236 Cardinal Newman JTQOQ 



kept out of Parliament if they got the vote, and that would never do. 

 From this we went on to Francis Thompson and other pleasanter 

 themes till the hour went by, and her doctor calling, I said good-bye. 

 I am very fond of Margot. Years do not change her nor the deceit- 

 fulness of politics. 



" 10th March. — Father Tyrrell and George Wyndham came to 

 luncheon with me, and we had an interesting discussion on poetry, 

 literature, and religion. We talked about the proposed new 'Life of 

 Newman,' which is being brought out by Wilfrid Ward. Tyrrell 

 doubted whether it would be a sincere one as to Newman's attitude 

 towards Papal Infallibility, and he told us how a letter from Newman 

 to Lord Emley, dated 1870, had recently been destroyed, in which 

 Newman had spoken strongly against it. It was untrue to say that 

 Newman had never had a doubt since he joined the Church. Newman, 

 he agreed with me, had never really argued out the fundamentals on 

 which Christianity is based, the existence of God and the reality of a 

 revelation. Newman's attitude is epitomized in his ' History of My 

 Religious Opinions ' : 'I believe in God because I believe in the exis- 

 tence of myself and in my consciousness of right and wrong, all the 

 rest is a matter of development,' or words to that effect. Tyrell to-day 

 was in his most attractive, least aggressive mood. 



" After this I went on to Farm Street, which had been so long 

 Father Tyrrell's home, and sat an hour with his once fellow Jesuits, 

 Fathers Gerard and Pollen. Father Gerard showed me his ' His- 

 tory of Stonyhurst,' where we had been at school together, and gave 

 me a little play, an extravaganza he had written for the centenary of 

 the College. He talked also of Alfred Russel Wallace and his opin- 

 ions, which he thought illogical, and of W. H. Hudson, and of various 

 matters of natural history, which has always been his hobby. 



" nth March, — John Dillon came to lunch and we discussed Per- 

 sian, Turkish, and Egyptian affairs, about which he has been worry- 

 ing the Government in Parliament. We talked also about old times 

 in Ireland, when we two worked together. ' It is astonishing,' he 

 said, ' how all the doings of that time are forgotten. There is hardly 

 a young man in Ireland now who has any knowledge of what the 

 Land League accomplished, or who Michael Davitt was, or what was 

 the Plan of Campaign. The ten years that followed the Parnell split 

 were a political blank. It has left a gap in our history.' I asked 

 him whether George Wyndham's Land Bill had done good or harm? 

 ' Something of both,' he said, ' the people who have taken advantage 

 of it had become better off, but it has not stopped the decrease of 

 population nor the emigration. One thing it has not changed, the ill- 

 feeling towards England is stronger than it ever was.' ' As long as that 

 is the case,' I said, ' things are going right.' 



