19 11 ] Amusing Evening at Stafford House 353 



private sale of the picture amongst themselves, dividing the price 

 realized between them, and as Lane was known to belong to Colnaghi's 

 he was included in it, and got £160 as his share. This started him, and 

 he has now made a fortune and been knighted for presenting a collec- 

 tion of pictures to the Dublin Gallery. Also being a good-looking- 

 youth with much pleasant audacity, he has become a man of fashion 

 in London. Among other fine ladies at his tea party to-day I found 

 the Duchess of Sutherland, Lane playing his part of host nobly. 



" Meynell dined with me, and we went on together to Stafford 

 House, an amusing evening, as evenings there always are, and where 

 I met a number of ancient friends, ex-beauties, and others who seemed 

 pleased to see me. Among them Lady Desborough, who reminded 

 me of the Sunday we spent together, hard on thirty years ago when 

 she was Etty Fane, at Brocket. She was a beautiful girl then, not 

 yet out, and is now probably forty-seven, and has seen much racket 

 in the world, and there was Lady Randolph and Mrs. Jack Leslie and 

 Lady Horner and a number more of that generation. The girls of 

 the present generation have the disadvantage of the grotesque fashion 

 now prevailing in dress in which no woman can look otherwise than 

 a bundle, but there was no lack of amusement. At a certain stage 

 in the evening, after much loud comic singing, the guests sat down 

 in a circle on the ground, and certain performers from Paris danced 

 the Danse des Apaches, which is the same which used to be called the 

 Can-can, with other gymnastic eccentricities formerly confined to the 

 Jardin Mabille, for our amusement; an astonishing display, which 

 would have shocked us, I think, even at Mabille, in the days of the 

 Second Empire and would certainly have been impossible in London 

 in my young days at a public dancing hall, let alone in a drawing-room, 

 but which now delighted us all without a suspicion of indecorum, 

 young men and maidens applauding unrestrainedly, for such is our 

 new kingdom of Heaven. It is not for me to find fault, and I sup- 

 pose we enjoy our lives more. 



" 16th July {Sunday). — Newbuildings. Belloc dined with us. He 

 says that Cromer is very angry at Kitchener's appointment, declaring 

 him to be a thief, which was, I believe, Mohammed Abdu's opinion 

 too. Cromer and Kitchener were never fond of each other, and it 

 is certainly a preposterous choice to have been made if they have no 

 design of annexation up their sleeves. According to Belloc there was 

 a great effort made to obtain the place for Sir Charles Eliot, but it 

 failed through the refusal of Lord Lansdowne to agree to it, Lans- 

 downe had recalled Eliot from Uganda, and would not consent to 

 his being employed again by the Foreign Office, for these things are 

 arranged now by the two front benches in private agreement. 



" ijth July. — A telegram from Gros Bois to tell me of the death 



