1895] George Curzon Under Secretary 173 



" 15//J Aug. — Lunched with George Curzon at 5, Carlton House 

 Terrace, which he has rented. We talked of things political, and of 

 his own new position in the Government as Under-Secretary for For- 

 eign Affairs. He prefers this to a minor place without power in the 

 Cabinet. About Armenia, in spite of the brave words in the Queen's 

 speech to-day, he agrees with me that they can do nothing. Russia, he 

 says, will never consent to an Armenian buffer State, even if there 

 were the materials to make one, and how can we put pressure on the 

 Sultan? In truth it is impossible, and the sooner they drop it the bet- 

 ter, which I fancy they will do. He told me all the same that the 

 horrors were not exaggerated. I told him of Knowles wanting an 

 article of me about Egypt. This he deprecated in due Parliamentary 

 phrase. It was embarrassing the Government and defeating its own 

 end. It would be better to wait a little till the Government had had 

 time to look about it, and the rest which are the common excuses of 

 Under Secretaries. He said that he himself was entirely opposed to 

 evacuation, or change of any kind, that the French were out of court by 

 their having refused the ratification of the Wolff Convention, and that 

 he considered Lord Salisbury would be most unwilling to re-open the 

 question, though as yet Lord Salisbury had said nothing to him on the 

 subject, the matter was not pressing. The Government did not believe 

 the rumours of any joint French and Russian action about Egypt. All 

 this after luncheon. 



" Then to Merton to see the new tapestry, Botticelli's Spring, which 

 Morris is making for me there, and on to Coombe where I dined with 

 Bertram and Laurence Currie, Bertram full of old and interesting 

 reminiscences. 



" 25th Aug. — A visit to Cromer, Newhaven Court, the Lockers' 

 house. 



" Francis Palgrave was here in the afternoon, an interesting man, 

 garrulous, but in a good sense of the word, telling stories, principally 

 of Tennyson, reminiscences of whom he is writing. He talked to me 

 about his brother Gifford (the Arabian traveller), and told me that 

 in the last three years of his life he was reconciled to the Church, and 

 that this had made him much happier and more contented. I asked 

 him how matters had been arranged about the wife and children, seeing 

 that Gifford was a priest and had been a Jesuit. He said his brother 

 had told him that no difficulty had been made, such cases having of 

 course often happened before. He was allowed to continue his domes- 

 tic life, only not conjugally; that Gifford had told him laughing was no 

 great privation. He was glad to hear me corroborate the accuracy 

 of his brother's account of the politics of Nejd and its social condition. 

 He was anxious I should believe Gifford was never really, or ostensibly 

 a Moslem. 



