30 May 1887 – 5 June 1887

Fine, cool wind. H. and I drive, by invitation, to Manor House, Haslemere, which we reach about 4.15. Miss Wolseley receives us, then Lady Wolseley comes, lively, pretty, and pleasant. Soon after the General, in gray jacket, corduroy breeches (with flap), black riding-boots and spurs ; a light figure, about five feet seven in stature ; bright, almost boyish face of roundish shape, with small ashen- coloured moustache, the forehead full and smooth, the hair close-cut, of a steel gray. With easy friendly smile he shook hands and began to talk, without accent of any sort, but certain turns of phrase as well as his whole manner unmistakably Irish. After a little H. went off with Lady and Miss W., and I had the honour of half or three-quarters of an hour's conversation with the famous man, winding on without the least trouble from one turn to another. He was interested to hear of Banacle ^ as a semaphore station in bygone days. * Banacle Hill, near Witley. ' The semaphore remained in the Admiralty till not long ago.' I said some one had lately told me that there was still some use of it. ' O no,' said Lord W., ' you might as well think of using bows and arrows in war.' Somebody, I remarked, did recommend going back to bows and arrows. ' O yes, there are people who think the world is going to the bad every day — a friend of mine thinks England has been ruined by railways ; he can't even get anything fit to eat nowadays, — -" do you call this stuflF mutton ! " — and so on.' Painting — Lord Wolseley said he was very fond of it : ' If I had my time to myself it would be a toss-up whether I should turn to water-colours or to writing.' The Life of Marlborough : ' Yes — I'm not at work upon it, but I have done something now and again these many years. I don't want to write about his campaigns — that has been done sufficiently, and by competent hands — but about the man himself.' ' You can perhaps brush away some of the dirt that has been thrown upon his name } ' ' Certainly : judging him by the standard of the time, I find no foundation for the charges made against him by bitter enemies.' * Thackeray's hard sayings in Esmond and elsewhere, " His Grace would rob a private soldier of his pay," — any truth in this .? ' ' Not a bit. Marlborough did exactly what was usual ; the system was a bad one, but the outcry against Marlborough was made solely for party purposes, and when Ormonde succeeded him, Ormonde did just the same. Macaulay's style enchanted me in my youth, it was like music ; but his statements are not to be trusted in the least. Marlborough, at the age of fifty-four, was a poor man, and in the next ten years he grew very rich, there's no doubt about that. The truth is, it is very hard to get any idea of what Marlborough was personally : we know he was handsome, and that's about all. I have read great quantities of his letters and despatches.' * Have they much individuality ? ' ' Little or none.' We came back to drawing. Lord Wolseley spoke of the sketches he made in various parts of the world, how they brought back all the minute circumstances in which each was done ; most of them were burnt in the fire at the Pantechnicon — also his books. After the fire things were put in a chapel close by, and people allowed to pick out what belonged to them. Lord W. picked up a bronze of his, has it now, bruised and marked with fire. ' I'm sorry I didn't take some of my books — they were lying in a pulpy state, injured chiefly by water — but I left them there. I had to pay the Pantechnicon too for taking care of my things ! We protested against this, but the law so decided. Whenever I come near books I am attracted to them, and am ready to lose myself in them. I am very fond of my own books : I hate lending them — I tell people so plainly.' Lady W. and her daughter returned with Helen, and we all had tea. Lord W. complained jocularly of the scanty supply of bread-and-butter, rang the bell, and said to the footman in prompt military manner ' More bread-and-butter. ' Lady W. — ' We are not usually so ill-supplied. That tremendous young person {i.e. Miss W., a large, pleasant young lady of fifteen, as tall as her father) is not fed upon air.' Then they talked of the amusing parsimony in small things at a certain country house in Surrey (an Earl's) — only a shovelful of coals, for instance, in the bed-room coal-scuttles. Col. staying there, in cold weather, went into several empty bed-rooms near his and carried off all their coals in his own scuttle. Sometimes this comes from old habits. Lord W. spoke of a man he knew, very rich and not at all miserly, but who had been very poor in early life and accustomed to practise strict economy : ' I know how absurd it is,' he often said, ' but I can't bear to throw away even an old tooth-brush ! ' After tea we were shown some beautifully bound books (Lord W. let one drop — ' O Garnet ! ') — several done by Mr. Cobden Sanderson. While talking of Marlborough, I asked whether any of the present people (they were Spencers till lately, but descend from Marlborough's daughter) had the least physical likeness to the great Duke ? Lord W. said no. I remarked that race did not necessarily carry likeness with it. Lord W. — ' But likeness crops up amazingly. Some years ago I was in Brussels, at the King's, and an Austrian grand-duke was there also, who was exactly like a portrait three hundred years old which hung in the palace, representing his ancestor.' We all four went into the old-fashioned garden, Lord W. with large, soft but high-crowned gray hat, thrown loosely on to one side, handkerchief hanging half out of his breast-pocket, corduroy breeches, bright eyes and merry face, seeming as if he wanted only a shillelagh to enable him to present, if so inclined, a genteel version of the typical Paddy. Not that there is the least touch of burlesque or absurdity about him. We spoke of Tennyson, and our thinking of visiting Aldworth this week. Lord W. — ' Queer old chap ! ' — admires his poetry, but thinks it ' effeminate.' (If I have the chance I must try to sift Lord W.'s notions on poetry.) I must not forget that at tea Lord W. said in his usual easy cheerful way that it was a great modern absurdity to value human life too highly — people had made idols of first one thing and then another, and now their idol was human life. I said, ' surely the notion of the mystic sacredness of human life is very old, there's Cain and Abel.' Lord W. allowed this instance, but with a twinkle of the eye went on : ' but look at the Lord God, how he slew thousands upon thousands, smote them hip and thigh.' Helen put in, ' That was a long time ago,' and we all smiled. I said a man I knew, Dr. Bodichon of Algiers, had a serious theory for improving the world in the shortest possible time, by the painless extinction of all useless human beings. He would have juries, including a large proportion of men of science, to decide on the fitness of this person or that to live. Lord W. — * I entirely agree with your Algerian friend. I would have supplies of chloroform for gaols and hospitals, for cripples and so forth, and the world would be debarrasse of much trouble and expense.' I argued that this would lead to many abuses, and that the general level of morality would be lowered. But Lord W. maintained that we have nowadays an absurd and superstitious respect for human life, and seemed to mean it. To lighten off the discussion I repeated to Lady W. what Madame Bodichon said to me in the midst of one of her husband's discourses on scientific homicide, — ' he wouldn't himself drown a kitten ! ' While H. went in with the ladies for her parasol before starting. Lord W. and I stood at the old porch looking at a nest of bees among the ivy ; then he pointed at Lady W.'s pug. ' There's an absurd creature ! it has a tail and it's alive, that's all you can say. I'm fond of dogs, but such a thing as that is good for no purpose.' ' Pugs would come under the chloroform act .'' ' I suggested. ' Every one of 'em ! ' said he ; and then out came the ladies, and H. and I took leave, and walked home four miles through the beautiful green country, glad of an interesting visit. Clear, prompt, direct, cheerful, — gifted with physical and mental vivacity, in manners simplicity itself, in conversation easy and quick, — such appeared to us the famous General to-day. He can walk in the country. Lady W. told us, much better than in London, where the hard pavements jar his wounded leg.