an
nature--what _is_ the key to the mysterious hold of this play on
the world's mind? I produced my favourite proposition that
_Measure for Measure_ is one of the most modern of all the plays;
the profound analysis of Angelo and his moral catastrophe, the
strange figure of the duke, the deep irony of our modern time in
it all. But I do not think he cared at all for this sort of
criticism. He is too healthy, too objective, too simple, for all
the complexities of modern morbid analysis.

Talked of historians; Lecky's two last volumes he had not yet
read, but--had told him that, save for one or two blots due to
contemporary passion, they were perfectly honourable to Lecky in
every way. Lecky, said Mr. G., "has real insight into the motives
of statesmen. Now Carlyle, so mighty as he is in flash and
penetration, has no eye for motives. Macaulay, too, is so caught
by a picture, by colour, by surface, that he is seldom to be
counted on for just account of motive."

He had been reading with immense interest and satisfaction
Sainte-Beuve's _History of Port Royal_, which for that matter
deserves all his praise and more, though different parts of it are
written from antagonistic points of view. Vastly struck by
Saint-Cyran. When did the notion of the spiritual director make
its appearance in Europe? Had asked both Doellinger and Acton on
this curious point. For his own part, he doubted whether the
office existed before the Reformation.

_J. M._--Whom do you reckon the greatest Pope?

_Mr. G._--I think on the whole, Innocent III. But his greatness was
not for good. What did he do? He imposed the dogma of
transubstantiation; he is responsible for the Albigensian
persecutions; he is responsible for the crusade which ended in the
conquest of Byzantium. Have you ever realised what a deadly blow
was the ruin of Byzantium by the Latins, how wonderful a fabric
the Eastern Empire was?

_J. M._--Oh, yes, I used to know my Finlay better than most books.
Mill used to say a page of Finlay was worth a chapter of Gibbon:
he explains how decline and fall came about.

_Mr. G._--Of course. Finlay has it all.

He tried then to make out that the eastern empire was more
wonderful than anything done by the Romans; it stood out for
eleven centuries, while Rome fell in three. I pointed out to