1908] King Edivard's Diplomacy 205 



with a wonderfully fine speaking voice. In Russia, in Persia, in 

 Egypt, and in India, the reaction is in full swing. No one will listen 

 to anything but force in dealing with the National movements. Some- 

 thing of the same kind about Hardinge and the King was told me by 

 Beauclerk who again paid me a flying visit. He arrived from Wake- 

 hurst where Frank Lascelles is staying, and brought me messages from 

 him. Lascelles is out of favour now with the King, as being too Ger- 

 man in his sentiments. He wanted to have the Paris Embassy, but 

 the King refused on the ground that he was not married, so he is to 

 retire. They hold him responsible for the Kaiser Wilhelm's un- 

 friendly attitude. Wilhelm told him lately that he was sick of England 

 and everything to do with it. 



" My dear old friend Evelyn is dead at the age of eighty-six. I had 

 been intending to drive over to Wotton to see him as soon as ever 

 I was well enough, as he had asked for me to come some three months 

 ago. He has been my political ally now for twenty-five years, latterly 

 my only ally, we two being the last of the Tory Home Rulers and 

 anti-Imperialists. With certain defects of temper which led him into 

 quarrels with his neighbours, he was the most generous of men, and to 

 me always staunch and true. I remember him first fifty years ago, a 

 shy young man, already M.P. for Surrey, but submitting to be patron- 

 ized in his bullying way, by my guardian old Henry Currie, at West 

 Horsley. Our friendship came on later in connection with Egypt and 

 Ireland. His domestic life was not altogether happy, his Irish wife, a 

 Chichester, having strong Orange proclivities, which worried him 

 much, while a certain obstinacy of character caused him trouble in his 

 parish, and a long feud with the parson, against whom he waged per- 

 sistent war through a local newspaper carried on for twenty years. To 

 me his death is a great loss. At one time he had named me guardian 

 of his son John in his will, but John is now of age and succeeds him at 

 Wotton, we all hope worthily. 



" 29th June. — Brailsford tells me of a dinner given lately by Maurice 

 Baring to his uncle, Cromer, at which were also Bernard Shaw, J. M. 

 Robertson, Belloc, and other one or two Radicals, this doubtless to 

 conciliate Shaw in connection with Denshawai. I shall be curious to 

 hear the result. Cromer has always been a past master in dealing with 

 the press. 



" 1st July. — Edward Malet is dead, at the age of seventy, having been 

 long ailing. The papers give him a fair meed of praise. He and 

 Colvin are now both dead within a few months of each other, and all 

 the chief actors in the Egyptian tragedy of 1882 are gone. 



"nth July. — Rothstein writes about the difficulty of getting as- 

 sistance from the Radicals in Parliament on Egyptian affairs. I have 

 answered that I consider it does not matter. It is hopeless to attempt 



