Ramsgate, 21 July 1874 

11 Abbot’s Hill 
Dear Moor, 

Last Friday” evening I received out of the blue a letter from 
Gumpert posted in London, he has gone there to have an 

@ William I -> 17 July 

operation and asked us to visit him when it is all over (Saturday). I 
telegraphed and wrote to him at once’ and have received a reply 
today saying that the operation went off all right and that he 
hopes to be up again in a few days. Depending on what he says in 
his next letter, I shall visit him either this week or early next, 
when I have to be in London on business and to fetch Pumps. 

I hope that your head has finally given in to the sea air and has 
ceased to rebel. 

The Carlists have indulged in the pleasure of shooting a 
Prussian officer. So the Prussian fleet can go off there and take its 
revenge without delay, instead of blockading you in Ryde. It seems 
obvious that one way or the other the Prussians will come into 
conflict with Spain. In the meantime, Bismarck is putting his 
injured wrist to good use.” There will certainly be new legislation 
on the press, assembly, associations, etc. 

I fear that you are deceived in William.’ I suspect that from now 
on he will regard it as one of the chief duties of all his ministers to 
take all bullets upon themselves in peacetime, in accordance with 
the Constitution. The only aspect of constitutionalism that he takes 
seriously. 

Friend Dizzy” will probably want to become a minority minister 
once more now that his crack-brained squires have compelled him, 
perhaps for the first time in English history, actually to revoke two 
parliamentary measures passed by his predecessors: the school 
business and now the Endowed Schools Commission.” The jackasses 
don’t know what they are doing by overturning the traditional 
unassailability and once-and-for-all establishment of laws which 
have been enacted. This certainly knocks quite a hole in the Old 
English tradition of loyalty. A few more tricks of that sort and this 
Tory Parliament will find itself in quite the same position as the 
Versailles Assembly vis-a-vis the electorate, and it will cling to its 
septennium just as desperately as MacMahon.” 

But what a blockhead that man is! First the Prussian message,° 
and then the abdication of the author of the messacz,’? and now the 
self-same MacMahon begs for a postponement, immediately after 
almost giving the order to charge! I think all this will come to 
nothing, the Assembly will pass contradictory resolutions, will 
adjourn its sessions until the winter, without any result, and will 
then start to go round in circles once again until a majority has 
been created in favour of dissolution. If it achieved anything, it 

a William I-> Benjamin Disraeli -¢ See this volume, p. 23. 

would be a sheer rFiuxe, a lucky shot at billiards, and up to now this 
Assembly hasn’t a single r.uke to its credit. 

What a financier this Magne is, wanting to squeeze even more 
money from already overstrained indirect taxes! And he was the 
financial wizard of the Second Empire! Gambetta really looks very 
dignified in comparison, as he stands there with his big drum with 
which to convert the three men of principle, Blanc, Quinet & Co.! 
And the beaten Italians and the beaten French celebrate the 
‘supremacy of the Latin race’ in Avignon and Arqua over the 
corpse of Petrarch!** While at the same time the German 
philistine revels in the Kulturkampf*’ and his English equivalent 
gets drunk for church and state. Verity the ruling classes are going 
to seed at the same rate everywhere, and even our German 
citizens do not lag behind the times in this respect. 

Best regards. 

Your 
F. E.