), and there through a
glass door he saw Canning and Lord Liverpool talking together.

_Peel._--Had a good deal of temper; not hot; but perhaps sulky. Not a
farsighted man, but fairly clear-sighted. "I called upon him after the
election in 1847. The Janissaries, as Bentinck called us, that is the men
who had stood by Peel, had been 110 before the election; we came back only
50. Peel said to me that what he looked forward to was a long and fierce
struggle on behalf of protection. I must say I thought this foolish. If
Bentinck had lived, with his strong will and dogged industry, there might
have been a wide rally for protection, but everybody knew that Dizzy did
not care a straw about it, and Derby had not constancy and force enough."

Mr. G. said Disraeli's performances against Peel were quite as wonderful
as report makes them. Peel altogether helpless in reply. Dealt with them
with a kind of "righteous dulness." The Protectionist secession due to
three men: Derby contributed prestige; Bentinck backbone; and Dizzy
parliamentary brains.

The golden age of administrative reform was from 1832 to the Crimean War;
Peel was always keenly interested in the progress of these reforms.

_Northcote._--"He was my private secretary; and one of the very best
imaginable; pliant, ready, diligent, quick, acute, with plenty of humour,
and a temper simply perfect. But as a leader, I think ill of him; you had
a conversation; he saw the reason of your case; and when he left, you
supposed all was right. But at the second interview, you always found that
he had been unable to persuade his friends. What could be weaker than his
conduct on the Bradlaugh affair! You could not wonder that the rank and
file of his men should be caught by the proposition that an atheist ought
not to sit in parliament. But what is a leader good for, if he dare not
tell his party that in a matter like this they are wrong, and of course
nobody knew better than N. that they were wrong. A clever, quick man with
fine temper. By the way, how is it that we have no word, no respectable
word, for backbone?"

_J. M._--Character?

_Mr. G._--Well, character; yes; but that's vague. It means will, I suppose.
(I ought to have thought of Novalis's well-known definition of character
as "a completely fashioned will.")

_J. M._--Our inferiority to the Greeks in discriminations of language shown
by our lack of precise equivalents for {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER