onable people as 'Asian Mysteries,' tall talk, and ambitious
buffooneries."

Lord Derby became more and more Liberal, until in December, 1882, he
joined Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet. Before that decisive step, however,
it became evident in which direction he was tending, and Froude
wrote to Lady Derby on the 5th of March:

"I will call on Tuesday about 5. I have not been out of town, but my
afternoons have been taken up with a multitude of small engagements,
and indeed I have been sulky too, and imagined Lord D. had delivered
himself over to the enemy. But what right have I to say anything
when I am going this evening to dine with Chamberlain? I like
Chamberlain. He knows his mind. There is no dust in his eyes, and he
throws no dust in the eyes of others."

Of the great struggle between Lords and Commons over the franchise
in 1884, Froude wrote to the same correspondent on the 31st of July:

"As to what has happened since I went away, I for my own humble part
am heartily pleased, for it will clear the air. If we are to have
democracy, as I suppose we are, let us go into it with our eyes
open. I don't like drifting among cataracts, hiding the reality from
ourselves by forms which are not allowed either sense or power. That
I suppose to be Lord Salisbury's feeling. I greatly admired his
speech in Cannon Street, which reminded me of a talk I had with him
long ago at Hatfield. If the result is a change in the Constitution
of the House of Lords which will make it a real power, no one will
be more sorry than Chamberlain, whose own wish is to keep it in the
condition of ornamental helplessness. Lord Derby himself can hardly
wish to see the country entirely in the hands of a single
irresponsible Chamber elected by universal suffrage--and of such a
Chamber, which each extension of the suffrage brings to a lower
intellectual level."

The following letter was written from Salcombe just after the
General Election of 1886 and the defeat of Home Rule:

"A Devonshire farmer fell ill of typhus fever once. He had
quarrelled with a neighbour, and the clergyman told him that he must
not die out of charity, and must see the man and shake hands with
him. He agreed. The man came. They were reconciled, and he was going
away again when the sick farmer called him back to the bed-side.
'Mind you,' he said, 'if so be as I get over this here, 'tis to be
as 'twas.'

"I am sorry to see we are taking for granted that we have got over
the scare,