MR. LYTTON STRACHEY AND MR. GLADSTONE. [To THE EDITOR OF
THE " SPECTATOR.") Sia,--Mr. Baring's letter encourages me to make a similar pro- test. If Mr. Lytton Strachey had stated his facts, and then stepped aside and allowed his readers to apportion praise or blame, not a single person would have any reason to complain. But just as no one who knew Lord Cromer could recognize him in the description of his character in Eminent Victorians, so those who knew Mr. Gladstone know that he was incapable of the "rage and jealousy " attributed to him, nor can they recognize the epi- thets " slippery, wily," in his dealings with General Gordon. Mr. Gladstone was accurate to a fault and scrupulously exact, and because he was never slipshod in his language, he has been accused of quibbling when he described Gordon as " hemmed in, but not surrounded." As Mr. Strachey points out, Gordon could have left Khartum for the Equator by the river up to January 5th. Sir Edward Burne-Jones once said, " There is a Judgment Day coming; I vote we don't make another." Is any one the better, the kinder, or the wiser for a book that destroys the halo of at least three of England's heroes?—I am, Sir, &c., M. D.
Previous page
