1899] The Queen of Holland's Letter 335 



' Chronicle ' quoting Newman, and complaining of my profanity. I 

 have nice letters, however, from York Powell and Mallock. 



" 20th Nov. — At Inchmery. The Belgian Minister, who was here 

 yesterday, tells me the Queen of Holland wrote to Queen Victoria to 

 beg her to make peace with the Transvaal, as so many of her subjects 

 were engaged in it. He says the Queen did not like the use of the 

 word ' subjects/ and did not answer the letter. He considers that the 

 war, as far as it has gone, has much damaged England's prestige 

 abroad. It has shown people specially that English officers, though 

 brave, are without science. They all play too much instead of learning 

 their work. He has been nineteen years in England, and is an An- 

 glophile, but like all the rest he disapproves this war, and thinks it will 

 result badly for us, even if in the end successful. We have suffered 

 defeats which will encourage our enemies next time they quarrel with 

 us. 



" 23rd Nov. — Fernycrof t is shut up for the winter, and I have gone to 

 Newbuildings, and am to start for Egypt on Wednesday. Fernycroft 

 stripped of its leaves looks melancholy enough, and the thought of 

 Egypt with its birds and butterflies is irresistible. 



" They are making an immense fuss in the papers about the Emperor 

 William's visit to Windsor. He has come in spite of the disgust of 

 his own people, who are furious against us on account of the Boer 

 war. But I fancy he knows his own game, and hating us at heart has 

 come to spy out the nakedness of the land with a fresh military eye. 

 Our newspaper people, however, would go down on their bellies to him 

 and lick his feet if they were allowed. 



" 24th Nov. — To Wotton to dine and sleep. They have fought a 

 new battle in South Africa, and another in the Soudan, and announced 

 them as two British victories — victories I suspect to order for the 

 German Emperor's benefit. The South African one seems nothing 

 much to boast of besides 200 of our men lost, mostly of the Guards. 

 The other is probably less bogus. Dear old Evelyn still sticks relig- 

 iously to his political principles with me. We are the last of the anti- 

 imperialist Conservatives. 



" My poem is getting fearfully maltreated in the newspapers where 

 I have no friend, as it attacks the country and Christianity alike, and 

 what is worst, the newspapers themselves. This, however, was to be 

 expected, and it is not the first time I have had the world on my back. 



" 25th Nov. — Back to Newbuildings and shot rabbits with Neville. 

 I am closing my accounts of all kinds for the year, and shut up this 

 journal in no sanguine mood of having anything happier to relate in 

 the diaries of another year. The only thing I love now is my cat, and 

 I am obliged, alas! to leave it behind." 



