Several remarkable investigations made at the time I could hardly have done without: Bateman’s study of landed income in England, Jack London’s and Jacob Riis’s studies of the poor, and Quillard’s study of the contributors to the Henry Subscription. Certain novelists, such as V. Sackville-West, Anatole France, and Proust, were invaluable as social historians, as were certain memoirists: Blum and Daudet on opposite sides, Lady Warwick, Sir Frederick Ponsonby, Lord Esher, Wilfrid Blunt, Baroness von Suttner, Stefan Zweig, and especially Vandervelde, who alone among the Socialists provided an intimate personal view of his milieu, of the kind in which the ruling class is so prolific. Even more valuable, perhaps, are those occasional individuals endowed both with a peculiar extra insight into their time and a gift for expressing it; who illumine what is happening around them by a sudden flash of understanding Romain Rolland is one, Masterman another. Although less central to this book, Trotsky, as revealed in his matchless phrase about the Serbian infantry, has that same mysterious ability to perceive—almost to feel—the historical meaning of the moment and to convey it in words.
Of all the sources listed, the outstanding work is unquestionably Reinach’s (of which more is said in the Notes to Chapter 4); the most consistently informative and brilliant writer is A. G. Gardiner; the most striking fact to emerge from the assembled bibliography is the absence (except for Henry Adams, whom I find disagreeable) of first-rate memoirs by an American.
In an effort to keep the Notes to manageable length, I have given a reference only for those statements whose source is not obvious. When no reference is given, the reader may assume that any act or quotation by, or statement made to, a person whose memoirs or other work appears in the Bibliography, was taken from that person’s account. For example, in Chapter 4, should a reader wish to know what is my source for the statement that Léon Blum and his friend Pierre Louÿs took opposite sides in the Affair and thereafter never saw each again, he should check the Bibliography under the names of the participants in the episode and, in this case, on finding a book by Blum, assume that Blum was my authority. When Mme Melba’s guests throw peaches out the window or Lord Ribblesdale is quoted on the status of a lord, it may be assumed that the work of each cited in the Bibliography is the authority. Often, as when Strauss visits Speyer or makes a passing remark to Beecham, the source is the memoirist, not the principal. In general, when no reference is given, the name of the person mentioned in a particular conversation, correspondence or incident is the key to the source. While this method requires anyone interested to find the page number in the original book for himself, it has the advantage of not perpetuating mistakes, and any other method would have stretched out the Notes to a length equal to the text.
In cases where a book has served in several places it is listed under the chapter of its primary concern. DNB refers to the Dictionary of National Biography, DAB to the American ditto, The Times to the London newspaper, NYT to the New York Times. An asterisk denotes a source of particular value or interest.
1. The Patricians
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BALFOUR, LADY FRANCES, Ne Obliviscaris, 2 vols., London, Hodder & Stoughton, n.d.
*BATEMAN, JOHN, The Great Landowners of Great Britain and Ireland, 4th ed., London, Harrison, 1883.
BATTERSEA, CONSTANCE, LADY, Reminiscences, London, 1922.
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Notes
1 “An almost embarrassing wealth”: H. H. Asquith, I, 273, 275.
2 “Nerve storms”: Kennedy, 353.
3 Family threw cushions: Frances Balfour, I, 311.
4 “Poor Buller”: Young, 168; talking to Lord Roberts: Russell, 54–55.
5 Horse an “inconvenient adjunct”: Cecil, I, 176.
6 He told Dumas fils: The Times, Aug. 24, 1903.
7 “Jump on behind”: Kennedy, 241.
8 Pepys on Hatfield garden: q. R. Churchill, Fifteen Homes, 74.
9 “Jump, dammit …!”: ibid., 71.
10 “Quite exceptional stupidity”: Cecil, I, 1.
11 Birkenhead on the Cecils: Birkenhead, 177.
12 Disraeli quoted: Mackintosh, 50–51.
13 “That black man”: ibid.
14 Morley, “blazing indiscretion”: q. H. H. Asquith, II, 277.
15 “Every sentence,” said a fellow member: Ribblesdale, 173.
16 “I thought he was dead”: National Review, “Lord Salisbury: His Wit and Humor,” Nov., 1931, 659–68.
17 “When will all this be over?”: Carpenter, 237.
18 Colleagues complained: Cecil, III, 177.
19 “Just a little more off here”: Ribblesdale, 174.
20 His charm “no small asset”: Hicks-Beach, q. Cecil, III, 178.
21 “I think I have done them all”: National Review, op. cit., 665.
22 Gladstone quoted: Mackintosh, 50–51.
23 “Not excluding the House of Commons”: Lucy, Eight Parliaments, 114.
24 Queen Victoria quoted: Carpenter, 236.
25 “Bad on his legs”: F. Ponsonby, 67.
26 “Oh, I daresay”: Benson, 164.
27 “Splitting it into a bundle”: Quarterly Review, Oct., 1883, 575.
28 Articles in Quarterly Review: quotations in this and the following two paragraphs are from Cecil, I, 149, 157–60, 196.
29 Speech against Disraeli’s policy: July 5, 1867, Hansard, 3rd Series, Vol. 188, 1097 ff.
30 “Grim acidity”: Gardiner, Prophets, 150.
31 “Rank without power”: Cecil, II, 5.
32 Curzon quoted: Ronaldshay, I, 282.
33 “Secure and comfortable”: Buchan, 75.
34 Duke of Devonshire on Harcourt’s Budget: Annual Register, 1894, 121.
35 “Germ planted”: The Times, July 17, 1895, leader.
36 “Dominant influences”: q. Magnus, Gladstone, 433.
37 Dufferin taught himself Persian: Nicolson, 246.
38 “Those damned dots”: Leslie, 30–31.
39 Stanley “an upper class servant”: T. P. O’Connor, q. R. Churchill, Derby, 45.
40 Eton’s “scugs”: Willoughby de Broke, 133.
41 Cecil Balfour forged a check: Young, 11.
42 Sargent asked Ribblesdale to sit: Mount, 418.
43 “Ce grand diable”: Ribblesdale, xvii.
44 “A race of gods and goddesses”: Clermont-Tonnerre (see Chap. 4), I, 175.
45 “Divinely tall”: E. Hamilton, 7.
46 Gentlemen sighed and told each other: Sackville-West, 122.
47 “Bohemia in Tiaras”: Benson, 157.
48 Prince of Wales to Churchill: W. Churchill, 155.
49 “I shall call you the Souls”: q. Nevins, 81.
50 Two sets of eyebrows: Melba, 226.
51 “I don’t like poets”: Wyndham, I, 67.
52 Harry Cust’s “fatal self-indulgence”: Margot Asquith, q. Nevins, 81.
53 Lord Morley’s detective: Fitzroy, II, 463.
54 “Brilliant and powerful body”: W. Churchill, 89.
55 “Knew each other intimately”: Willoughby de Broke, 180.
56 Jowett’s choice of undergraduates: Newton, Lansdowne, 6.
57 “No end of good dinners”: Willoughby de Broke, 30.
58 “Effortless superiority”: Leslie, 43.
59 “Poor fellow, poor fellow”: Marsh, 183.
60 “Born booted and spurred”: Gardiner, Prophets, 214.
61 “When I looked at life from the saddle”: Warwick, Discretions, 78.
62 Chauncey Depew’s telegram: Robert Rhodes James, Rosebery, London, 1963, 355.
63 “Even policemen were waving their helmets”: Lee, II, 421.
64 Londesborough’s “gloss, speed and style”: Sitwell, Left Hand, 154.
65 “Because the carriage had to go home”: Raverat, 178.
66 Blunt’s sonnet: “On St. Valentine’s Day.”
67 Duke of Rutland’s chaplain: Cooper, 20.
68 Squire Chaplin in the hunting field: Lambton, 133; Londonderry, 227, 240.
69 “Sure of themselves”: Sitwell, Great Morning, 10, 121–22.
70 Colonel Brabazon described: W. Churchill, 67; testimony quoted: Esher, I, 362.
71 Figures on income and acreage: Bateman, passim.
72 The “poverty line”: set by B. S. Rowntree at 21s. 8d. for a family of five. In Poverty, A Study of Town Life, 1901.
73 “Eau de Nil satin”: Warwick, 230.
74 “Then bwing me another”: W. Churchill, 68.
75 “Squalid throng of homeless outcasts”: A. Ponsonby, Camel, 12.
76 Kipling on venting chauvinism: American Notes (see Chap. 3), 45.
77 “Knew his own mind and put down his foot”: Whyte (see Chap. 5), II, 115.
78 “A series of microscopic advantages”: q. Monthly Review, Oct., 1903, “Lord Salisbury,” 8.
79 Morley Roberts: q. Peck (see Chap. 3), 428.
80 “All his bad qualities”: Hyndman (see Chap. 7), 349.
81 “I was a problem”: to More Adey, Nov. 27, 1897, Letters, 685.
82 Lord Arthur Somerset: Magnus, Edward VII, 214–15.
83 Swinbu
rne “absolutely impossible”: H. Ponsonby, 274.
84 “Join it”: Hyndman (see Chap. 7), 349.
85 “I dare not alter these things”: Marsh, 2.
86 Austin on Germans and Alfred the Great: q. Adams, 76, n. 3.
87 Salisbury on Austin’s poem: Victoria, Letters, 24.
88 An American observer quoted: Lowell, II, 507.
89 Austin’s Jubilee wish: Blunt, I, 280.
90 Lord Newton on the Lords: Retrospection, 101.
91 Rosebery complained: Crewe, 462.
92 Halsbury “invariably objected”: Newton, Lansdowne, 361; “jolly cynicism”: Gardiner, Prophets, 197; Carlton Club: Wilson-Fox, 122; Lord Coleridge: ibid., 124.
93 “Rule by a sort of instinct”: q. Halévy, V, 23, n. 2.
94 “Greatest gentleman of his day”: Newton, Lansdowne, 506.
95 “A new sense of duty”: Holland, II, 146. All quotations, anecdotes and other material about the Duke are from this source unless otherwise specified.
96 “Take things very easy”: H. Ponsonby, 265.
97 “This is damned dull”: Mackintosh, 113.
98 Duchess “one of the handsomest women”: F. Hamilton, 201.
99 “No face was more suited”: F. Ponsonby, 52.
100 “Certain hereditary governmental instincts” and “a debt to the State”: Esher, I, 126.
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