The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-10-25
LORD SALISBURY
NEVER HAD AN INTIMATE PER-
 SoNAL FRIEND.
Always Courteous, Yet Rarely Asked Ambassadors to His Home. Never Saw a show--seldom Made Speech Without
 a Blunder.

nc XAdIQuiB Ol SALISBURY WEE - CotA~ pound of singular personal characteris-
 tics. says copyrighted letter from Lon
 don to The New York World. Outside the members of his own fam fly he never had an intimate personal friend. The only members of his cabi-
 nets besides his nephews,whom he never
 consulted or conversed with voluntarily that is. except on official business-was Lord Chancellor Salisbury.
 | Several of his colleagues in his va
 rious xcabinets never exchanged a word l'with him except on their introduction or across the cabinet table. The personal
 appearance. even, of the great majority of the members of his administration were unfamiliar to him. It always was found necessary to have some one at his
 elbow to identify his colleagues when he
 was obliged to meet them personally. He never formed anything more than
 the most superficial acquaintance with any of the numerous ambassadors he constantly met. Ambassador Choate is the only one of the existing diplomatic corps who was ever invited privately to Lord Salishury's superb historic Eliza bethan residence at Hatfield Though he was nearly fifteen years in the Foreign Ohice without intermission. he never completely mastered the linea- ments of his chief officials. He never looked at them. It was one of his pecu- liarities
 He scarcely even glanced at any one.
 While speaking to a person his eyes,
 like his mind. was usually in the air. He once thought Sir Thomas Sander son. the principal permanent under sec
 retary of State for foreign affairs had
 been dead two years. confusing him with a colleague who had died in that time. Yet nothing could exceed Lord Sails | burys courtesy, affability and unaffected
 ness to those whom he did speak to when
 he could not help it
 The affection, even reverence, in which
 he was held by his own family. is also remarkable.
 He lived in a world of his own. Moth | ing mattered to him outside of it. He carried this alofness so far that he ex- ercised practically no supervision or con- trol over any department but his own. with results familiar to the income tax payer and others.
 His interest in domestic questions was
 always perfunctory. It was coolly stirred
 by election exigencies under the spur of | the party manager.
 Foreign affairs absorbed his mind. be-
 cause he could deal with them unham-
 pered by the criticism of the vulgar | crowd Poupular interest in public af-
 fairs. except so far as 1t conduced to
 returning him to office, he cordially de- tested.
 | He was never known to go inside a | theater or a concert hall except to attend | a political demonstration. His recrea- tions were chemistry, theology. philoso- phy, and, it is asserted, French novels. ! He took no exercise until compelled
 to do so by the injunctions of his doctor. ] Then he covered prescribed distance 1 almost daily on his tricycle.. with the same pleasure and collaboration as a
 convict makes his allotted round in the prison yard.
 l He was little taken with horticulture. l He almost invariably walked from the | Foreign Office to the House of Lords. His great numbering figure, with its heav- | fly stopped shoulders, the massive head thrown forward on his broad, high chest, | the thick beard, hands clasped behind his back-was familiar to the police as he | mooned along the sidewalks. studiousiy | hugging the houses. But he was unrecog- | nized for the most part by passers-by. He nearly always entered the house | through the public lobby, dropped on to
 the ministerial bench, ignoring the ex- | istence of his colleagues, and witr his head thrown back, his right knee jog | ging necessarily up and down, his eyes | dreamily fixed on the stained glass win | dow above, he seemed to fall into if not 1 physical. at any rate a mental doze, ut- terry ODuVlOuS 10 what was passing aDOut him.
 He spoke in the same absent-minded | fashion-never used a note of any kind, I never referred to a paper His diction | always was perfect his voice clear, mu- | sical, penetrating, and at times powerful. He rarely spoke without committing
 some blazing indiscretion OF hinging out | some vitriolic phrase with sudden. biting | emphasis In curious contrast to his pre- valent appearance of weariness or bore dom. Lord Salisbury may be described as a
 man of amiable temperament, lacking in | enthusiasm or sympathy, desiring above | all things to be let alone.
 Lord Salisbury's death leaves no void
 in public life. Since he retired from the Premiership, under circumstances which l have never been fully explained. he had
 completely slipped out of notice. Noth- ing could tempt him to reopen the book,
 and even the earnest solicitations of his
 favorlte son, Lord Hugh Cecil. the prob
 ably future leader of the Tory party,
 could not persuade him to make a pro-
 nouncement against MT. Chamberlain's
 protectionlst program, although 1t Is
 known that he entirely disapproved of it
 and cordially detested it's author.
 Lord Salisbury always conveyed the
 impression of a man who was in public
 life against his will, and it was this inn
 pression of sincerity that gave him the
 great power he wielded in English poli-
 tics.
 In Lord Hugh Cecil he has left a son