1899] The Queen's Eightieth Birthday 321 



these last were unable to take any part in the firing. Now he had been 

 given absolute power in the Soudan, and was using it in the most arbi- 

 trary way. When Carlisle went up to Khartoum to visit the grave 

 of his son Hubert, Kitchener ordered him back immediately he had 

 performed this duty. He would not hear of Carlisle's staying longer 

 than the second day. 



" -yd May. — Dined at the Centenary of the Sussex Club, a piece 

 of local patriotism out of my usual way; indeed, it is twenty-five years 

 since I dined with the Club. There were ninety-three members pres- 

 ent, the Duke of Norfolk presiding, who did the duties simply and 

 well. I sat between Henry Campion of Danny and Brown of Holm- 

 bush. They asked me to take the Chair at their next dinner, a thing 

 which would have entailed a speech on me at this one, but I managed 

 to get out of it. My father was one of the first members, having been 

 elected in 1808. 



" 18^ May. — Yesterday I was in London and met my friend Harry 

 Brand, 1 just back from Australia, where he has been Governor of a 

 colony. He found it dull work among people without literature, art, 

 or culture of any kind, except a taste for bad music. He was offered 

 to stay on as Governor-General, but wisely refused. Harry and I are 

 contemporaries and we swore, long ago, the oath of brotherhood, so 

 I have invited him to take up his residence in Mount Street with me 

 till his country place, The Hoo, becomes vacant in August. 



" 19th May. — Lunched with George Wyndham at Willis's Rooms. 

 He told me of a book young Winston Churchill is publishing, blurting 

 out all kinds of inconvenient truths about the Soudan campaign. The 

 desecration of the Mahdi's tomb Winston calls ' a foul deed,' as indeed it 

 was. 



" 26th May. — I have written to Morley on the Kitchener case, as 

 he is taking it up publicly and has made a speech on it at Lydney. The 

 Liberal newspapers, however, are afraid of touching the matter, and 

 the ' Daily News ' burks this portion of his speech. 



" 2jth May. — I have finished my poem, ' Satan Absolved,' and feel 

 more content with life in consequence, having the sense of having done 

 all I could, and having made my individual protest against the abomina- 

 tions of the Victorian Age. The 24th was the Queen's birthday, Her 

 Majesty being now eighty. There is a foolish letter in the ' Times ' 

 pointing out the wonderful fulfilment of a prophecy of Sidney Smith's, 

 who, sixty years ago, exhorted her Majesty to make it the boast of her 

 life to avoid war and to have it on her conscience to say, ' I have made 

 no orphans or widows.' This for one whose reign has seen whole races 

 of beings exterminated under her rule, and only the other day thanked 

 God that her troops had destroyed 30,000 Dervishes ! 



1 Lord Hampden. 



