1902] The Play "Everyman" 21 



Ireland after the manner of a Crown Colony. He would do what 

 he could to make things go quietly, but there were strong forces at 

 work pushing to extremities, witness the ' Times ' articles. I told him 

 I was inviting Redmond to dinner, and asked him whether he would 

 come. He said there was nothing he should like better, but it would 

 be too dangerous in his present position, and as long as he was Chief 

 Secretary. 



" 24th March. — Took my niece Mary Milbanke, it being Lent, 

 to a mediaeval morality play, ' Everyman,' being just now revived, 

 a terribly dreary business, which more than half reconciled me to 

 having been born in the nineteenth century. These ancient plays have 

 only an archaeological interest and are impossible on our modern stage. 

 They are worse than the worst comic parts of Shakespeare, which is 

 saying a great deal, crude, childish, long-winded. The mediaeval 

 idea of life in Christian Europe with death and hell as a perpetual 

 background of all pleasure, is repellent, when put nakedly before us 

 in action. There is a brutality in the view of all pleasure being sin- 

 ful, which is only tolerable when mixed with a large dose of sceptic- 

 ism, as in Boccaccio. These north of Europe plays with their seri- 

 ous intention are like having a bucket of cold and very dirty water 

 poured over one for a joke. 



" In the evening to hear an excellent lecture by Sir William Butler 

 on Cromwell in Ireland, a most able and brilliant performance. I 

 was asked to say a few words afterwards, and did so lamely enough. 



" 2$th March. — George has made a brilliant speech introducing 

 his Irish Land Bill, and I see Redmond and his men are very civil 

 to him. I pride myself on having contributed to this good feeling. 



" 30th March (Easter Sunday). — Rhodes is dead. I did the rogue 

 an injustice when I thought he might be shamming as a pretext for 

 getting away from the Cape and the prosecution of Princess Radziwill, 

 in which he is implicated, but Rhodes was one of those of whom 

 one always had to ask oneself, ' Quel interet peut-il avoir en mourantf 

 The capitalist newspapers are, of course, full of his praises. He is 

 supposed to have bequeathed a part of his millions for Imperial pur- 

 poses. I look on him only as a lucky speculator, a gambler on rather 

 wider lines than the rest, shrewd, or rather lucky, in his calcula- 

 tions for a long while, and then, having made a series of gross 

 blunders, unscrupulous enough to save most of his own money at the 

 expense of a war and ruin for everybody else. I suppose he will live 

 in history as he has given his name to Rhodesia, and has engineered 

 the Boer War. If the British Empire recovers from this and as- 

 serts itself permanently in South Africa he may count for something 

 more, but it is quite certain that he miscalculated the whole Transvaal 

 business. His pronouncements from time to time during the last 



