his relation to the King. To- the King he .was the interpreter of the evidence and , the King took his con- clusions much as a jury takes the directions of a judge. Cer- tainly this was power, quiet hidden power.
These Journals and letters teem with humorous anecdote : of Lord Devon's house at Powderham where singing was a sine qua non for gardeners and gardener boys for the sake of the choral services in the private chapel :...of Disraeli who went to Brighton in the off-season in order to enjoy an incognito ease. He went unrecognized into the Aquarium and strolled unrecognized through the streets, but then imprudently he attended a Christy Minstrel entertainment, and the artists being Cockneys recognized hint and rose and bowed to him, shattering his privacy. Of Sir William Harcourt who looked upon Lord Hartington " as his own creation " : of Bismarck at the Congress of Berlin, threatening to go to Kissingen if the delegate could not keep calm : of a dull stupid young man (so it was supposed) staying at the Duchess of Cleveland's house at Battle. All guests had to write a " sentiment " in the visitors' book, and the dull young man was found to have written : " From Battle, murder and sudden death, good Lord deliver us " : so perhaps he was not so dull as they had thought. Of " the craze for chastity " : of King Edward at a deer drive firing at a stag and killing a hind stone dead by mistake: of the Shah being allowed to shoot a deer in Windsor Park, and gloomy specula- tions as to who would be killed. Yet it would be a dis- tinction to be shot by a Shah in the wilds of Windsor.
The last half of this fascinating book consists chiefly of extracts from Lord Esher's letters to his younger son Maurice. They are like the eager notes of a lover to his beloved, and in them we find the key to a remark that he once made to Letty Lind that he never knew a day on which " he did not passionately care for someone." He tells him that he will start from London at seven in the morning in order to be able to see. him at Eton before functions at Windsor : or his pleasure in a great ball there would have been spoiled if Maurice had not been able to come. He hopes that Maurice will come to Scotland if he still cares for his father : he wonders why he bores him with all this trivial news, but the reason is that he must always tell him. everything. He writes to him about the passionate friendships of schooldays and the beauty of the love that inspires them : of King Edward's dissatisfaction at a bust of himself, because the nose was not right : of Queen Alexandra's refusing to play. Bridge at a higher stake than one penny a hundred because her income from the State . was not settled yet. (The King won 11d. and the Queen lost 7d.) Then Sir Ernest Cassel made him sonic big business offer, associating him with his financial enterprises in Egypt and America : if he accepts it, it will be for Maurice's sake. This may involve going to Egypt for a month-and a consequent separa- tion from his -son : what does Maurice think about it ?
The thread this devotion, of a quality rare between a father and a son binds together and gives a personal and lovely touch, to their innumerable topics. - A memorable book.
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