1871 LETTER FROM SIR M. E. GRANT DUFF 49 



place in politics, is another question. The admirers of 

 Prince Bismarck would say that the daily prayer of the 

 statesman should be for " une bonne digestion et un 

 mauvais coeur." " Le mauvais coeur " does not appear to 

 be " de toute necessite," but, assuredly, the " bonne diges- 

 tion" is. Given an adequate and equal amount of 

 ability in two men who enter the House of Commons 

 together, it is the man of strong digestion, drawing with 

 it, as it usually does, good temper and power of con- 

 tinuous application, who will go furthest Gladstone, 

 who was inferior to your father in intellect, might have 

 "given points" to the Dragon of Wantley who devoured 

 church steeples. Your father could certainly not have 

 done so, and in that respect was less well equipped for a 

 lifelong parliamentary struggle. 



I should like to have seen these two pitted against each 

 other with that " substantial piece of furniture " between 

 them behind which Mr. Disraeli was glad to shelter him- 

 self. I should like to have heard them discussing some 

 subject which they both thoroughly understood. When 

 they did cross swords the contest was like nothing that 

 has happened in our times save the struggle at Omdurman. 

 It was not so much a battle as a massacre, for Gladstone 

 had nothing but a bundle of antiquated prejudices where- 

 with to encounter your father's luminous thought and 

 exact knowledge. 



You know, I daresay, that Mr. William Rathbone, then 

 M.P. for Liverpool, once proposed to your father to be 

 the companion of my first Indian journey in 1874-5, 

 he, William Rathbone,' paying all your father's expenses. 1 

 Mr. Rathbone made this proposal when he found that 

 Lubbock, with whom I travelled a great deal at that 



1 Of this, Dr. Tyndall wrote to Mrs. Huxley : " I want to tell 

 you a pleasant conversation I had last night with Jodrell. He and 

 a couple more want to send Hal with Grant Duff to India, taking 

 charge of his duties here and of all necessities ghostly and bodily 

 there ! " 



VOL. II B 



