BOOKS.
SOME HAWARDEN LETTERS.*
This book deserves a more attractive name. To any one whose memory reaches back twenty or thirty years, the mention of letters written to, or from, Hawarden might suggest endless dissertations on the merits of Home Rule, or the demerits of the Turk, and the exceedingly dry remainder-biscuit of long-past controversies. But the book is better than its title, for Hawarden, though the home of a politician, was not, in any narrow or exclusive sense, a political house. George Herbert said that " as in the house of those that are skilled in music, all are musicians, so in the house of a preacher, all are preachers " ; and in a politician's house all must be, to some extent, politicians ; but Hawarden was almost immune from the incursions of that dismal horde who regard all life from the standpoint of the Caucus, the Lobby, and the Whips' room. The present writer once suggested to Mr. Gladstone (who had asked him what he supposed to be Chamberlain's intentions) that the simplest plan would be to invite Chamberlain to Hawarden and inquire of him direct. The great man looked as much surprised as if a visit from the Sultan or the Shah had been proposed, and said with unmistakable sincerity " I have always tried to keep this place free from all political associations." The result of this laudable effort was that, while the hard-bitten politician was kept at arm's-length, Hawarden became a meeting-place for all manner of people whose main interests lay in other arts than the art of wire-pulling, and other literature than the literature of Blue Books. Visitors of all sorts and sizes came and went ; and in a great many cases they seemed to find a kind of spell laid upon them, which forced them, even when they travelled to the other end of the world, to keep themselves in touch with Hawarden. Hence the " Hawarden Letters " from which Mrs. Drew has allowed this selection to be made ; and in the wide range of her correspondence the professional politician plays a very insignificant part. Philo- sophers, scholars, poets, painters, musicians, historians, novelists, professors, clergymen, jostle one another in these pages, and, as the' editors say, " we meet them in undress," though this undress is " qualified by temperament." There are some writers who can never completely lay aside the robes of State, even in the most familiar correspondence ; and there are others who, one thinks, would have attended a little more carefully to their toilet if they had foreseen that it was to be exhibited in public. Of the former class was Acton. ; of the latter, Ruskin. Acton in these letters is always " pontifical," whether he is setting George Eliot above Shakespeare, or charging Mazzini with love of homicide, or per- plexing his hearers with conundrums about " the Hundred Best Books." Ruskin, when once he has got on familiar terms, seems to think that a rather pathetic playfulness is the only wear.
Probably most people will think that the best part of
• Some Hawarden Letters, 1878-1913, Written to Mrs. Drew (Mies Mary Gladstone) before and after her Marriage. Chosen and Arranged by Lisle March-FhilUpps and Bertram Christian. London ; Nisbet and Co. [15s. net.] the book is the section which deals with George Wyndham: " Ms heart was not primarily in politics. Even in literature it warn not dreams of accomplished works that filled his mind. His destiny was to be an incentive and a stimulus, to act upon the minds of others, not by thinking more accurately, but by thinking more joyfully." His letters are full of life and colour and vivacity; his love of books and Nature, " and youth and bloom and this delightful world," is contagious even when it reaches one through the cold medium of the printed page. But, after all, Wyndham was already known to the world as a letter-writer, for in the distant days when he was Mr. Balfour's private secretary his apostolat ipistolaire was freely exercised at the expense of the Irish Members, and established his reputation as the master of a pointed and graceful style ; but this book reveals an admirable faculty of letter-writing in several people whose fame was won in other fields. Alfred Lyttelton, describing a sermon by Dr. Holland at St. Paul's, shows himself as much at home in divinity as in cricket ; and that eminent preacher is quite at his beet in depicting the camels of Smyrna, whose " hair seems to have been used up by John the Baptist, who has only left them the locks and -tufts which were too bad even for him." James Stuart was known as a mathematician, a mustard-maker, and a sedulous M.P., but had no fame as a letter-writer ; yet what could be a better description of a tiresome guest who had outstayed his welcome than this : • " Mr. X is still here, like the grounds at the bottom of the tea-cup " ?
The great discovery of the book is Burne-Jones. We knew him as a fantastic draughtsman, a delicious colourist, and also as an exemplary citizen. But one might have expected him to be rather " soulful-eyed " in correspondence, and rather " precious " in expression. Not so. He is the most vigorous and bright and sensible of all Mrs. Drew's correspondents. Here is his judgment on his master, Ruskin, when that wayward genius had committed the atrocity of likening Lord Beaconsfield and Mr. Gladstone to " two old bagpipes." It was vexatious and tiresome, said Burne- Jones, but just like Ruskin :- " There's a pamphlet he wrote about Michael Angelo that he read to me just after he had written it, and as I went home I wanted to drown myself in the Surrey Canal or get drunk at a tavern. It did not seem worth while to strive any more if he could think it and write it. But now I'm a tough old wretch and nothing hurts me. Do you remember how unhappy I made your Father by telling him how Scott (on whose name be peace) couldn't bear Dante ? My dear, if twelve of these men would hold together for only ten years the whole aspect of the world would be changed—and Twelve Men did once hold together, and the whole face of the world was changed."
But these selections by no means exhaust the interest of the book. We find one Colonial Governor discoursing of politics in Fiji, and another of the " Hundred Books " which he ought to read in India. We have Sir George Grove passing judgment on" Handel's plagiarisms," and. Mr. Balfour discussing Illingworth's theory of Inspiration; Charlotte Yonge prescribing wholesome literature for maid-servants, Henry Sidgwick critieizing George Meredith, and F. W. Maitland sniffing at the Acton Letters—all this is enter- taining and, in its disconnected way, instructive. " Disconnected " we say, because the editors have in the main followed the chrono- logical order, and have made too free use of tantalizing dots. As regards the dots, when one finds half-a-dozen of them after every other paragraph, one cannot resist the notion that, if printed in full, the letter would have conveyed a very different sense ; and,
as regards the chronologioal order, it would perhaps be better if it were tempered by some classification of subject. It is disconcerting
to pass at a bound from the prospectus of & sill y " Society " paper to be called the Mangle, to the thoughts which Passiontide aroused in the ingenious mind of Professor James Stuart.
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