i6 
LAND & WATHR 
November 22, 1917 
Hiit anil Htxttx^ 
By J. C. Squire 
Lord Morley's Recollections 
No living man hasliad a more various life or seen 
more of the things tliat are of permanent interest 
tlian l.ord Morley (Recollections, Macmillan, 2 
vols., 35s. net), and even two .tliick volumes of 
reminiscences leave us with plenty of ciuestions to ask 
about things that are omitted. He was in the centre of 
the mid-Victorian Libenil movement and sat at the feet of 
Mill, talked with Mazzini, knew Mctor Hugo. He was 
j)rominent with Hu.xley in the theologico-scicntific contro- 
versies which followed the pul)lication of Darwin's specula- 
tions. He was an intimate of George Kliot, and Matthew 
Arnold, and lifelong fiiend of (Jeorge ?!ercdith ; he watched 
the birth of United Italy, was Mr. Glaastone's right-hand 
man during the Home Riile struggles, and lived to effect his 
greatest positive political achievement in the IQ06-10 Parlia- 
ment, and to resign a scat in the Cabinet at the outbreak of 
the present war. His inde.\, therefore, contains a most 
extraordinary list of names, and only the most cursory survey 
of the book is possible. 
« * « <» * 
The earliest chapters deal mainly with great figures of tlie 
last century. There are character-sketches of many of them, 
and little pictures which show both their merits and their 
defects. " I have never known," says Lord Morley. 
such high perfection of .social intercourse as the Thursday 
dinners at the Priory in days \vhen society let her (George 
Kliot) alone. The guests were always the same, understood 
one another, spoke the same language. Spencer, Browning, 
Congrevc, Theodore Martin, Harrison ; talk of serious things 
without solemnity ; nobody wanting to shine or to carry a 
point or to interject a last word ; all kept in sympathetic 
play by Lewes's sparkling good humour. 
Not all these reunions, however, were so perspicuous. 
The only time that I can recall anything like mimologue 
at Mill's table, Spencer was the involuntary hero. The host 
said to him at dessert that Orote, who was pre.sent, would 
like to hear him explain 'one or more of his views about the 
equilibration of molecules in some relation or other. Spencer, 
after an instant of good-natured hesitation, complied with 
unbroken fluency for a quarter of an hour or more. Grote 
followed every word intentlv, and in the end expressed him- 
self as well .satisfied. Mill, as we moved off into the drawing- 
room, declared to me his admiration of a wonderful piece of 
lucid exposition. Fawcetv, in a whisper, asked me if I under- 
stood a word of it, for he did not. Luckily, I had no time to 
answer. 
But, as a rule, it is a picture of complete harmony, mutual 
understanding and general disinterestedness that Lord Jiorley 
presents ; broken only by his sorrow that Mill should have 
elapsed into ?;'.ani.:h;tanism and Sidgwick into Spiritualism, 
and by Sidgwick 's rude observation, which here comes in 
like an intruder, that Comte and Spencer had a " fatuous 
self-confidence." On the whole that age and that circle is 
viewed by Lord Morley much as our first parents may be 
presumed to have viewed their lost Eden. Not all will agree. 
* • * * . « 
Of Mill Ix)rd Morley writes with a depth of affection equai 
to that which he felt for J!eredith and Chamberlain. Cham- 
berlain draws from him the warmest and longest personal 
tributes of all : one is tempted to wonder whether when, in 
old age, Meredith issued a violent manifesto against Chamber- 
lain in which unfavourable allusion was made to his nose. 
Lord Morley endeavoured to reason with him. He suggests 
Chamberlain's intellectual limitations ; but he says that he 
had a remarkable eye for facts actually under his observa- 
tion, that he never maintained any cause in which he did not 
ardently believe, and that the accusation of cynicism 
commonly made against him had no more foundation than 
his habit of sarcasm. Of men who became prominent at a 
later day he writes with a special warmth of Campbell- 
Kannerman, whom he describes as a man full of common sense, 
devoid of self-assertiveness. a remarkable instinct for the 
right thirig to do, and a most successful Chairman of Cabinet. 
His ])olitical reminiscences are in some respects not so full or 
so novel in content as one had hoped. He throws less new 
light upon the history of the Irish Question than the bio- 
graphers of Sir Charies pilke have done, and his account 
of (lis own activities in Ireland docs not cimvince one that 
he was a great administrative success, tlnnigh he is scarcely 
unique- in that. But there is one large section of the book 
which, for cxhaustiveness aud frankness, excels anything 
in any modern book of^ this kind. That is the sccti6ii • 
which gives the history' of Lord Morley'5 rcf^lme'at the 
Indian Office, and particularly of his Indian Reform Scheme. 
In his letters to L/jrd Minto, in notes and comments, he 
gives an exhaustive account, full of what are called indis- 
cretions — (i.e. truths conventionally kept for posterity) — 
about men and measures, and full also of illustrations of his 
own political knowledge and sagacity. No Viceroy can 
ever have received such. remarkable letters from a Secretary 
of State. They are full of vivid detail and penetrating obser- 
vations about things in general ; and the evolution and 
progress of the Reform Scheme itself is exhibited upon a stage. 
W'e see all the conflicting forces at work. The Viceroy is 
sympathetic but cautious, in view of the prevalent unrest, 
and inclined to rather more drastic action than Lord '-'orley 
was inclined to agree to. The Secretary of State wrote long 
friendly lectures expounding the .basis of Liberal principle-', 
delimiting the boundaries of repression and explaining the. 
need of accomp-inying firm administration with reasonable 
concession. J'Teanwhile, he pushed on with his plan, whilst 
Indian extremists and their sympathisers in England de- 
nounced it as hopelessl}' inadequate, Anglo-India attacked 
it as revolutionary, some of his own colleagues were tejjid, 
and the Upper House was very doubtful. As we watch the 
play of all these elements, and* others, we cannot but admire 
the persistency, coolness and tact with which lx)rd 
Morley stuck to its measure and got it through uninjured. 
3p 3f! 3fl ^ I> 
It is an impressive booK. When one ploscs it one has 
travelled a long way, seen many men and many things, passed 
through the heat cf many controversies, and left their dust 
behind one on the road. One's fellow traveller and guide has 
been a rnan more than ordinarilj' certain of himself, of what 
is known and what is unknown, of what is wise and what is 
not wise ; capable of understanding doctrines that he opposes, 
but never in danger of succumbing to them ; abnormally 
immune against change, but catholic in his interests ; austere, 
but escaping frigidity ; incapable of giving expression to a 
fever of emotion, but diffusing a mild warmth wliich comes 
from tliat organ wliich his' school, witli, the loftiest of in- 
intentions. rather tended to starve. His political creed, 
whatever its imperfections, was a noble one as far as it went ; 
he has remained faithful to it and, looking backward, he seems 
to find nothing with which to reproach himself. He says 
that the period between Waterloo and Sedan was the greatest 
and finest period of modern history. It is disputable. He him- 
self savs, in another connection, that Pope Paul III., was 
" spinning no cobwebs when he admonished his Council of 
Trent that Belief is the foundation of life, that good conduct 
only grows out of a fight creed, and that errors of opinion 
may be more dangerous even than Sin." And it has possibly 
occurred to him that his generation was more fertile in 
" honest doubt " than in creeds with life in them. He ends 
with the admission that it might fairly be asked whether the 
Darwins; the Spencers and the Kenans, have left the world 
better than they found it ; whether " their influence has been 
so much more potent than the gospel of the various churches." 
These questions he leaves unanswered : 
These were queries of pith and moment indeed, but for .some- 
thing better weighed and more deliberative than an autumn 
reverie. 
Now and then I pause|' as I .sauntered slow over the fading 
lieather. My little humble friend squat on her haunches, 
looking wistfully up, eajer to resume her endless hunt after 
she knows not what, just like the chartered metaphpysician 
So to my home in the falling daylight. 
There is the touch of artifice, even of sentimental artifice, 
there ; hut it makes an eftcctive close to what has gone before, 
and an eftective commentary upon it. The rationalist is 
left under the stars as puzzled as the others, anrl a good deal 
colder. But one cannot begin discussing here. One can only 
say that Lord Morley's book is the most eloquent and com- 
prehensive exposition that exists of the Agnostic Liberalism 
of the nineteenth centurv ; that it is extremely valuable in parts 
as an historical record ; that it gives the picture erf a laborious 
hie, always dominated by the duty of serving mankind ; and 
that the production of such a book at eighty must long 
remain one of the most remarkable feats of green old age. 
Copies of " The British Firing Line Portfolio '' 
containing a .scrfes of Engravings in Colour by Captain 
Handley-Rcad and forming a wonderful record of the' 
B ttle-area, may be obtained, price 5 guineas each, 
from, the Leicester Galleries, Leicester Square, W, 
