i8 The Japanese Alliance [1902 



cleared out of Cape Colony, at which George laughed aloud. Guy in 

 another letter said that to try to prevent Boers going where they 

 chose to go was like trying with a single squadron to prevent two 

 squadrons passing a line between Bath and Salisbury. It is clear the 

 war is far from over. 



" 14th Feb. — Found George Wyndham at breakfast and walked 

 with him across Green Park to his Irish Office. I congratulated him 

 on the new Japanese Alliance (the Convention of Alliance with 

 England had been signed on 30th Jan.) which is the best thing the 

 Government has done for a long while, but George is quite dis- 

 illusioned about politics or the possibility of much affecting the course 

 of the world's events. Chamberlain is the hero of the day in spite 

 of his absurd blunders in South Africa, because he talks big and 

 defies European opinion. 



" There is a funny story current : 



Master to Boy: "Who was it made the world?" 



Boy: "Mr. Chamberlain." 



Master : " Think again. Wasn't it God made the world ? " 



Boy : " Oh, go on ! You are a pro-Boer." 



" 22nd Feb. — Rosebery has cut the Liberal painter and has passed 

 out into the wilderness. 



" 23rd Feb. — Lord Dufferin's death is in the papers. His end 

 was tragic, but carelessness in money matters was the weak point 

 in his character. When he came of age, I remember hearing, he 

 had a quite unencumbered estate of £20,000 a year, but he muddled 

 it away, Heaven knows on what, for he was not a gambler nor a 

 runner after women, only he kept no accounts and liked to do things 

 on a grand scale. For the last thirty years he has lived on his pay 

 as a Government servant, always in the highest posts. Then when 

 his time of service was over he found himself with a large family 

 of children and a pension of less than £3,000 a year. He took 

 Whitaker Wright's £6,000 a year to enable him to live. In all things 

 else he was singularly high-minded, with a chivalrous devotion to 

 his mother, the one passion of his life. He trifled with women rather 

 than made love to them, and when his mother died, his chief affec- 

 tions went to his children. He was a faithful friend, retentive of old 

 memories and was rightly beloved by all. I knew him when he was 

 only thirty-three, a good-looking and attractive young man travelling 

 in the East with his mother. His marriage was arranged for him 

 by his mother, a year or two later, and he accepted it as he would 

 have accepted anything else from her hands. 



" 28th Feb. — Yesterday I went to see poor Peploe Brown (the 

 painter), and found him strangely altered. He has been paralysed 

 for some years and is now a little wizened old man, quite helpless 



