(_From Lady Gregory._)

Coole, _Sep._ 20, 1883 (received in Egypt). I am very glad you will stay in Egypt, even long enough to let in a little ray of light on what is going on. Moberly Bell is really excelling himself just now. I don’t know if you have missed his accounts of the triumphal progress of the “amiable and virtuous” (Tewfik). I am delighted at it, because, as I wrote to Chenery, no one can say it is necessary to keep troops in the country to keep up so popular a ruler! The account of the prisons also would have been entertaining if they were not revolting—so many poor wretches kept there for months and years, and then the door is opened and they are shut up again, after having been allowed to kiss Moberly’s boots! I am afraid Clifford Lloyd, the new “Adviser,” won’t be an acquisition. I don’t know him, but by all accounts he is ambitious, pretentious, and autocratic. He kept the country quiet here by driving the whole population of a town into prison, on suspicion, and his photograph reminds me of Colvin. There is not much to say of Ireland, for there is a strange lull in the agitation of the last few years. The people for the moment are busy with the harvest, and I fancy Parnell is trying to keep things as quiet as possible until the next session, when Gladstone has, I believe, promised him a very large measure of Home Rule, much more than his colleagues approve of . . . I hope Arabi’s election will take place, so that we may put M.P. after his name in future. I hope they will think also of electing you, and that you will become the Randolph of debate in the Cairo House of Commons. What a farce the whole thing is! It will be as before. The wretched Notables will be left alone until they speak of the Budget, and then will be gagged.

_Oct._ 4. Sir William writes to me from London that you are credited with having gone to India with the intention of overturning English supremacy and establishing Mohammedan rule and rapine throughout the Peninsula. So I think you have still a chance of Tower Hill! Kinglake especially has been lamenting over you.

_Oct._ 17. Thank you for your letter from Suez. It gave me great pleasure to hear of the success of your visit (to Cairo), for I call it a success having seen so many of your friends, and learned that the Khedive’s state is so hopeless. I was pretty sure Baring would not do much for you; he has only just begun, and has not yet realized the difficulty of his position, and I am sure the Government here are trusting to him now as their last hope of helping them out of their mess, and won’t take any new line till he fails. I am glad the poem (“The Wind and the Whirlwind”) is to be published. It will make a more lasting impression than any prose could do, and ever since it was written I have felt it was pure waste of steam power keeping it shut up. Sir William is very much struck with it, and I feel it must convert the world. If this should reach you in Ceylon do homage to Arabi for me.

_Nov._ 13. I see Moberly Bell takes Gladstone’s announcement of the withdrawal of the troops calmly, as they will be quite as effective at Alexandria, and easy to bring back at a moment’s notice. None the less, I shall be glad when they are out of Cairo. I hate the idea of ever seeing them there, and perhaps the Khedive may think they are really going to let him be his own master, and commit some atrocity which Gladstone will have to notice, and which will give England an excuse to let him topple over.

_December_ 18. Your letter in the “Times” (from Colombo) appeared the same day I heard from you. Sir William tells me to say how extremely good he thinks it. The time has nearly come when you will be appealed to, the mess is so great, and the bankruptcy of the country seems within measurable distance, and, indeed, is the first thing to hope for, and every one is so much at sea about the Soudan, and all the philanthrophists will be down on the Government for allowing Zebehr, the king of the slave-dealers banished by Gordon, to be sent back at the head of an army. It will be just the thing for those benevolent beings—Randolph and Labouchere—to take up.

_Jan._ 10, 1884. I saw in the “Times” that you had arrived and been warmly received at Calcutta. I wonder how Colvin received you. I think the time has come when you are wanted in Egypt. Dicey goes there to-day, a fellow passenger of Sir William’s (on his way to Ceylon), evidently to help to form the Nubar-Dicey Ministry, which I have always looked forward to as the last possible combination before Arabi’s return. I am glad old Sherif has gone. We shan’t hear much more of his enlightened policy! If you could find any Nationalists in Egypt who would dare to lift up their voice and call for Arabi’s return, I believe the English Radicals would take up the cry. Both Labouchere and Randolph are speaking out like men, but they must have some support from Egypt. Sir William sails to-day for Colombo. He writes from London that Hayward is very ill, shut up in his room and hardly expected to recover. Kinglake says of him: “He is too weak to hold his cards at whist, but not too weak to d—— his partner.” I am sorry Chinese Gordon goes to the Congo instead of the Nile.

_August_ 1. Many thanks for the printed correspondence, which is full of interest. I have been looking over your letters to me of last year, and have copied the only passage relating to Mr. Hamilton or Knowles, which I enclose. I would lay as little stress as possible on the encouragement you had from Downing Street, as the G.O.M. is capable of denying everything, and as much as possible on the incontrovertible fact of your threatened arrest. I hope the debate will come on soon. I was sure Mohammed Abdu would create a good impression, between his graceful dress and his graceful manner, which recalled Arabi’s. Mind you cultivate Parnell, now you have broken the ice. He will be a great power in the next Parliament, and his support will be worth a good deal.

(Extract enclosed.) “_Sep._ 3, 1883. Both Knowles and Button encourage me to try the elections, and say that Baring is sure to be delighted to see me, and will perhaps help. It appears he has _carte blanche_ to make another new policy for the Government, and as he is one of Lord Ripon’s strongest supporters in India, it is supposed that he will favour Arabi’s return, or, at any rate, the restoration of a National Party in some form or other.”

(Second extract enclosed) _Sep._ 21. “Everything up to the moment has gone most prosperously. The morning we left I got a note from Mr. Hamilton asking to see me before I went, and I accordingly went, after nearly a year’s absence to Downing Street, and found him very amiable. I told him exactly what I was going to do, and he approved and said he was sure Baring would be very pleased to see me, and that he would write to Lord Ripon’s private secretary to do all he could for me in India. About Egypt I told him I should try and get Baring to restore the National Party, but unless he would help me it was quite useless my trying, and I should not stay in Egypt. So I shall know as soon as I get to Cairo whether it is possible or not. I am certain Gladstone wants to restore, but wants to have his hand forced by a manifestation of popular desire in Egypt.”

(_From Sir William Gregory._)

Coole, _Aug._ 24, 1884. I have read with great interest Mohammed Abdu’s replies to his interviewer. They are very valuable, and would be ten times more so if anything could pierce the crust of our English stupidity and self-complacency. But we have made up our minds that the Egyptians whom we have been bombarding and slaughtering ought to love us, and that if they don’t it is their perversity, which only time and subjection can remove. I shall be at Dalmeny on the 27th, and I daresay Gladstone will speak to me about Egypt, but he has made up his mind about it, that all the troubles of Egypt are due to military mutineers of whom Arabi was the instigator; that Tewfik is a virtuous and enlightened young prince to whom the honour of England is pledged, and that to secure him as Khedive the exile of Arabi and his friends must be maintained. You know how intolerant he is of a difference of opinion. So I daresay he will not allow me even to make an observation from a different point of view. I do not see how Arabi is to return, but I am of opinion, were he permitted to do so, it would be possible to establish a fairly decent Government in Egypt, a far better one than ours has been, and which would, at all events, suit the governed.

(_From Sir William Gregory._)

Coole, _Oct._ 5. Your second Indian article (on Race Hatred) is admirable, and I fear too true. I had no idea things were as bad as you describe, and I much fear there is little hope of improvement. The only chance is the personal character of the Viceroy and publicity. I wish our newspapers would take up the subject. The English second and third- class women are, as you say, the worst offenders. They are generally below their husbands, who are elevated by education and responsibility, and make themselves odious by their vulgarities and pretentions. The treatment of natives in Ceylon is very different. There the civil servants are generally very courteous and friendly with them, and there is no doubt that a most kindly feeling subsists between the races. It is not so, however, universally; in Colombo and Kandy the planters and merchants’ clerks give themselves most offensive airs to natives, but in the purely native districts the relations are excellent. I hear from Indians that the contrast is remarkable, like going into another hemisphere. Still things are not as they ought to be. A young man of high native family constantly goes to Oxford and Cambridge, and is there received as a friend and an equal, is asked to all parties, and shares in all amusements. When he returns to Ceylon he is not tabooed, it is true, but he knows he is looked down upon as an inferior by merchants’ clerks and planters, probably sons of pastrycooks and ladies’ maids. This I always endeavoured to combat, and Sir Arthur Gordon is doing the same. Mere civility and want of rudeness is not enough. A native gentleman should be made to feel that you regard him as your equal, in short, as an Englishman. He thoroughly understands and resents condescending civility. I am going to write to Dufferin, and to recommend your article to him.

The chances for Arabi and his friends are not encouraging. I should like to see National bankruptcy proclaimed as an answer to French threats.

(_From Lady Gregory._)

Coole, _March_ 29, 1885.—I wish a better fight could have been made on the Egyptian Convention. My only hope for Egypt now is in the Mahdi. Osman Digna seems to be profiting by all the good advice the “Times” has been giving him as to the best mode of fighting.

_April_ 14. We came here a little too soon and the landscape looked as hard and dry as a Hobbema, but it is now as soft and mysterious as a Corot. We spent last week in Dublin to manifest our loyalty. The Royal visit has been so far a “great success”—that is to say, the “foreign invaders” and also Lord Spencer were cheered through the streets all through Dublin. Whether that means much I can’t say; it is an excitable population and I saw a man who walked through the cleared space carrying two large band boxes cheered as much as anyone. “St. Patrick’s Day,” when played at the laying of a foundation stone, was cheered more than all; but the Prince was equal to the occasion and waved his hat as if it was meant for him. The Princess looked very pretty and not more than five-and-twenty at the ball in her white dress and diamonds. The ball the prettiest sight I ever saw. . . . I feel as if I had seen a crystallization of the pomps and vanities of the wicked world. Enough of that for a long time.

As an antidote I spent to-day in visiting some of our own poor people. It is the best part of living in Ireland that they are always bright and amusing and intelligent and witty. One old woman asked me to come and see an old man. “He was a real gentleman,” she said, “if I asked him for five or seven shillings he never said, ‘I haven’t it,’ and if he went out to cut his corn he never raised his back till the sun went down.” She also told me, “If I had a little pig, I’d be in Heaven.” Another, I hope meaning a compliment, said she had at first sight taken me for the priest’s sister and was going to say, “How’s Father Considine?” Then, when she recognized me, “Aren’t we happy to have such a plain lady?” You will be tired of Ireland if I write any more.

_May_ 5.—What a terrible indictment your letter is against the Government, and how well deserved! Sir William desires me to say he goes with you in every word of it, which he does not always do. How ignominiously the whole affair is ending! It’s a comfort to think Wolseley won’t have a triumphal procession down Piccadilly this time. I am very anxious to know what Randolph advises you and what you make up your mind to about Parliament. I believe you would get in as a Tory Democrat easily enough. You could hit hard enough at the Government to please an English mob which enjoys hard-hitting as a substitute for prize fights. The only good thing that has reached me about the Prince’s visit is that one spectator at his entry was heard to say to his neighbours, “I see a good many Radical hats in the crowd.” “I suppose,” said the other, “a Radical hat is a hat without a crown.”

_May_ 15. Very many thanks for the sonnets and your long letter. I knew you would be jubilant at the retreat and guessed you had been working for it. What pleases me most is thinking of Lord Wolseley having to eat his speech about the “hundred years,” and also to think what a “cheer- up” this ignominious campaign must be to Arabi in Ceylon. It was delightful your sending the sonnets to Gladstone.

_June_ (?). I suppose any change must be good (alluding to the change of Government), and yet I don’t think the G. O. M. has been sufficiently punished for his evil deeds. I hope Randolph will hold to his present principles, as far as the East is concerned, but the politician in and out of power is generally as different as the patient Turkish peasant and the tyrannical Turkish Pasha. As for you, you will never be able to support any Government, but will always be in opposition.

_June_ 19. Randolph for India! I can think of nothing else; it amuses me so much the idea of Colvin’s face when he hears it, and Lord Dufferin taking his orders from him, and Lord Reay, who went out in the strength of Gladstone’s name. Will he be able to do any good, I wonder? One must never expect too much of people in office. Was it not delightful Arabi being cheered at St. James’s Hall? It is rather hard being so far away from all the excitement.

_July_ 21. I thought I recognized B.’s hand in the account of Wolseley’s reception. What a parade would have been made if he had brought Gordon back! Lord Wolseley and Baring have told a friend of mine that they look on Drummond-Wolff’s appointment as disastrous for Egypt, which makes me hopeful, as do the letters (in the “Times”) of the “Twenty years Resident in Egypt,” in which one finds the flavour of Moberly Bell—“only the old sea-serpent done up again.”

_August_ 14. I think you ought to write a sonnet on the Mahdi’s death. The central idea about him to me is that he is the only man of the nineteenth century who is known by his deeds and not at all by his words. I wrote some lines myself, with which I herewith present you, but not expecting compliments:

SONNET ON THE MAHDI’S DEATH

The Guide of Islam, silent, strong, world-known,

Looked for peace won through battle’s bloody fame,

His brave, rash adversary now o’erthrown

Who blindly in the tyrant’s livery came.

His ally, his foe’s enemy, the Sun

Had struck as if in scorn the parting host,

The task that made a nation almost done,

A people freed but at most cruel cost.

But hardly had he viewed the promised land

When blasting sickness came and struck him low,

And a scarred face was his and failing hand

Who was so mighty but an hour ago,

And a hushed army round the dim tent stood

Wherein their Chief gave up his sword to God.

Write the sonnet yourself and use my last two lines, which I confess to thinking good, and publish it in your name. I have a feeling that something ought to be done to dignify the Mahdi’s memory, such efforts have been made to vulgarize it.