Edward Hartington

“ He was never, I should fancy, very wealthy, but he had a passion for collecting beautiful things, and, with his exquisite taste, his very great knowledge, and the freedom that his business allowed him for travel, he managed to gather things around him as every man can manage if he really cares enough and has sufficient leisure. Cares! Charles Hartington did not, I suppose, care for anything else except his beautiful things. I saw him only once, when he was showing an aunt of mine over his house in Evelyn Gardens. ”

“ Hartley's writings are mostly political, and set forth the arguments of the extreme liberals of his time. In 1764 he wrote a vigorous attack on the Bute administration, 'inscribed to the man who thinks himself a minister.' The most important are his 'Letters on the American War,' published in London 1778 and 1779, and addressed to his constituents. 'The road,' he writes, 'is still open to national reconciliation between Great Britain and America. The ministers have no national object in view . ”

“ Hartington was a real man, but a man on the wrong side, and with little chance of his getting rid of his prejudices, which were those, not of stupidity, but of ignorance; with his stables and his wealth it was useless to expect him to do serious work. Bright was a great name, and had a power of stringing together a series of sound commonplaces, so put that they were as satisfactory to the ear as distinct statements of policy would be ”

“ The feeling against the Land Bill was overwhelming. As regards Home Rule, there is no love for the Bill, but only a willingness to accept the principle as a necessity, and to hope for a recasting of the provisions. There is great sympathy with the old man personally, and at the same time a soreness that he did not consult his colleagues and party. Hartington's name was hissed. They cannot forgive him for going to the Opera House with Salisbury. I continue to receive many letters of sympathy from Radicals and Liberals, and invitations to address meetings, but I shall lie low now for some time. ”

“ One other characteristic—the necessary consequence, or indeed, it might almost be said, the essential expression, of all the rest—completes the portrait: Lord Hartington was slow. He was slow in movement, slow in apprehension, slow in thought and the communication of thought, slow to decide, and slow to act. ”

“ POOR 'Lile Hartley'—little Hartley, as the neighbours called him—is one of the most pathetic figures in English literature. Undersized in body, of promising intellect from childhood, of child-like simplicity in character, devoid of self-control, and overmastered by the alcoholic habit, as his father was by the opium habit, he is at once pitiable, excusable, and lovable. As you ride from Ambleside to Grasmere you pass a low cottage on your right, just beneath Nab Scarr, where the young farmer and his wife lived who cared so unselfishly for him and for his comfort and welfare. ”

“ They are for ever rubbing shoulders with their own sordidness, until at last they come to think they are all sordid, and care to be nothing else. That’s the root of the snotty’s tragedy, Hartington. I’m sure of it. He’s never alone—never, from the moment he comes on board to the moment he gets ashore. His mind hasn’t a chance to expand—to stray out into the vague purposelessness from which, if you can trace them back far enough, all right purposes spring.”
“I’ve given two of them—Lynwood and Fane-Herbert—leave to use my cabin whenever I’m not there. There isn’t room for more, sir.” ”

“ Though apter at a sermon.
I think that some are men of parts,
Whilst some are vulgar fractions,
That some are good at Liberals arts.
And some at liberal actions;
I think that Harcourt—with a bit—
Is not so bad a neighbour,
Though one who at, and with his wit,
Will labour, and belabour.
I think that Hartington is wise,
And Bright austerely moral; 197
Fawcett sees more than some with eyes,
And Forster’s sage, though sorrel;
That Granville has a feline pat,
Which much his foemen troubles,
So soft they scarce know what he’s at
Until it pricks their bubbles. ”

“ Harcourt's good points and bad points are both on a large scale. Childers is too much in city business and in companies to be one of the leading men in the party in the future. Hartington is too careless and too much bored to interest others. Gladstone and Bright are old ”

“ This might have been written of Lord Hartington through many a stormy scene in the House of Commons, as he sat on the front Opposition Bench, one hand in his trouser pocket, his hat tilted over his nose, his face as stony as that of the Sphinx.
It is common experience in modern Parliaments that men who have attained the highest position at the Bar have been failures in the House of Commons. ”

“ Hartington looked down with an injured air, adding another to her list of grievances against her dear friend and neighbor, Eleanor Van Antwerp.
"I should never go to a common fortune-teller, my dear," she observed in a louder tone, for the benefit of the assembled company. "Yours was probably just an ignorant person. But I did go to ——, who, you know, charges a small fortune, and he told me the most extraordinary things. I have perfect confidence in him; every one I know thinks him quite infallible."
"Do they?" said Paul Halleck, suddenly turning from the piano. ”

“ And as the days passed, with these pleasant offices, the face of the strange woman glowed with an ever-increasing content, and her dark, delicate beauty grew.
John Hartington spent his vacation at Des Moines, having a laudable desire to see something of the world before returning to his native town, with his college honors fresh upon him. Swiftest of the college runners was John Hartington, famed for his leaping too, and measuring widest at the chest and waist of all the hearty fellows at the university. His blond curls clustered above a brow almost as innocent as a child's ”

“ Hartington dragged from his shelf a book that John had never before seen in his hands. He opened it where an envelope marked a place.
“Read that—from the second verse—‘They all lie in wait.’”
“‘They all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net. That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward ”

“ The portrait of the first Cavendish—who was usher of Cardinal Wolsey, and who married Bess of Hardwick, the richest lady of the day—is exactly like Hartington, but a vulgar Hartington—fat and greasy—a Hartington who might have kept a public-house.'
Mr. Chamberlain wrote to Sir Charles at Hardwick concerning his host:
'The true Whig tradition is to keep abreast of the movement which they would willingly restrain, and do nothing to quicken, but it is difficult for a man of Hartington's temperament to make the sacrifice of pride which these tactics require.'
Mr. ”

“ It is difficult to punish them more than they are being punished already.”
“If I chose that they should keep watch and watch,” Aggett cried, perceiving that Hartington was amused, “it’s none o’ your business. This goes to the Commander.” And he went out of the cabin, purposely leaving the curtain undrawn.
Hartington rose and drew it quietly. He undressed, curled himself up in his wicker chair, and began to read the marble-covered notebook.
The Commander heard nothing officially of John’s behaviour. Ordith’s advice was sought. ”

“ When I sat face to face with Maxwell Hartington, my solicitor, in his ink-splashed, dirty, yellow-grained room with its rows of black tin boxes, I could no longer ignore that possibility. Maxwell Hartington sat back in his chair after his fashion, listening to my story, breathing noisily through his open mouth, perspiring little beads and looking more out of condition than ever. I never knew a man so wine-sodden and so sharp-witted.
"That's all very well, Stratton," he said, "between ourselves. Very unfortunate and all that sort of thing. But it doesn't satisfy Justin evidently ”

“ We met to consider a further violent refusal by France of all our proposals. Chamberlain and Harcourt were strong in the one sense, and Hartington in the other, while Childers and Dodson sat meek like mice. Hartington was fiercely for the old control, Harcourt and Chamberlain against all control, and no one except Lord Granville in favour of the proposals which were actually made, and Lord Granville a man who constitutionally would always prefer a compromise to a clear course. ”

“ There must have been some extraordinary attraction about John Hartley, in spite of his mean and paltry occupation of a footpad, for the young women who went in white to beg for a reprieve were eager, if their prayer were granted, to cast lots among themselves for the honour of being his wife. ”

“ Harthouse, as a thoroughly well-bred man, accustomed to the best society, was not to be surprised—he could as soon have been affected—but he raised his eyelids a little more, as if they were lifted by a feeble touch of wonder. ”

“ Hartley was as faithful as any one who ever lived. It seemed to be nobody's fault. It had just happened.
He looked at the girl before him with a new expression, an expression of sheer curiosity. It seemed to him wellnigh incredible that any human being could be so unjust and so blind. Yet he knew her to be, in other matters, one of the fairest of all women, just and tender and thoughtful and true. He knew that she prided herself upon her cool impartiality of judgment. He shook his head with a little sigh, and ceased to wonder any more. ”

“ Half-way up a low hill rise on the far side of the Mangadone Cantonment was the bungalow of Hartley, Head of the Police. It was a tidy, well-kept house, the house of a bachelor who had an eye to things himself and who was well served by competent servants. Hartley had reached the age of forty without having married, and he was solid of build and entirely sensible and practical of mind. He was spoken of as "sound" and "capable," for it is thus we describe men with a word, and his mind was adjusted so as to give room for only one idea at a time. ”

“ There are circumstances in which even the least energetic of mankind learn to behave with vigor and decision; and the most cautious forget their prudence and embrace foolhardy resolutions. This was one of those occasions for Harry Hartley; and those who knew him best would have been the most astonished at the lad's audacity. He stopped dead, flung the bandbox over a garden wall; and leaping upward with incredible agility and seizing the copestone with his hands, he tumbled headlong after it into the garden. ”

“ It is odd that the Sawbones should know what we are trying to find out." Lulu reported that Dr. Andrew Clarke had told Reggie Brett, Hartington's secretary, that Parliament was, after all, to meet before Christmas. When Lulu was gone, Chamberlain and I decided that if there was only a pretended and not a real change we would resign, whatever our unpopularity. In the afternoon of the same day Harcourt wrote to Chamberlain that he had seen Hartington; that Forster had written to Gladstone that he could not wait till January 6th' (for extended powers of coercion) . ”

“ Lord Hartledon hardly heard the words, as he stood leaning against the open casement, gazing into the dark and misty past. No man ever shrank from a prison as he shrank from Hartledon.
"I cannot leave London at all just yet. Thomas Carr is remaining here for me, when he ought to be on circuit, and I must stay with him. I wish you would go anywhere else, rather than to Hartledon." ”

“ After such an introduction, the meeting could hardly come to a conclusion favourable to Hartington's views.
'On June 9th Sir Henry Ponsonby came to see me before the Cabinet, wishing to talk to me before he spoke to any other member, as the Queen thought that I was the most in agreement with her views, which was not the case, as regarded evacuation. He discussed with me two points: First the term of years, as to which I explained that, under the agreement, if at the end of three and a half years any one Power thought we had better stay, and we ourselves wished to stay, then we could stay. ”

“ That means nine. It's an English house and nobody will be in time. It's out of fashion to be prompt nowadays."
"I should hardly call the Marquis de Saulnes English, you know!" objected Hartley.
"Well, his wife is," said the other, "and they're altogether English in manner. Dinner won't be before nine. Shall we get out and walk across the bridge and up the Champs Elysées? I should like to, I think. I like to walk at this time of the evening—between the daylight and the dark."
Hartley nodded a rather reluctant assent, and Ste. Marie prodded the pear-shaped cocher in the back with his stick. ”

“ Harington was of firm and independent character, 'thoughtful and devout,' and 'showed his appreciation of education' by the care he bestowed on his son, as well as on the princess. His wife, Anne, daughter and heiress of Sir Robert Kelway, surveyor of the courts of wards and liveries to Queen Elizabeth, was distinguished by her gentleness and refinement; she lived in great poverty after her husband's and son's deaths, and went back for a time as lady-in-waiting to Princess Elizabeth. ”

“ Hartley, unknown to her, kept her in ignorance of things which she ought to have known. She had refused to face it, pressed it out of her heart, made believe to herself that the chapter of her life which had been written in London was closed and forgotten—and how nearly she had succeeded! But she had not quite succeeded. It was there still—the memory, the hope, the pity, the sacrifice.
She must not cheat herself any longer, if she would be an honest and honorable woman. She would face the truth and not palter with it, now that the crisis had really come. What was Alan Walcott to her? ”