Page:The Yellow Book - 04.djvu/314

276 It is now so remote from us that much therein is hard for us to understand, much must remain mobled in the mists of antiquity. The material upon which any historian, grappling with any historical period, chiefly relies is, as he himself would no doubt admit, whatever has already been written by other historians. Strangely enough, no historian has yet written of this most vital epoch. Nor are the contemporary memoirs, though indeed many, very valuable. From such writers as Montague Williams, Frith, or the Bancrofts, you gain little peculiar knowledge. That quaint old chronicler, H. W. Lucy, describes amusingly enough the frown of Sir Richard (afterwards Lord) Cross or the tea-rose in the Premier's button-hole. But what can he tell us of the negotiations that preceded Mr. Gladstone's return to public life, or of the secret councils of the Fourth Party, whereby Sir Stafford was gradually eclipsed? At such things as these we can but guess. Good memoirs must always be the cumulation of gossip, but gossip, alas, was killed by the Press. In the tavern or the barber's shop, all secrets passed into every ear, but from the morning paper little is to be culled. Manifestations are made manifest to us, but the inner aspect of things is sacred. I have been seriously handicapped by having no real material, save such newspapers of the time as Punch, or the London Charivari, The Queen, The Lady's Newspaper, and others. The idea of excava tion, which in the East has been productive of such rich material for the historian, was indeed suggested to me, but owing to obvious difficulties had to be abandoned. I trust then that the reader may pardon any deficiencies in so brief an excursus by reason of the great difficulties of research and the paucity of intimate authorities.

The period of 1880 and of the four years immediately succeeding it must always be memorable to us, for it marks a great