The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1903-09-01
LAST OF THE ~ARISTOCRATS.
4 to the Late Lord Sails
bury.

4 VI lIS o(IC ~A4AA
! listers. Into a democratic age he car
ried the feelings and manne Of a
| Stuart or Bourbon nobleman; and his
| ineffectualnesS at home, compared
with his notable success IN dealing
with foreign nations, came largely
from the fact hat he was frequently
very much a stranger IN his various
Tory Cabinets, while in dealing with
/ foreign chancelleries he moved among
his peers and at ease.
Born an aristocrat, he never wavered
in his belief in the right of his class to
rule. On one occasion, indeed, he de-
Tended the House of Lords with an ar
gument which Gladstone, in his most
caSuistical moments, might have en-
We'd him: he said that it was a nideal
! Upper House, precisely because its
I members We're generally absent, fire.
Quently timid, and universally retro
active. The eplgram was in many
ways characteristic Of a Prime Minis
ter who ruled a people whom he never
fairly knew through associates with
whom he was in masy cases barely
acquainted This Unborn aloofness, as
we'll as his temporary necessities.
drove him into scholarship and jour
nalism in the bitterest lays Of the
SdlOlOdy IGtN1C", IldOcH III dDSOloSN-
ly ~d'sregardful OF the ordinary politi-
cal amenities, and outwardly found eX-
preston in extreme COreleSSneSS or
dress. A credible legend has it that he
was nee denied admission to the
Casino at Monte Carlo because, to the
porter'S eye, he looked something less
| thai a gentleman. t was a c~uriously
ironical fate which kept a man with
| all the major disqualificatlons for office
| constantly before a democratic public,
and forced him to depend upon that
public for his political existence.
| Un~Questionably his innate a~riStocra-
| cy was greatly reinforced and deep
ed by his dislike of the older liberalism
and by his distrust of modern ten
denotes. t thus has very interesting
a~nalogies to the neo-Catholicism of the
Puseyites or to the pre-Raphaelltism
eminently of the victorian age
Indeed, may of his personal tract
istics and prejudiceS were precisely
those of his sovereign. Now, the Vic
torian mood, with it's tinge of mediaev-
alism, its adherence of untrammelled
thinking, and it's numerous private
sentimentalities, did very we'll for the
dreamers, in Short but was an I'M
happy possession for a man of affairs.
One must imagine Lord Salisbury
sustained through long discouraging
years by a keen sense of duty to his
| IDS oIlu " IllS QuetI. L lNeu " Dc
practically the Last British peer in po-
ltical life who wore his title proudly,
without apologies or concessions to the
crowd.
1t may be asked where lay the pow
er of a man so detached from his
time? What basis of layalty did he
offer to his followers? He offered the
incarnation of their own sentiments.
In the, the native British distrust of
doctrinaires had been intensified. The
proof of this is their villfication of the
far from radical Gladstone. Fleeing
from doctrine. they naturally turned to
a man apparently innocent of theories
n Indifferent to reforms who cared
only to rule them like an English no.
bleman. Yet by a strange paradox,
whatever sympathy Lord Salisbury
had come from the u~nreaSonlng crowd.
Probably he Oun satisfaction in it.
Associates of riS own way of hinking
failed him utterly, and he was to the
end an isolated and melancholy figure
in his own cabinets. Except on foreign
fofice matters, he was always very
ready to part company with his chief,
Disraeli, and he himself lived to see
the whole ministerial House of Cecil
recreant to the ~ar1stocratic faith.
One can again but marvel at the
fortune which made Gladstone the
lifelong antagonist and Chamberlain
the ultimate ally of ord Salisbury.
For. if the im~petuosity and popular
qualities of Gladstone were profoundly
a"ntiDathetic to the Tory leader. there
was betWeen them a real tie in char
acter and in scholarly tastes. Mr..
Chamberlain is a kind of Qualification
of Mr.. GladstOne-a Gladstone without
the character or accomplishments of
the original. At some future time
diaries and reminiscences may tell us
what it cost Lord Salisbury IN his per-
sonal pride to buy the liberal union
lists at the cost of a portfolio to Cham
b%erlain; but already it appears that
no compromise. among his many. was
paid for so tragicaily. The great for
eign secretary of his time was to end
a brilliant series of diplomatic sue
cesses by s~houldering the responsible
tv for Mr.. Chamberlain's reckless and
disastrous negotiations with the
TranSVaa1.
diareiserr niiiyR Pf u .mw1 Sik.q
No successor of Salisbury can or
will rule simply as a nobleman. A new
class of leaders is ariSlng-men of IL
lettante habit, like Mr.. Balfour OF
Lord Rosebery, who have the broad
sympathies of a Gladstone without his
convictions and moral force; men like
Mr.. Chamberlain. who add to the
habits of the politician certain crude
and perilOus ldealisms Of their own,
unrestralned by training. Lord Sails
bury's devoted and romantic resist
ance TO liberal theories ended by his
putting many of hem in practice as
the only means of keeping ar artsto-
cratic government in power. And
Lord salisbury was a fervent believer
III the prerogatives-his proverbial
cynicism lay largely in a witty disre-
gard Of the equally respectable onvic-
tons of people who thought otherwise.
Today. Mr.. Chamberlain is vociferous-
~ eXalt1ng the p~rerogative of the COM
pany promoting class. in what is. at
ter all. only a c~aricature of Lord Sal
isbury'S habitual attitude.
When all is said, Lord Salisbury re-
mains as the very perfect model Of an
aristocrat fallen upon evil times. In
the Eendee he could have died: in
democratic England he had the choice
of sulking in his ten or of leading un-
congenial legionS. He made the hard
er choice and adorned a losing fight
by his personal virtues an daccom-
pliShments. The modern world will