1910] My Birthday of Seventy at Clouds 317 



ant and certainly a far more dignified leader of opinion than Farid 

 or any other of the Nationalist leaders. He is timid, however, as all 

 men in Egypt of his generation are (he must he sixty) and knows little 

 of Europe and nothing of England ; nevertheless he has taken the lead, 

 and a bold one, against Gorst in the Council and in the General As- 

 sembly, especially on the Suez Canal question. He left with me two cop- 

 ies of the report of the Commission of the Assembly we have been so 

 long trying to get out of Grey. It amply justifies the Assembly for re- 

 jecting the Convention, and it contains an important article on our 

 finance, which shows why Grey refused to present it to the House of 

 Commons. 



"14th Aug. — Osman Ghaleb writes from Paris that they are to 

 hold the Egyptian Congress there this year, and that there is thought 

 of asking me to be its President. 



"15th Aug.— hi London and called on Lady C. She talked of 

 Lord Spencer, who has just died. Spencer was a fine fellow, and 

 nobody in England was more respected. He ought to have been Glad- 

 stone's successor instead of Rosebery as Prime Minister. I had but 

 slight acquaintance with him, though he was friends with my brother 

 and sister, having gone up the Nile with them in 1863. 



' ijtli Aug. — My birthday of seventy, which I am spending at 

 Clouds, a long and delightful day; also, and on this I pride myself, I 

 was able with my cup and ball to catch it on the point nine times out 

 of twelve, which shows that my eyesight is not failing. In the evening 

 we had the traditional birthday cake with the children, lighting it up 

 with seventy wax matches. Guy's boys amuse me. George, a boy 

 of sixteen, still at Wellington School, but has grown a slight mustache 

 and affects the ways of a young man. He is very good-looking, and 

 spends most of his time with the servants in the pantry and the 

 housekeeper's room, where he talks nonsense to the maids and helps 

 the footmen to clean the knives, smoking a briar pipe with twist to- 

 bacco, the most horrible stuff. Upstairs he has a fine assurance with 

 pronounced opinions, as a man of the world. He is to go into the 

 •Foreign Office, and seems to have an amusing career before him. 

 Dick, the younger, is of a strict scaramouch type, cleverer but less 

 good-looking. Olivia is an audaciously pretty girl of thirteen, also 

 with a career of pleasure before her, ready for all possible wickedness 

 in a wicked world. They spent the day making a grand picnic with 

 the servants and governesses to Pertwood on the Downs, where they 

 had sack and three legged races and all sorts of boisterous fun, of 

 which Dick, who dined at table, gave us a naive account. 



" 20th Aug. — Chapel Street. Meynell and his son Francis dined 

 with me. The young man is clever and agreeable and should make his 

 mark. He is now at Trinity College, Dublin, and is much mixed up 



