make as good or as deep an impression on me as Alfred Deakin. The Australian seemed more open to ideal influence, and above all, he loved literature as well as politics.
I invited all three to dinner in my little house in Kensington Gore, just opposite Hyde Park. Cecil Rhodes had to go away early and Deakin, too, had an engagement, so that I was soon left alone with Hofmeyr. Hofmeyr spoke slightingly of Deakin while I stuck up for him. At any rate, I concluded, 'He's brainier and better read than your Cecil Rhodes!'
'He may be; it's possible,' Hofmeyr admitted, 'but Cecil Rhodes is master of Kimberley and already one of the richest and most powerful men in South Africa. He'll go far and may do big things.'
I remember distinctly how shocked I was at this evidence of Hofmeyr's worship of the golden calf. I suppose it was Professor Smith's influence and that of German universities that kept me so naive, though I was over thirty. I had yet to learn how universal the power of money is, and I am sure that my first lesson in world values came that evening from Hofmeyr. In half an hour he showed me the enormous influence Rhodes exercised in the Cape and indeed all through South Africa because of his great wealth. He summed up, half bitterly, 'He has more influence with the Boer leaders than I have, though they have known me all their lives; money is God today and the millionaire rules.'
I soon found out how right Hofmeyr was. Dilke, for example, knew all about Cecil Rhodes and told me he'd be glad to meet him with me at any time. 'A very able man!' but when I spoke to him of Deakin he was hardly interested, though he knew his name and work. Arthur Walter, too, the son of the manager of The Times, spoke of Rhodes with unfeigned respect, though at this time he hadn't met him, whereas my praise of Deakin fell on stopped ears.
Strange to say, Rhodes seemed to like me, perhaps because I knew the Cape and Hofmeyr and felt a great liking for the Boers and was not afraid to proclaim it openly. At any rate, he asked me to lunch and I met some important people in his rooms at the Burlington Hotel, notably Lord Rothschild, whom I had already met at Dilke's; and on this occasion I noticed that Rhodes cared little for what he ate, though he drank quite as much as was good for him. What I liked about Rhodes from the beginning was his entire absence of 'side' or pretence of any sort. I had already settled in my mind the rule, which, however, is subject to important exceptions, that no great or wise man ever gives himself airs. 'Side' is a characteristic of the second rate, and when a great man uses it, as Lord Salisbury did occasionally, it is to ward off the pushing or impertinent; still, it is almost always a proof of weakness.
I saw this perfectly exemplified in the Archbishops Manning and Newman. I had gone to see Manning at Westminster because of an article on the poor of the East End, in whom he professed to be greatly interested. He kept me waiting that first time and then had little knowledge to give me, indeed, had to summon an attendant priest in order to be coached. I shrugged my shoulders and soon rose to go; then he dropped the pontifical air and assured me that he would be much obliged if I sent him whatever I wrote about the East End. From that time on he was perfectly courteous and sympathetic, but I could not but contrast my first impression of him, seated in his great chair and with an attendant priest standing by him, with the perfect simplicity of Newman, who was unaffectedly pleased with my enthusiastic praise of his Apologia and almost immediately wanted to know where I stood, what school of thought I favoured, what my opinions were on the great themes.
When he learned of my utter disbelief, he seemed distressed: I hastened to admit that man's respect for unselfish loving-kindness and indeed for all that is above him showed a touch of the Divine, but Nature red in beak and claw was appalling, and- Newman nodded gravely. 'Doubts are stepping stones to faith,' he said, nursing his chin on his hand. 'Faith is priceless, wings above the abyss, making us one with the universal soul.'
'That reminds me,' I said, 'of the noblest words in the Religio Medici:
There is surely some piece of Divinity in us, something that was before the elements, and owes no homage to the sun.
'Magnificent!' the old saint cried, his whole face lighting up with a sort of supernal radiance. 'Magnificent! Noble words, magnificent; but did you ever read his Christian Morals and his Vulgar and Common Errors? I like them both.'
'No,' I replied, 'but I'll get them. I love his Hydriotaphia; the last chapter of the Urn Burial is glorious, full of passages finer even than Bossuet (Newman nodded smiling); Browne is an enigma to me, a country doctor commanding magical phrases, and yet though as a boy he may have seen Shakespeare, he never mentions him, so far as I know.'
'He was a great man, nevertheless,' said Newman, 'and we are all his debtors.
Do you remember one thing he said: 'I love to lose myself in a mystery, to pursue my reason to an O, altitudo?' 't I shook my head, and towards the close of our talk he counselled me, smiling, 'You should not depreciate memory as you did the other day: it's ungrateful when you can carry about with you in memory's satchel such priceless jewels as that sentence of Browne. Such words enrich life.'
I had only said that great verbal memory often hindered one from thinking for oneself, but the memory of great things said greatly do indeed enrich life, as Newman said, and there are few more notable jewels in all English prose than this of Sir Thomas Browne. Whenever I think of Newman and his passionate faith, I am reminded of the great verse: … Life's truer name Is 'Onward.' No discordance in the roll And march of that Eternal Harmony To which the stars beat time- Only great souls can be so persuaded!
CHAPTER XX
It was in the early eighties that Blanche Macchetta, or Roosevelt, as she was before her marriage, made me intimate with Maupassant in Paris.
Blanche was an American who had come abroad to Milan to study singing; she was extraordinarily good- looking, a tall well-made blonde with masses of red-gold hair and classically perfect features. She had deserted music for matrimony, had married an Italian and lived in Italy for years, and yet spoke Italian with a strong American accent and could never learn the past participles of some of the irregular verbs. French she spoke in the same way, but more fluently and with a complete contempt, not only of syntax but also of the gender of substantives. Yet she was an excellent companion, full of life and gaiety, good-tempered and eager always to do anyone a good turn. She wrote a novel in English called The Copper Queen, and on the strength of it talked of herself as a femme de lettres and artist. She evidently knew Maupassant very well indeed and was much liked by him, for her praise of me made him friendly at once.
His appearance did not suggest talent: he was hardly middle height but markedly strong and handsome; the forehead square and rather high; the nose well cut and almost Grecian; the chin firm without being hard; the eyes well set and in color a greyish-blue; his hair and thick moustache were very dark and he wore besides a little spot of hair on his underlip. His manners were excellent, but at first he seemed reserved and unwilling to talk about himself or his achievements. He had already written La Maison Tellier, which I thought a better Boucle de Suif.
Let no one think my inability to trace De Maupassant's genius in his appearance or manner was peculiar; Frenchmen who had known him for years saw nothing in him, had no inkling of his talent. One day Zola told me that even when the 'Medan' stories were being written, no one expected anything from Guy de Maupassant. It was naturally resolved that Zola's story should come first and the other five contributors were to be classed after being read. Maupassant was left to the very last; he read Boule de Suif. As soon as he had finished, all the six called out that it was a wonder and hailed him with French enthusiasm as a master-writer.
His reserve at first was almost impenetrable and he wore coat armour, as I called it to myself, of many youthful pretences. At one time he told me he was a Norman and had the Norman love of seafaring; at another he confessed that his family came from Lorraine and his name was evidently derived from mauvais passant. Now and then he would say he only wrote books to get money to go yachting, and almost ha the same breath he would tell how Flaubert corrected his first poems and stories and really taught him how to write, though manifestly he owed little to any teaching. Toward the end he had been so courted by princes that he took on a tincture of snobbism, and, it is said, wore the crown of a marquis inside his hat, though he had no shadow of a right to it, or indeed to the noble de which he always used. But at bottom, like most talented Frenchmen, he cared little for titles and
