Charles Dilke

“ It was Charles Dilke who had provided the whistles and toy drums for this ceremony, and Judge Steavenson retains a vision of the future statesman at his window [Footnote: Dilke's rooms were on Staircase A, on the first floor, above the buttery. They have not for very many years been let to an undergraduate, as they are too near the Fellows' Combination Room.] blowing on a whistle with all his might. The authorities were vindictive, and Dilke suffered deprivation of the scholarship which he had won at the close of his freshman year. ”

“ When Charles Dilke married, Mrs. Chatfield and Miss Folkard made way for the bride, and Ashton Dilke's home was then with his grandmother. When death cut short that marriage, the old ladies returned, and lived out the end of their lives in Sloane Street. Mrs. Chatfield was a very popular personage; and many letters from Sir Charles's friends have affectionate or jesting messages to 'Dragon.'
II. John Stuart Mill returned to England from Avignon in the spring of 1869, and followed up his earlier letter of friendly criticism on Greater Britain by a suggestion of meeting. ”

“ V. The friendliness which had grown up between Sir Charles and Lord Salisbury, and was later in this year to be of public service, is illustrated by an amusing note in the Memoir. Sir Charles Dilke was never a clubman, and had incurred the remonstrances of Sir M. Grant Duff by refusing to take up membership of the Athenaeum, as he was entitled to do on entering the Cabinet. But there is a club more august than the Athenaeum, and here also Dilke showed indisposition to enter. ”

“ This short Parliament of 1886 came to an end in June, and, in the General Election which followed, London went solidly against Home Rule; and Sir Charles, though as compared with other Gladstonian Liberals he did well, found himself rejected by the constituency which had stood by him in four contests. Such a reverse occurs in the life of almost every prominent politician, and, though harassing, is of no determining import. For Sir Charles Dilke at this moment it was a cruel blow. ”

“ Also, in 1865, 'I had already dreamt of visiting and writing upon Russia, a country which always had a great hold on my imagination.' Another project of these undergraduate years was less his own than his grandfather's. Old Mr. Dilke contemplated a universal catalogue of books, to be prepared by international action. This scheme was completely abandoned, yet it is interesting that the grandson entertained it. The scholar, not merely the lover, but the active servant, of learning, was always present in Charles Dilke's many-sided personality, though never dominant. ”

“ Sir Charles Dilke has taken up the broken thread of his life just as if nothing had occurred in that long period of exile and suffering. He is never out of his place: attends every sitting as conscientiously as if he were in office and responsible for everything that is going on; and has his eye on subjects as wide apart as the parish councils and Newfoundland, army reform and the occupation of Uganda. It is curious to see, too, how he is regaining that ascendancy over the House of Commons which he exercised formerly. ”

“ Under normal conditions, an undergraduate going up to an English University without public school friendships is at a disadvantage: and this was Charles Dilke's case. But he went to his father's college, Trinity Hall; and his father was a very well known and powerfully connected man. Offer of a baronetcy had been made to Wentworth Dilke in very unusual and gratifying terms. ”

“ What do four peers know about popular feeling?"'
In view of the temper of the House of Commons, Sir Charles Dilke warned Lord Granville by letter of the danger that the Fourth Party might carry "the mass of the Tories" with Liberals on a cry for the "liberties of the Egyptian people." Considerable delay was occasioned by negotiations as to whether Arabi and his associates should or should not be represented by European counsel at their trial, and in the interval rumours were set afloat as to ill usage of them in prison. ”

“ William Dilke alone was left to me, if, indeed, at eighty-eight one could speak of a man as left.' This old grand-uncle, with his military memories of Waterloo days, whom Sir Charles Dilke yearly visited at Chichester, and who often stayed at Sloane Street, was also at this moment very ill, and supposed to be dying ”

“ There was no lack of masterful grip and handling of detail in the other great orator of the Liberal party, yet the young Radical's attitude to his leader was one of admiration indeed, but always of limited sympathy. Not only did a long generation lie between them, but Charles Dilke had been bred a Radical, and Gladstone had been bred a Tory. The Government policy after 1868 was dominated by the education controversy, and was dictated by Forster. There was probably no man among his colleagues with whom Dilke more often came into collision. ”

“ Dockett was essentially a boating-place, a place for sun and air, where life was lived in the open or in the wide verandah hailed by Cecil Rhodes and others as the only 'stoep' in England. His son, who was travelling abroad much at this time, shared Sir Charles Dilke's love for Dockett, and was frequently there in the intervals of his journeyings. Other than boating friends came to lunch or to dine and sleep, for the mere pleasure of talk. ”

“ On May 31st Charles Dilke wrote to his grandfather:
"The results will be known to-morrow. I have worked as hard as it is possible for me to do, for I have worked till I became almost deprived of memory.... Shee has worked, too, as hard as he could, and was in a dreadful state of nervous excitement this evening. I almost hope that he is first, for I should like to see him get his scholarship. Warr tried to get me to refuse to go in for the examination, or find some pretext for being away, in order to let our common friend get his scholarship ”

“ In the case of a public man a charge is always believed by many, even though disproved, and I should be weighted by it through life. I prefer, therefore, at once to contemplate leaving public life.'
Upon the first sentence of this he added in a marginal note, written after his marriage with Mrs. Mark Pattison, and after he had, in spite of that first decision, returned to the House of Commons: 'Chamberlain overpersuaded Emilia, and, through her, me, but he was wrong.'
Of honourable ambition Sir Charles Dilke had as much as any man. ”

“ Lord Fitzmaurice goes on to say that in the making of the Cabinet public opinion would have substituted Sir Charles Dilke for Mr. Dodson, who, in spite of his work as Chairman of Committees from 1868 to 1873, and afterwards as Secretary to the Treasury— ("he would have made an excellent Speaker") —had done but little in the House for the party in the long period of Opposition from 1874 to 1880.
A mistake had, in fact, been made. The strong man should be put where his services can avowedly be best utilized. This statement is true of Chamberlain. ”

“ One attempt was made to raise the personal issue against him; and its result showed that any man would be imprudent who sought to oppose Sir Charles Dilke in the Forest of Dean except on strictly political grounds. First and last no member of Parliament ever got more loyal support; but no man ever trusted less to personal popularity. ”

“ Dilke curtailed his work on the Athenaeum, it was to take up other duties. For three years he was manager of the recently established Daily News, working in close fellowship with his friends John Forster and Charles Dickens.
From the time when he gave up this task till his death in 1864 Mr. Dilke's life had one all-engrossing preoccupation—the training of his grandson Charles. But to the last, literary research employed him. In 1849 he helped to establish Notes and Queries 'to be a paper in which literary men could answer each other's questions' ”

“ George Melly, the member for Stoke-on-Trent, had cautioned him: "Don't talk to them about God Almighty; even Mr. Gladstone can't; they'll only stand it from John Bright." On March 9th, 1869, Mr. William Vernon Harcourt (as he then was) came forward with a motion for the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into registration in Parliamentary boroughs. Upon this Charles Dilke made his first speech, filled with detailed knowledge, and with suggestions drawn from French procedure. ”

“ A weak writer wastes precious space in sentimental phrases or in vain adjectives that would be equally applicable to many other places, and forgets to note what is peculiarly and especially characteristic of the one place that he is attempting to describe.
CHAPTER VII ELECTION TO PARLIAMENT I. While engaged in the writing of Greater Britain, Charles Dilke entered upon the main business of his life by coming forward as a candidate for the House of Commons. ”

“ For my own part, though I should immensely like to be in Parliament, still I should feel terribly hampered there if I went in as anything except a Radical.... Radicalism is too much a thing of nature with me to throw it off by any effort of mine. If you think it a waste of money for me to contest Chelsea, I will cheerfully throw the thing up and turn to any pursuit you please."
Many other matters which were to occupy Charles Dilke later are mentioned in this first and detailed exposition of his political faith. He dealt with army reform: would abolish "purchase of commissions and flogging" ”

“ Sir Charles Dilke never made a fine sentence or a sonorous peroration in his whole life. It is that power of acquiring all the facts of the case—of being thoroughly up in all its merits—in short, of knowing his business—which impresses the House of Commons, which, after all, though it may cheer the gibes of a smart and pert debater like Mr. Chamberlain, is most happy when it hears a man talking of something which he understands thoroughly.
Joe as a Jingo.
Mr. Chamberlain spoke, as I have said, in the debate. It was a very characteristic speech. ”

“ Her first marriage had brought her discipline rather than happiness; now in the middle years of life her vivid nature was blossoming out again in the promise of union with a man before whom there lay open an illustrious career. Illness struck her down, and while she lay convalescent there came to her as black a message as ever tried the heart of any woman.
* * * * *
II. On the evening of Saturday, July 18th, Sir Charles Dilke was entertained at a dinner given by the Reform Club—a very rare distinction—to celebrate the passing of the Redistribution Bill into law. ”

“ Sir Wentworth was elected, and Lord Granville, who had a real friendship for him, wrote, in a spirit very typical of the traditional view: "I know no one to whom Parliamentary life will afford more interest and amusement." Charles Dilke's conception of Parliamentary life was very different from that of his father, and from that which Lord Granville indicated. ”

“ Those who knew Sir Charles knew how his intense geniality of nature, masked sometimes for outsiders by a slight austerity, his air boutonné—as it was described by those who did not pass the barrier—showed immediately with those to whom he was drawn. That rire enfantin, described by Challemel-Lacour, would burst out at the first quick turn of talk, and he would give his whole self, with an almost boyish delight, to the encounter with a nature whose superabundant vitality and delight in life, as in Gambetta's case, equalled his own. ”

“ No member has ever been bound to a constituency by closer ties of personal feeling than those which linked Charles Dilke, first to Chelsea and later to the Forest of Dean. He worked for his constituents, and taught them to work for him. ”

“ In spite of Bright's observation about driving six omnibuses abreast through Temple Bar, Forster's Education Bill was pressed forward along with the Irish Land proposals, and the Government were at once in trouble with their advanced wing, in which Sir Charles Dilke was a leader of revolt. He acted as teller along with Henry Richard when Richard took sixty dissentient Liberals into the Lobby in support of a general motion demanding that school attendance should be compulsory, and that all religious teaching should be separately paid for out of voluntary funds. ”

“ Dixon sketches American men and women, sharply, vigorously, and truthfully, under every aspect. The smart Yankee, the grave politician, the senate and the stage, the pulpit and the prairie, loafers and philanthropists, crowded streets and the howling wilderness, the saloon and the boudoir, with women everywhere at full length—all passes on before us in some of the most vivid and brilliant pages ever written.—Dublin University Magazine. ”

“ His next appearance on a public platform after the Newcastle meeting was fixed for November 20th at Bristol, and opposition was promptly threatened, somewhat to the surprise of Professor F. W. Newman, who had been asked to take the chair.
"I do not read the papers daily" (the Professor wrote) , "and was quite unaware that any animosity against Sir Charles Dilke existed among the Bristol Liberals. But I think it is high time that the Liberal party everywhere be pulled out of the grooves of routine, and that new men take the lead of it. ”

“ His appreciations were made with great force and originality, and an old Academician who had accompanied him round galleries once said to the second Lady Dilke (herself a most authoritative judge of painting) : "It is always interesting to see what a man like that will admire."
Mr. Chamberlain, Sir Charles's frequent guest at 76, Sloane Street, was usually his companion in picture-seeing. It is also recorded that in the spring of this year Dilke took his friend, 'at an unearthly hour for one of his lazy habits,' to see the Oxford and Cambridge boat-race. ”