1895] Death of George Lord Pembroke 169 



that in the interval of these expeditions I find a notice of public events, 

 as for instance : 



"25th Feb. — The long expected Egyptian crisis seems at last ap- 

 proaching in Europe, if one may judge by the foreign newspapers 

 which are threshing the question of the English Occupation once more 

 out. I fancy Rosebery's escapade with the Congo Company has set up 

 the German Emperor's back, and he is encouraging the French to push 

 us out of Egypt. In spite of our swagger, and it is past all bounds, 

 we shall have one day to go. Our papers repeat the bravado that a 

 great nation like England does not yield to threats. My experience 

 is that it is to threats only of very immediate chastisement that the 

 British public does yield. Soft words never have effect with us." 



About the same time the announcement reached me of poor Ran- 

 dolph's death, and on the 30th of March of Princess Helene's engage- 

 ment to the Duke of Aosta, and lastly on the nth of April of the 

 huge scandal in London of Oscar Wilde's arrest and prosecution. Of 

 political events in Egypt there is no further record worth transcribing. 

 The 27th of April saw us back at Crabbet. 



This year I saw more than ever of George Wyndham, and spent 

 much of my time with him. He was at the height just then of his 

 literary activity, having become editor of the " New Review," and be- 

 ing pushed forward by Henley as a writer, and at his instigation, and 

 Henley's, my thoughts took a more decidedly literary direction than 

 before. He proposed that I should write for him on Arabian subjects, 

 and this I, being full just then of desert memories, willingly agreed to. 



" 12th May. — Henley proposes to bring out a selected edition of 

 my poems under his auspices, and promises to run me into a more 

 public place as poet than what I now occupy. I am not particularly 

 anxious for this, but he and George may try. George is a good en- 

 thusiastic friend, and very dear to me. He has given me a touching 

 description of Pembroke's funeral, at which he was present in the 

 little churchyard near Wilton, where they buried him ; the Wilton 

 gardens in their full Spring splendour, the birds singing their hearts 

 out, and many men, the most distinguished in the land, in tears. Pem- 

 broke lived a noble, if an unproductive, life, a man of large sympathies 

 and high ideals, but no fixed beliefs, and no results in action. He had 

 at one time an opening in politics which might have led him to any 

 sublimity when Disraeli gave him a place in his Government at the 

 age of twenty-four, but his health was not sufficient for the strain, and 

 he could not go on with it. The rest of his life was spent at Wilton, 

 a paradise on earth, the possession of which I have always thought 

 hinders its possessors, by its beauty, from engaging in the world's am- 

 bitions. He lived honoured and beloved by women and by men. 



