MR. GLADSTONE AND THE DERBY.
. GLADSTONE was at the Derby. Now, the popular
view of the Prime Minister seems to be that of a bishop in domino, or else why that tone of mysterious en- joyment of naughtiness in which one of our contemporaries mentioned his expected presence on the Grand Stand on the Derby Day, and others described his actual appearance there ? The common notion is that an ecclesiastic somehow dis- countenances the world by ignoring its amusements, but that a statesman ought to know England and England's life as thoroughly as may be,—yet, none the less, popular rumour assigns to Mr. Gladstone in this respect more of the nature of the ecclesiastic than of the statesman. There is a tendency to say 'fie' to him, if he enters heartily into the world as it is, and it is at the root of much of the almost personal dislike entertained for him in the House, and by small sections of the Liberal party, and by almost all the old Tories, out of it. Men of the world don't feel that they could be quite frank to Mr. Gladstone as to their own tastes and modes of life without incurring some tacit reproof, some grieved displeasure in his manner, some uncomfortable sense that they and he belong to different worlds. Though he went to the Derby, they have a strong impression that he did not go there to enjoy himself, but to judge it ; that he was in it, but not of it ; that he would be utterly unable to understand the English disposition to plunge headlong into narrow physical excitements almost amounting to licence, and that consequently his interest at a race would be that of a con- demning moralist, rather than that of a genial comrade. And this contrast between the most popular of English statesmen and the most popular of English amusementtis the stronger, because the Derby Day is the type of what we may call the safety-valve amusements,—the sort of amusements which occur rarely, and let off the superabundant steam of a tem- perament which is usually best disciplined in the regular channels of even excessive labour. Nothing is more pecu- liarly English than this explosive sort of self-indulgence. The lower orders of artizans will by preference drink two or three days in a week, and work with often marvellous skill and in- tensity for three or four. When you get higher in the social scale, you come to those who will slave in their way nearly all the year round, if they can but now and then have what they call their "fling,"—that is, some sort of spasmodic excitement in which they cease to be under even their own control. The Derby Day is the greatest of such spasmodic excitements, but a great many popular English amusements are of the same type. The most popular pieces at our theatres,—those burlesques which to many of us seem all but idiotic,—derive their fasci- nation, we fancy, from an extravagance of gaudiness and glare which acts like wine on certain temperaments, and while stimu- lating sensation, charms everything in the mind except sensa- tion to sleep. Many people seem to know nothing of any enjoy- ment which is not 'spasmodic, which does not contain some- thing of the nature of intoxication.
Now if this is one of the most popular types of English enjoyment, certainly the most popular of English states- men is a sort of incarnate rebuke to it. An orgy of any kind is the last thing we can associate with him. That his mind is always under perfect regulation, it would be absurd to assert, and his opponents would triumphantly deny ; but then they would admit that Mr. Gladstone's moral excitements are all derived from the discharge of his
duties. They would say that his orgies are attacks on the
Conservatives who defend the Irish Church and the Irish land laws, and that they like to see an Englishman excited when he is enjoying himself with his friends, and calm and tranquil when he is refuting his opponents. And no doubt it is really the index of an essential difference of character between different men,
whether the surplus steam which is always to be found some- where in every powerful and energetic temperament is worked off in duty or in pleasure, whether the spasmodic force of character belongs to the self-controlling side of the mind, or to the self-indulging side. No doubt the ordinary Briton is steady, but rather calm and stolid in work, and a little dis- posed to be riotous in his amusements. But Mr. Gladstone is of that type which, if it could ever be riotous at all, would be riotous only in suppressing riot,—or at least in extirpating evil and sowing good. Hence the sort of almost voluptuous surprise with which the gossips of the Press picture him as present at the rather gross carnival of a Derby Day. It is a contrast of the same sort (though derived from a converse effect) as Lord Westbury lecturing to the Young Men's Chris- tian Association, or descanting to the Bishops on the true prin- ciples of Bible exegesis. Bring face to face a great political leader whose whole surplus energy is in a contentious conscience, and a vast English crowd whose surplus energy runs spon- taneously to licence, and you obtain a moral paradox piquant enough for the motive of a historical picture. How did the statesman ever gain his great popularity in a nation of which such a crowd is a typical specimen ? How will he regard his own poor efforts to do justice and mercy, and to enrich the poor and lay their fair burdens on the rich, amidst that wilderness of faces flushed with meat, and wine, and risk, and lust, and noisy laughter ? What is there apparent that they can appreciate in him ? What is there that he can effectually do for them ? By what freak of nature has it happened that he, whose meat and drink it would be to make such scenes morally impossible, is the very man whom they, or such as they, have voluntarily selected to rule over them, and enthu- siastically entrusted with more than ordinary power ?
Perhaps it may be said that the paradox is only apparent, —that in fact the Derby Day attracts and assembles the very class which would not have voted for, but against Mr. Glad- stone,—the Liberal who only cares to relax the tension of moral restraints, the Tory who believes in restraining the poor that the rich man may be unrestrained, the mere lovers of pleasure who care for no politics, the lovers of licence who care for politics only as a new field for passion. But though there may be a good deal in this, it is quite clear that the Englishmen who stay away from the Derby are a great deal too like the Englishmen who go to it, to admit of its being the sole or even the chief explanation. The violent spasm of difficult pleasure-seeking which takes possession of the metro- politan counties on the Derby Day, could never be so violent as it is, if it did not express more or less the temperament of millions who do not join in it, and many of whom might even religiously abstain from taking part in it, even if they had the chance. The better explanation we take to be that, though ordinary Englishmen hardly like moral superiority in those with whom personally they have to deal, and though, in consequence, Mr. Gladstone, for a chief of whom the House of Commons cannot help being proud, is singularly unpopular there,—Englishmen do like moral superiority at a distance, and respect it even more than they respect a nature like the late Lord Palmerston's, though they may not like it as well as they liked the easy good-fellowship of Lord Palmerston's conde- scending jocularity. Indeed, natural as it seems to ordinary Englishmen to plod at their work and to lean to licence in their play, they have always in their hearts cherished the heartiest respect for rulers who, like Mr. Gladstone, are almost licentious in their devotion to duty, and somewhat grim towards the crav- ing for amusement. Indeed, is it not of the very nature of a people which contains so many who make a toil of pleasure, to respect those who make a pleasure of toil ? Statesmen like
the late Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Gladstone have always been popular amongst us, partly, no doubt, because we all feel the germs of those fierce cravings in us which produce such careers
as that of the late Marquis of Hastings. It is the self- distrust of peoples which is apt to make popular favourites.
And a nation which is aware of its own tendency to rush headlong into pleasure, will always respect a ruler who is at most never more than playful when he is at ease, and whose whole spare force is reserved for those great efforts when he convinces his fellow-countrymen of the obligation of a duty, of the danger of a prejudice, of the nobility of a self-denial.
After all, Mr. Gladstone at the Derby was only face to face with that fitful licence of the English temperament which makes us respect a curb and a spur so long as these are not applied directly to ourselves, but only indirectly through those humble servants of ours whom we designate our representatives. The moral qualities which excite enthusiasm in a nation are often very different from, and usually much greater than, the qualities which ensure popularity with acquaintances and friends.
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