New-York tribune., 1888-08-26
LONDON SOCIETY.
CONVERSATION AGAIN. AND BRIEF NOTES ON
SOME coon TAI.kEIiS.

London, August B.
The men who spanned tie conversational gun
between the last and the present gener.
alton were Lord Beaconsield, Mr.. Gladstone, Lord
Houghton. Mr.. Hayward. Mr. Charles Viliiers' Mr,
Browning. and others less known to the general
puhlic Each Of them deserves full discussion,
but here note only one or two points and Of some
/ wrote long since Lord Beaconsfied, indeed,
never passed in society for great talSer. 1t was
not always that he chose to talk. There is Sig
niiicant massage in one Of his letters TO his sister
He had gone In to dinner with some one for whom
he did not care, but this some one 10 wnom nc
would not talk insisted on talking to him, and so,
sighs Disraeli, a. had not even the consolation
of silent stuff" When in the mood and company
for conversation. he was essentially modern He
delivered no oraton, poured out no dood OF knowl-
edge, was epgramlnatic, sententious, brief lie was
brilliant when he chose, changed with the chang
ing times; vigilant observer Of social fashions,
always as Gambetta said Of himself, man OF his
own time Perhaps he was even more so during
the later years of his life than at the beginning
The times had come round to him.
There was a long period during which Lord
Houghton and Mr. Hayward were rivals; when
each like the Turk could bear brother near the
throne They had to bear it. however, for neither
ever obtained an undisputcd supremacy. Each OF
them did something to bring in the new manner;
together they did much. They met often at the
same table; seldom without collision The col
lision was not of the kind which expresses itself
by throwing decanters at each others head.
stranger need seldom have noticed that these two
men disliked each other, or were talking against
each other. But neither would suffer his rival TO
be too long In possession Of the ear OF the table
Houghton had voice which in his younger days
must have been caressng. Hayward's was hard,
n 0xuI
out as his competitor quilted the room: Time
he did go-:nterrupting everybody all the evening"
Hayward was by nature the more continuous and
contentious talker of the two; more arbitrary;
caring more to conquer than to charm. Houghton
delighted to captivate his hearers. The poet came
out in his talk or rather the poetic nature. Hay
ward was peremptory, sometimes tyrannlcal; he
knew what he knew with an accuracy which
brooed no denial: which tolerated no inaccuracy IN
others. No two men were more interesting togetner
If their host Or still better their hostess knew how
to keep them in order; as Lady Waldegrave for ex-
ample. did Houghton started with position,
wealth, some literary fame Hayward fought his
way up from a solicitors Office. Once on level,
society treated both of them just alike. Houghton
was the greater favorte; Hayward the more feared
With his knowledge, his courage, his determination
to be heard his conviction that nobody else so well
ever knew of La Rochefoucauld's maxim: La con-
fance fournit plus Ia conversation que lesprit.
He was not. indeed. wanting in esprit Of certain
sort OF mere wit he had none; Of intelligence
high degree; but his confidence in himself was su-
peraboundng. Whoever has that, and as much to
Justify it as Hayward had, may count on repeating
Haywards extraordinary success In the society of
London.
Mr. Charles Villiers's very name suppose may
be unknown to Americans who have not read the
history of the Free Trade controversy in which he
fought side by side with Mr. Golden and Mr.
Bright He was brother to the fourth Earl of
Clarendon, the well-lnown Foreign Minister, is
eighty-six years old, and has sat in Parliament for
Wolverhampton since 1885. OF course he belongs
to the old school, and sometimes he makes one re-
gret that there should be new. What can be moro
charming than the ease and delicacy and refine
ment with which he recounts to you incidents OF
which he can say tits sixty years since they hap
penedp He has memory still fresh, manner
such as men had when women did not spoil mems
manners, O low clear voice, with an elegance Of
speech and an energy of statement that seldom go
together
There remains to this generation one tallser who
may be lilened to Macaulay; 1 mean Mr.. Glad
stone To write about living celebrity as freely
as about one who already belongs to history is i'm
possible; it is equally impossible to give in few
sentences a complete account OF Mr. Gladstonc's
characteristics taIker 1 name him not as
type but an antitype. His manner belongs to
period that is past if that be said to belong to
any period which is in fact entirely individual
II len him TO Macaulay it is because he also has
in a degree that habit of monologue which Macau-
lay had and with him other less famous personages
Of his time His talk is stream stream like the
Oxus in Arnold's verse:
trimming and bright and large...
Nor does anybody, like Horace's rustic, wait for
it to flow out; it is a stream you would like to TOW
on forever.
Macaulay never heard he had carried his talk
elsewhither before first came to England Mr..
Gladstone have heard often, and if Macaulay was
at all like him, all the jealous criticism of his con-
temporaries who survived him, and who say he
would now be thought bore, is sheer nonsense
But there must have been points of contrast be-
tween the methods of these two great takers not
less sharp than between the men themselves
Roughly speaking, Macaulay passed his life among
books; Mr.. Gladstone has passed his in affairs
Man Of the world In one sense he is not, but pre-
eminently a man of afairs; of English affairs; all
his life long engaged in the transaction of the
wcchtiest public business His conversation re-
Gects the habit of mind which nll this continuing
experience has formed. No one ever lived who
knew the political history of his own time so well,
and no English statesman ever had so many inter
ests outside of craftsmanship; literary, religious
and the rest
There is subject on which he will not talk
His memory is the marvel of everybody who has
been his associate acquaintance. Scarce topic
can be started which he has not store OF facts
He takes little thought of his audience or of what
may be supposed TO interest them His subject
interests him and it never occurs TO him that 1T
..x, ,nt ;ntorast othors And be is oufe right. in