Victorian worthies

From time to time he paid visits to friends at Dresden, at Baden, and elsewhere. One year he was sent to Naples on a special mission, another year he was summoned to attend on Queen Victoria, who was visiting Coburg. In 1859 he is lamenting the monotony of existence at Berlin, which he calls 'a Dutch mud canal of a life, without even the tulip beds on the banks'. But when later in that year Lord John Russell, who knew and appreciated his talents, became Foreign Secretary and called on him for frequent reports on important subjects, Morier found solace in work. He was only too willing to put his wide knowledge of the country in which he was serving at the disposal of his superiors at home. He wrote with equal ability on political, agrarian, and financial subjects. That he could take into account the personal factor is shown by the long letter which he wrote in 1861 to Sir Henry Layard, then Political Under-Secretary of State.[44] It contained a masterly analysis of the character and upbringing of King William, showing how his intellectual narrowness had hampered Liberal Governments, while his professional training in the army had made him a most efficient instrument in promoting the aims of Junker politicians and ministers of war.

On Schleswig-Holstein, above all, Morier exerted himself to convey a right view of the question to those who guided opinion in London, whether newspaper editors or responsible ministers. He appealed to the same principle which had won support for the Lombards against Austria. The inhabitants of the disputed Duchies were for the most part Germans, and the Danish Government had done violence to their national sentiment. If England could have extended its sympathy to its northern kinsmen in time, the question might have been settled peacefully before 1862, and Bismarck could never have availed himself of such a lever to overthrow his Liberal opponents. As it was, Prussia ignored the Danish sympathies displayed abroad, especially in the English press, went her own way and invaded the Duchies, dragging in her train Austria, her confederate and her dupe. Palmerston, who controlled our foreign policy at the time, waited till the last moment, blustered, found himself impotent to move without French support, and left Denmark smarting with a sense of betrayal which lasted till 1914. By such bungling Morier knew that we were incurring enmity on both sides and lowering our reputation for courage as well as for statesmanship.

In 1865 he was chosen as one of the Special Commissioners to negotiate a treaty of commerce between Great Britain and Austria. He had always been a Free-trader, and he was convinced that such economic agreements could do much to improve the world and to strengthen the bonds of peace. So he was ready and willing to do hard work in this sphere, and finding a congenial colleague in Sir Louis Mallet, one of the best economists of the day, he spent some months at Vienna in fruitful activity and won the good opinion of all associated with him. For his services he received the C.B. and high commendation from London.

This same year brought promotion in rank, though for long it was uncertain where he would go. In August he accepted the offer of First Secretary to the Legation in Japan, most reluctantly, because he saw his peculiar knowledge of Germany would be wasted there. Ten days later this offer was changed for a similar position at the Court of Greece, which was equally uncongenial; but at the end of the year the Foreign Office decided that he would be most useful in the field which he had chosen for himself, and after a few months at Frankfort he was sent in the year 1866 as chargé d'affaires to the Grand Ducal Court of Hesse-Darmstadt.

From these posts he was destined to be a spectator of the two great conflicts by which Bismarck established the union of North Germany and its primacy in Europe. Morier detested the means by which this end was achieved, but he had consistently maintained that this union ought to be, and could only be, achieved by Prussia, and he remained true to his beliefs. It is a great tribute to his intellectual force that he was able to control his personal sympathies and antipathies, and to judge passing events with reference to the past and the future. He had liked the statesmen whom he had met at Vienna, and he recognized their good faith in the difficult negotiations of 1865. But for the good of Europe, he thought the Austrian Government should now look eastwards. It could not do double work at Vienna and at Frankfort. The impotence of the Frankfort Diet could be cured only by the North Germans, and the aspirations of good patriots, from Baden to the Baltic, had been for long directed towards Prussia. But it was no easy task to make people in England realize the justice of this view or the certainty that Prussia was strong enough to carry through the work. Led by The Times, the British Press had grown accustomed to use a contemptuous tone towards Prussia; and when in the decisive hour this could no longer be maintained, and British sentiment, as is its nature, declared for Austria as the beaten side, this sentiment was attributed at Berlin to the basest envy. Relations between the two peoples steadily grew worse during these years, despite the efforts of Morier and other friends of peace.

The Franco-German war brought even greater bitterness between Prussia and Great Britain. The neutrality, which the latter power observed, was misunderstood in both camps; and the position of a British diplomat abroad became really unpleasant. Morier in particular, as a marked man, knew that he was subject to spying and misrepresentation, but this did not deter him from doing his duty and more than his duty. He took measures to safeguard those dependent on him, in case Hesse came into the theatre of war. He organized medical aid for the wounded on both sides. He took a journey in September into Alsace and Lorraine to ascertain the feeling of the inhabitants, that he might give the best possible advice to his Government if the cession of these districts became a European question. He came to the conclusion that Alsace was not a homogeneous unit—that language, religion, and sentiment varied in different districts, and that it was desirable to work for a compromise. But Bismarck was determined in 1870, as in 1866, that the settlement should remain in his own hands and that no European congress should spoil his plans. Morier found that he was being talked of at Berlin as 'the enemy of Prussia', and atrocious calumnies were circulated. One of these was revived some years later when Bismarck wished to discredit him, and Bismarckian journals accused him of having betrayed to Marshal Bazaine military secrets which he discovered in Hesse. Morier obtained from the Marshal a letter which clearly refuted the charge, and he gave it the widest publicity. The plot recoiled on its author, and Morier was spoken of in France as 'le grand ambassadeur qui a roulé Bismarck'. Yet all the while, with his wife a strong partisan of France, with six cousins fighting in the French Army, with his friends in England only too ready to quarrel with him for his supposed pro-German sentiments, he was appealing for fair judgement, for reason, for a wise policy which should soften the bitterness of the settlement between victors and vanquished. Facts must be recognized, he pleaded, and the French claim for peculiar consideration and their traditional amour propre must not be allowed to prolong the miseries of war. At the same time Morier did not close his eyes to the danger arising from the overwhelming victories of the German armies. No one saw more clearly the deterioration which was taking place in German character, or depicted it in more trenchant terms. But it was his business to work for the future and not to let sentiment bring fresh disasters upon Europe.

Apart from this critical period, life at Darmstadt bored him considerably. His presence there was valued highly by Queen Victoria, one of whose daughters had married the Grand Duke; but Morier felt himself to be in a backwater, far from the main stream of European politics, and society there was dull. So he welcomed in 1871 his transference first to Stuttgart, and a few months later to Munich, the capital of the second state in the new Empire and a great centre of literary culture. Here lived Dr. Döllinger, historian and divine, a man suspected at Rome for his liberal Catholicism even before his definite severance from the Roman Church, but honoured everywhere else for the width and depth of his knowledge. With him Morier enjoyed many conversations on Church councils and other subjects which interested them both; and in 1874, lured by the prospect of such society, Gladstone paid him a visit of ten days. Morier did not admire Gladstone's conduct of foreign policy, but he was open-minded enough to recognize his great gifts and to enjoy his company, and he writes home with enthusiasm about his conversational powers. A still more welcome visitor in 1873 was Jowett, his old Oxford friend, who never lost his place in Morier's affections.

Among these delights he retained his vigilance in political matters, and there was often need for it, since the German Government was now developing that habit of 'rattling its sword', and threatening its neighbours with war, which disquieted Europe for another forty years. The worst crisis came in 1875, when Morier heard on good authority that the military clique at Berlin were gaining ground, and seemed likely to persuade the Emperor William to force on a second war, expressly to prevent France recovering its strength. In general the credit for checking this sinister move is given to the Tsar; but English influences played a large part in the matter. Morier managed to catch the Crown Prince on his way south to Italy and had a long talk with him in the railway train. The Crown Prince was known to be a true lover of peace, but capable of being hoodwinked by Bismarck; once convinced that the danger was real (and he trusted Morier as he trusted no German in his entourage), he returned to Berlin and threw all his weight into the scale of peace. Queen Victoria also wrote from London; and, in face of a possible coalition against them, the Germans decided that it was wisest to abstain from all aggression.

A new period opened in his life when he left German courts, never to return officially, and became the responsible head of Her Majesty's Legation at the Portuguese Court. His five years spent at Lisbon cannot be counted as one of his most fruitful periods, despite 'the large settlement of African affairs', which Lord Granville tells us that Morier had suggested to his predecessors in Whitehall. For the big schemes which he planned he could get no continuous backing at home, either in political or commercial circles. For the petty routine England hardly needed a man of such outstanding ability. Of necessity his work consisted often in tedious investigation of claims advanced by individual Englishmen, whether they were suffering from money losses or from summary procedure at the hands of the Portuguese police. Of the diplomatic questions which arose many proved to be shadowy and unreal. Something could be done, even in remote Portugal, to improve Anglo-Russian relations by a minister who had friends in so many European capitals. The politics of Pio Nono and the Papal Curia often find an echo in his correspondence. Here, too, as elsewhere, the intrigues of Germany had to be watched, though Morier was sensible enough to discriminate between the deliberate policy of Bismarck and the manœuvres of those whom he 'allowed to do what they liked and say what they liked—or rather to do what they thought he would like done, and say what they thought he would like said—and then suddenly sent them about their business to ponder in poverty and disgrace on the mutability of human affairs'. In a passage like this Morier's letters show that he could distinguish between a lion and his jackals, between 'policy' and 'intrigue'.

Had it not been for Germany and German suggestions, Portuguese politicians would perhaps have been free from the fears which loomed darkest on their horizon—the fears of an 'Iberian policy' which Spain was supposed to be pursuing. In reality the leading men at Madrid knew that they had little to gain by letting loose the superior Spanish army against Portugal and trying to form the whole peninsula into a single state. Morier, at any rate, made it clear that England would throw the whole weight of her power against such treatment of her oldest ally. But alarmist politicians were perpetually harping on this string, and Morier, in a letter written in 1876, compares them to 'children telling ghost-stories to one another who have got frightened at the sound of their own voices, and mistake the rattling of a mouse behind the wainscot for the tramping of legions on the march'.

To Morier it seemed that the important part of his work concerned South Africa, in which, at the time, Portugal and Great Britain were the European powers most interested. It was in 1877 that Sir Theophilus Shepstone annexed the Transvaal, and many people, in Europe and Africa, were talking as if this must lead to the expropriation of the Portuguese at Delagoa Bay. Morier himself was as far as possible from the imperialism which would ride rough-shod over a weaker neighbour. In fact, he pleaded strongly for British approval of the pride which Portugal felt in her traditions and of her desire to cling to what she had preserved from the past. Once break this down, he said, and we should see Portuguese dominions put up for auction, and England might not always prove to be the highest bidder. Friendly co-operation, joint development of railways, and commercial treaties commended themselves better to his judgement, and he was prepared to spend a large part even of his holidays in England in working out the details of such treaties. He studied the people among whom he was, and did his best to lead them gently towards reforms, whether of the slave-trade or other abuses, on lines which could win their sympathy. He appealed to his own Foreign Office to abstain from too many lectures, and to make the most of cases in which the Portuguese showed promise of better things. 'This diet of cold gruel', he says in 1878, 'must be occasionally supplemented by a cup of generous wine, or all intimacy must die out.' Again in 1880, he asks for a K.C.M.G. to be awarded to a Governor-General of Mozambique, who had done his best to observe English wishes in checking the slave-trade. 'Perpetual admonition', he says, 'and no sugar plums is bad policy'—a maxim too often neglected when our philanthropy outruns our discretion.

When Morier was promoted in 1881 to Madrid, he used the same tact and geniality to lighten the burden of his task. No seasoned diplomatist took the politics of Madrid too seriously. Though the political stage was bigger, it was often filled by actors as petty and grasping as those of Lisbon. The distribution to their own friends of the 'loaves and fishes' was, as Morier says, the one steady aim of all aspirants to power; and measures of reform, much needed in education, in commerce, in law, were doomed to sterility by the factiousness of the men who should have carried them out. In the absence of principles Morier had to study the strife of parties, and his correspondence gives us lively pictures of the eloquent Castelar, the champion of a visionary Republic, the harsh, domineering Romero y Robledo, at once the mainstay and the terror of his Conservative colleagues, and the cold, egotistic Liberal leader Sagasta, whose shrewdness in the manipulation of votes had always to be reckoned with. The constitution given in 1876 had entirely failed to establish Parliament on a democratic basis. For this the bureaucracy was responsible. The Home Office abused its powers shamelessly, and by the votes of its functionaries, and of those who hoped to receive its favours, it could always secure a big majority for the Government of the moment. For the three years which Morier spent at Madrid, he recounts surprising instances of the reversal of electoral verdicts within a short space of time.

The King was popular and deserved to be so, for his personal qualities of courage, intelligence, and public spirit; but his position was never secure. There was a bad tradition by which at intervals the army asserted its power and upset the constitution. Some intriguing general issued a pronunciamiento, the troops revolted, and the Central Government at Madrid, having no effective force and no moral ascendancy, gave way. Parliament had little stability. Cabinets rose and vanished again; the same eloquent but empty speeches were made, and the same abuses remained unchanged.

But before now a spark from Spain had set the Continent ablaze. The past had bequeathed some questions which, awkwardly handled, might cause explosions elsewhere, and it was well to know the character of those who had the key to the powder magazine. More than once Morier was approached on the delicate question of the admission of Spain to the council of the Great Powers. In Egypt, where so many foreign interests were involved, and where Great Britain suffered, in the 'eighties, from so many diplomatic intrigues, Spain might easily find an opening for her ambitions. She might advance the plea that the Suez Canal was the direct route to her colonies in the Philippines. Germany, for ulterior ends, was encouraging Spanish pretensions; but, to the British, Spain with its illiberal spirit scarcely seemed likely to prove a helpful fellow-worker. Morier had to try to convince Spanish ministers that Great Britain was their truer friend while refusing them what they asked for; and in such interviews he had to know his men and to touch the right chord in appealing to their prejudices or their patriotism. The English tenure of Gibraltar was also a perpetual offence to Spanish pride. Irresponsible journalists loved to expatiate on it when they had no more spicy subject to handle. On this, as on all questions affecting prestige only, Morier was tactful and patient. When they should come within the range of practical politics, he could take a different tone. But he knew that more serious dangers were arising in Morocco, where the weakness of the Sultan's rule was tempting European powers to intervene, and he laboured to maintain peace and goodwill not only between his own country and Spain, but also between Spain and France. The common accusation that the English are not 'good Europeans' was pre-eminently untrue in his case. He realized that the interests of all were bound up together, and used his influence, which soon became considerable, to remove all occasions of bitterness in the European family, being fully aware that at Berlin there was another active intelligence working by hidden channels to keep open every festering sore.

Morier was fertile in expedients when ministers consulted him, as we see notably on the occasion of King Alfonso's tour in 1883. Before the King started, the newspapers had been writing of it as a 'visit to Berlin', though it was intended to be a compliment to the heads of various states. To allay the sensitiveness of the French, Morier suggested to the Foreign Secretary that the King should make a point of visiting France first; but, owing to the ineptitude of President Grévy, this suggestion was rendered impracticable. When the King did visit Paris, after a sojourn at Berlin, where he received the usual compliment of being made titular colonel of a Prussian regiment, a terrible scene ensued by which Morier's sagacity was justified. The King was greeted with cries of 'à bas le Colonel d'Uhlans', and was hissed as he passed along the streets; only his personal tact and restraint saved the two Governments from an undignified squabble. He was able to give a lesson in deportment to his hosts and also to satisfy the resentful pride of his fellow-countrymen. The whole episode shows how individuals can control events when the masses can only become excited; kings and diplomats may still be the best mechanics to handle the complicated machinery on which peace or war depends. Alfonso XII died in November 1885, soon after Morier's departure for another post, but not before he had testified to the high esteem in which our Minister had been held in Spain.

From Madrid he might have passed to Berlin. The British Government had only one man fit to replace Lord Ampthill (Lord Odo Russell), who died in 1884. Inquiries were made in Berlin whether it was possible to employ Morier's great knowledge at the centre of European gravity, but Bismarck made it quite clear that such an appointment would be displeasing to his sovereign. It was believed by a friend and admirer of both men that, if Bismarck and Morier could have come to know one another, mutual respect and liking would have followed; but magnanimity towards an old enemy, or one whom he had ever believed to be such, was not a Bismarckian trait, and it is more probable that all Morier's efforts would have been thwarted by misrepresentation and malignity.

Instead he was sent to St. Petersburg, where he took up his duties as Ambassador in November 1885. Here he had to deal with bigger problems. The affray at Penjdeh, when the Russians attacked an Afghān outpost and forcibly occupied the ground, had, after convulsing Europe, been settled by Mr. Gladstone's Government. Feeling did not subside for some years, but for the moment Asiatic questions were not so serious as the conflict of interests in the Balkan peninsula. The principality of Bulgaria created by the Congress of Berlin was the focus of the 'Eastern question'—that is, the question whether Russia, Austria, or a united Europe led by the Western powers, was to preside over the dissolution of Turkey. Bulgaria certainly owed its existence to Russian bayonets; in her cause Russian lives had been freely given; and this formed a real bond between the two nations, more lasting than the effect of Mr. Gladstone's speeches, to which English sentimentalists attached such importance. But the Bulgarians have often shown an obstinate tendency to go their own way, and their politicians were loath to be kept in Russian leading-strings. Their last act, in 1885, had been to annex the Turkish province of Eastern Roumelia without asking the consent of the Tsar. At the moment they could safely flout the Sultan of Turkey, their nominal suzerain; but diplomatists doubted whether they could, with equal safety, ignore the Treaty of Berlin and the wishes of their Russian protector. The path was full of pitfalls. The Austrian Government was on the watch to embarrass its great Slavonic rival; English statesmen were too anxious to humour Liberal sentiment as expressed at popular meetings; Russian agents on the spot committed indiscretions; Russian opinion at home suspected that Bulgaria was receiving encouragement elsewhere, and the air was full of rumours of war.

Across this unquiet stage may be seen to pass, in the lively letters which Morier sent home, the figures of potential and actual princes of Bulgaria, of whom only two deserve mention to-day. The first, Alexander of Battenberg, member of a family which enjoyed Queen Victoria's special favour, had been put forward at the Berlin Congress, and justified his choice in 1885 by repelling the Serbian Army and winning a victory at Slivnitza. He had won the attachment of his subjects but had incurred the hatred of the Tsar, and the tone of his speeches in 1886 offended Russian sentiment. Two years after Slivnitza, in face of intrigues and violence, he abandoned the contest and abdicated. The second is Ferdinand of Coburg, whose tortuous career, begun in 1887, only ended with the collapse of the Central Powers in 1918. He was put forward by Austria and supported by Stambuloff, the dictatorial chief of the Bulgarian ministry. For years the Russian Government refused to recognize him, and it was not till 1896 that he came to heel, at the bidding of Prince Lobanoff, and made public submission to the Tsar. But, first and last, he was only an astute adventurer of no little vanity and of colossal egotism, and such sympathies as he had for others beside himself went to Austria-Hungary, where he owned landed property, and had served in the army. He was also displeasing to orthodox Russia as a Roman Catholic, and in Morier's letters we see clearly the mistrust and contempt which Russians felt for him.

With an autocrat like Alexander III, secretive and obstinate, these personal questions became very serious. Ambitious generals might anticipate his wishes, Russian regiments might be on the march before the Ministers knew anything, and Europe might awake to find itself over the edge of the precipice.

Morier's own attitude can best be judged from the letters which he exchanged with Sir William White, our able ambassador to the Porte, who was frankly anti-Russian in his views. At first he put his trust in strict observance of the Treaty of Berlin, and wished that Prince Alexander would consent to restore the status quo ante (i.e. before the change in Eastern Roumelia); but although a stout upholder of treaties, he admitted as a second basis for settlement 'les vœux des populations', on which the modern practice of plebiscites is founded. The peasants of Eastern Roumelia were clearly glad to transfer their allegiance from the Sultan to the Prince. Also the successes achieved by Prince Alexander in so soon welding together Bulgaria and Eastern Roumelia had to be recognized as altering the situation. In fact, Morier's position was nearer to that of 1919 than to the old traditions in vogue a century earlier, and would commend itself to most English Liberals. But, as an ambassador paid to watch over British interests, he was guided by expediency rather than by sentiment. These interests, he was convinced, were more vitally affected in Central Asia than in the Balkans. He believed that, if British statesmen would recognize Russia's peculiar position in Bulgaria, the advance of Russian outposts towards India might be stayed, and the two great powers might work together all along the line. But, to effect this, national jealousies must be allayed and an understanding established. Morier had to interpret at St. Petersburg speeches of English politicians, which often sounded more offensive there than in London: he also had to watch and report to London the unofficial doings and sayings of the aggressive Pan-Slavist party, who might at any moment undermine the Ministry.

Foreign policy was in the hands of de Giers, an enlightened, pacific minister, who lacked, however, the courage to face his master's prejudices and had little authority over many of his own subordinates. De Nelidoff, at Constantinople, dared even to make himself the centre of diplomatic intrigue directed against the policy of his chief. Still less was de Giers able to control the strong Pan-Slavist influences which ruled in the Church, the Home Office, and the Press. Morier gives interesting portraits of Pobedonóstsev, the bigoted procurator of the Holy Synod, of Tolstoy the reactionary Minister of the Interior, of Katkoff the truculent editor of the Moscow Gazette. These were the most notable of the men who flouted the authority, thwarted the work, and undermined the position of the Tsar's nominal adviser, and often they carried the day in determining the attitude of the Tsar himself. Yet Morier was bound by his own honesty and by the traditions of British diplomacy to do business with de Giers alone, to receive the assurances of one who was being betrayed by his own ambassadors, to make his protests to one who could not effectively remedy the grievances. His difficulty was increased by de Giers's manner—'when getting on to slippery ground he has a remarkable power of speaking only half intelligibly and swallowing a large proportion of his words'. Morier was often conscious that he was building on sand; but in quiet weather it was possible to stem the flood for a while even with dikes of sand. Perhaps a little later the tide of Balkan troubles might be setting in another direction and the danger might be past. In Russia, where so much was incalculable, it was wise to make the most of such help as presented itself. Meanwhile the Russian Ambassador in London, Baron de Staäl, co-operated as loyally with Lord Salisbury as Morier with de Giers; and thanks to their diplomatic skill, rough places were smoothed away and bases of agreement were found. In the course of 1887, the smouldering fires of Anglo-Russian antagonism died down, and Russia adopted a waiting attitude in Bulgaria.

But this happy result was not attained till after Asiatic problems had given rise to serious alarms. The worst moment was in July 1886, when the Tsar suddenly proclaimed, contrary to the Treaty of Berlin, that the port of Batum was closed to foreign trade. His point of view was characteristic. His father had, autocratically, expressed in 1878 his intention to open the port; this had been done, and it had proved in practice a failure; as a purely administrative act, he (Alexander III) now declared the port closed, et tout était dit. But naturally foreign merchants resented the injury to their trade, and insisted on the sanctity of treaties. The Berlin Government, as usual, left to Great Britain all the odium incurred in making a protest, and the other Continental powers were equally silent. Morier asserted the British case so strongly that he roused even de Giers to vehemence; but when he saw that protests would avail nothing, he advised his Government to cut the loss and to avoid further bitterness. He reminded them that Russia had given way in Bulgaria, where the British point of view had prevailed, and that they must not expect her to submit to a second diplomatic defeat. Besides, a quarrel between Russia and Great Britain would only benefit a third party, ready enough to avail himself of it. Harmony was preserved, but the risk of a breach had been very great, and feeling was not improved by Russian activity at Sebastopol, where the Pan-Slavists were acclaiming the new birth of the Black Sea fleet. The death of Katkoff in 1887, and of Tolstoy in 1889, with the advent of more Liberal ministers, strengthened de Giers's hands; and during his later years, though he often needed great vigilance and tact, Morier was not troubled by any crisis so severe.

The Grand Cross of the Bath, which he received in 1887, was a fitting reward for the services he had rendered to England and to Europe in this anxious time. He never lost heart or despaired of a peaceful solution.

At bottom, as he often repeats, Russia was not ready for big adventures—was, in fact, still suffering from lassitude after the war of 1878, 'like an electric eel which, having in one great shock given off all its electricity, burrows in the mud to refill its battery, desiring nothing less than to come again too soon into contact with organic tissue'.

Apart from la haute politique and the conflicts between governments, Morier's own compatriots were giving him plenty to do. A few instances will illustrate the variety of the applications which reached the Embassy. Captain Beaufort requests a special permit to visit Kars and its famous fortifications. Mr. Littledale asks for a Russian guide to help him in an ascent of Mount Ararat. Father Perry, S.J. (the Jesuits were specially obnoxious to the Holy Synod), wishes to observe a solar eclipse only visible in Russia. Another traveller, Mr. Fairman, is summarily arrested near Rovno where the Tsar's visit is making the police unduly brisk for the moment. Morier procures him a prompt apology; but, not content with this, the Englishman now thinks himself entitled to a personal audience with the Tsar and the gift of some decoration to compensate him, which suggestion draws a curt reply from the much-vexed ambassador. But he was always ready to help a genuine explorer, whether it was Mr. de Windt in Trans-Caucasia or Captain Wiggins in the Kara Sea. To the latter, in his efforts to establish trade between Great Britain and Siberia by the Yenisei river, Morier lent most valuable aid, and he is proud to report the concessions which he won for our merchants in a new field of commerce.

Meanwhile he found occasion to cultivate friendships with Russians and foreign diplomats of all kinds. Of the more important he sends home interesting sketches to his superiors in Whitehall, Vischnegradsky, the 'wizard of finance', who raised the value of the rouble 30 per cent., became one of his intimate friends. When that ambiguous figure, Witte, his rival and successor, tried to discredit him, Morier vindicated with warmth the honesty and patriotism of his friend. Baron Jomini of the Foreign Office was of a different kind, witty, volatile, audaciously outspoken, more like a character in Thackeray's novels. Pobedonóstsev, the Procurator of the Holy Synod, remained 'somewhat of an enigma'—as we can easily believe when we hear that this bigoted Churchman, the terror of the Jews, had been a friend of Dean Stanley, and was still fond of English literature and English theology.

Still more amusing are the stories which he tells of foreign visitors of high station—of the Duke of Orleans playing truant without the knowledge of his parents and being snubbed by his Grand Ducal relatives; of Dalīp Singh touring the provinces with a disreputable entourage and trying to make trouble for the British at Moscow; of the Prince of Montenegro and his beautiful daughters, whom Morier heartily admires—'tall and massive, strong-limbed and comely, the true type of the mothers of heroes in the Homeric sense'.

With the Court his relations were excellent. His intimacy with members of our own royal family helped him, and his geniality and unconventional, natural manner won favour with the Romanoffs, who retained in their high station a great deal of simplicity. More than once Morier seized an opportunity for an act of special courtesy to the Tsar; and Alexander appreciated this from a man whose character was too well known for him to be suspected of obsequiousness.

But the life in St. Petersburg was not all pleasure, even when diplomatic waters were quiet. The work was hard, the climate was very exacting with its extremes of temperature, and epidemics were rife. In November 1889 he reports the appearance of 'Siberian Catarrh, more usually described under the general name of Influenza', which was working havoc in girls' schools and guardsmen's barracks, and had laid low simultaneously Emperor, Empress, and half the imperial family. Morier himself became increasingly liable to attacks of ill-health, and found difficulty in discharging his duties regularly. It required a keen sense of duty for him to stay at his post; and when in December 1891 he was appointed to the Embassy at Rome, he was very willing to go. But public interest stood in the way. He had made for himself an exceptional place at St. Petersburg. No one could be found to replace him adequately, and the Tsar expressed a desire that his departure should be postponed. He consented to stay on, and the next two years of work in that climate, together with the death in 1891 of his only son, broke his spirit and his strength. Too late he went in search of health, first to the Crimea and then to Switzerland. Death came to him as the winter of 1893 was approaching, when he was at Montreux on the Lake of Geneva, close to the home of his ancestors.

The impression which he made on his friends and colleagues is clear and consistent, and the ignorance of the general public about men of his profession justifies a few quotations. Sir Louis Mallet brackets him with Sir James Hudson[45] and Lord Cromer as 'the most admirable trio of public servants he had known'. Sir William White speaks of him and Odo Russell as 'two giants of the diplomatic service'. Lord Acton, who knew Europe as well as any Foreign Minister, and weighed his words, refers to him in 1884 as 'our only strong diplomatist', and again 'as a strong man, resolute, ready, well-informed and with some amount of real resource'. More than one Foreign Secretary has borne testimony to the value of Morier's dispatches; and Sir Charles Dilke, who, without holding the portfolio himself, often shaped our foreign policy and was an expert in European questions, is still more emphatic about his intellectual powers, though he thinks that Morier's imperious temper made him 'impossible in a small place'. Sir Horace Rumbold,[46] in his Recollections, has many references to him, especially as he was in earlier years. He speaks of Morier's 'prodigious fund of spirits that made him the most entertaining, but not always the safest, of companions'; 'of his imperious, not over-tolerant disposition'; 'of the curious compound that he was of the thoughtless, thriftless Bohemian and the cool, calculating man of the world'; of his 'exceptionally powerful brain and unflagging industry'. Elsewhere he recalls Morier's journeys among the Southern Slavs, in which he opened up a new field of knowledge, and adds, 'since then he has made himself a thorough master of German politics, and is, I believe, one of the few men whom Prince Bismarck fears and correspondingly detests'.

Jowett's testimony may perhaps be discounted as that of an intimate friend; yet he was no flatterer, and as he often criticized Morier severely, it is of interest to read his deliberate verdict, given in 1873, that 'if he devoted his whole mind to it, he could prevent a war in Europe'. Four years earlier Jowett had been told by a diplomatist whom he respected, 'Morier is the first man in our profession'.

By those who still remember him, Morier is described as a diplomatist of 'the old school'. His noble presence, his courtly manner, and the dignity which he observed on all ceremonial occasions, would have qualified him to adorn the court of Maria Theresa or Louis Quatorze. This dignity he could put off when the need for it was past. Among his friends his manner was vivacious, his talk racy, his criticism free. He was of the old school, too, in being self-confident and independent, and in believing that he would do his best work if there were no telegraph to bring frequent instructions from Whitehall. But he had not the natural urbanity of Odo Russell, nor the invariable discretion of Lord Lyons. He had hard work to discipline his imperious temper, and by no means always succeeded in masking his own feelings. Perhaps too high a value has been set on impenetrable reserve by those who have modelled themselves on Talleyrand. By their very candour and openness some British diplomatists have gained an advantage over rivals who confound timidity with reserve, and have won a peculiar position of trust at foreign courts. In dealing with de Giers, Morier at any rate found no need to mumble or swallow his words. He was sure of himself and of his honourable intentions. On one occasion, after reading to that minister the exact words of the dispatch which he was sending to London, he stated his policy to him categorically. 'I always went', he said, 'upon the principle, whenever it could be done, of clearing the ground of all possible misunderstandings at the earliest date.' Probably we shall never see the end of 'secret diplomacy', whether under Tory, Liberal, or Labour governments; but this is not the tone of one who loves secrecy for its own sake.

In many ways Morier combined the qualities of the old and the new schools. Though personally a favourite with kings and queens, he was fully alive to the changes in the Europe of the nineteenth century, where, along with courts and cabinets, other more unruly forces were at work. His visit to Paris in 1848 showed his early interest in popular movements, and he maintained a catholic width of view in later life. He knew men of all sorts and kept himself acquainted with unofficial currents of opinion. He could talk freely to journalists or to merchants, could put them at their ease and get the information which he wanted. His comprehensiveness was remarkable. The strife of politicians in the foreground did not blur the distant landscape. In Russia, behind Balkan intrigues and Black Sea troubles he could see the cloud of danger overhanging the Pamirs. In Spain or Portugal he was watching and forecasting the possibilities of the white races in Africa. So his dispatches, varied and vivacious as they were, proved of the greatest value to Foreign Secretaries at home, and furnish excellent reading to-day.

In these dispatches a few Gallicisms occur; and in writing to an old friend like Sir William White he uses a free mixture of French and English with other ingredients for seasoning. But in general the literary style is admirable. He has a rare command of language, a most inventive use of metaphor, a felicitous touch in sketching a character or an incident. Towards those working under him he was exacting, setting up a high standard of industry, but he was generous in his praise and very ready to take up the cudgels for them when they needed support. In commending one of them, he selects for special praise 'his old-fashioned conscientiousness about public work and his subordination of private comfort'. He inherited this tradition from his own family and his faithfulness to it cost him his life.

Above all, we feel in reading these letters and memoranda that here is a man whose aim is truth rather than effect—not thinking of commending a programme to thousands of half-informed readers or hearers, in order to win their votes, but giving counsel to his peers, Odo Russell or Sir William White, Lord Granville or Lord Salisbury, on events and tendencies which affect the grave issues of peace and war and the lives of thousands of his fellow-countrymen. This generation has learnt how unsafe it is to treat these in a parliamentary atmosphere where men force themselves to believe what they wish and close their eyes to what is uncomfortable. While human nature remains the same, democracy cannot afford to deprive itself of such counsel or to belittle such a profession.

JOSEPH LISTER

In a corner of the north transept of Westminster Abbey, almost lost among the colossal statues of our prime ministers, our judges, and our soldiers, will be found a small group of memorials preserving the illustrious names of Darwin, Lister, Stokes, Adams, and Watt, and reminding us of the great place which Science has taken in the progress of the last century. Watt, thanks partly to his successors, may be said to have changed the face of this earth more than any other inhabitant of our isles; but he is of the eighteenth century, and between those who developed his inventions it is not easy to choose a single representative of the age. Stokes and Adams command the admiration of all students of mathematics who can appreciate their genius, but their work makes little appeal to the average man. In Darwin's case no one would dispute his claim to represent worthily the scientists of the age, and his life is a noble object for study, single-hearted as he was in his devotion to truth, persistent as were his efforts in the face of prolonged ill-health. No better instance could be found to show that the highest intellectual genius may be found united with the most endearing qualities of character. Kindly and genial in his home, warmly attached to his friends, devoid of all jealousy of his fellow scientists, he lived to see his name honoured throughout the civilized world; and many who are incapable of appreciating his originality of mind can find an inspiring example in the record of his life. There is no need to make comparisons either of fame, of mental power, or of character; but the choice of Lister may be justified by the fact that his science, the science of Health and Disease, is one of absorbing interest to all men, and that with his career is bound up the history of a movement fraught with grave issues of life and death from which few families have been exempt.

About these issues bitter controversies have raged; but it is to the lesser men that the bitterness is due. By his family traditions, as well as by his natural disposition, Lister was a man of peace; and though he left the Society of Friends at the time of his marriage, he retained a respect for their views which accorded well with his own nature. When he had to speak or write on behalf of what he believed to be the truth, it was from no motive of self-assertion or combativeness. He had the calm contemplative mind of the student, whereas Bright, the Quaker tribune, the champion of Repeal, had all the fervour of the man of action. Lister's family had been Quakers since the beginning of the eighteenth century; and at this time too they moved from Yorkshire to London, where his grandfather and father were engaged in business as wine merchants. But Joseph Jackson Lister, who married in 1818, and became in 1827 the father of the famous surgeon, was much more than a merchant. He had taught himself the science of optics, had made improvements in the microscope, and had won his way within the sacred portals of the Royal Society. Letters have been preserved which show us how keen his interest in science always remained, and with what full appreciation he entered into the researches which his son was making as professor at Glasgow in the middle of the century. A father like this was not likely to grudge money on the boy's education; but for the Friends many avenues to knowledge were still closed, including the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. He had to be content to go successively to Quaker schools at Hitchin and Tottenham, and from the latter to proceed, at the age of seventeen, to University College, London, which was non-sectarian. There the teaching was good, the atmosphere favourable to industry, and Lister was not conscious of hardship in missing the delights of youth that fell to his more fortunate contemporaries.

His father lived in a comfortable house at Upton, some six miles east of London Bridge, in a district now completely swamped by the growth of the vast borough of West Ham. He kept up close relations with other Quaker families living in the neighbourhood, especially the Gurneys of Plashets. In their circle the most striking figure was Elizabeth Fry, who from 1813 to her death in 1843 devoted herself unsparingly to the cause of prison reform. From his home the father continued to exercise a strong influence over his son, who was industrious and serious beyond his years.

From his father Lister learned as a boy to delight in the use of the microscope. He learned also to use his own power of observation, and to make hand and eye work together to minister to his studies. The power of drawing, which the future surgeon thus early developed, stood him in good stead later in life; and it is interesting to contrast his enjoyment of it with the laments made by his great contemporary Darwin, who felt keenly what he lost through his inability to use a pencil and to preserve the record of what he saw in nature or in the laboratory. Lister's school-days were over when he was seventeen years old and there is nothing remarkable to tell of them; but his period at University College was unusually prolonged. He was a student there for seven years and continued an eighth year, after he had taken his degree, as Acting House Surgeon. In 1848, half-way through his time, a physical breakdown was brought on by overwork, just as he was finishing his general studies; but a long holiday enabled him to recover his strength, and before the end of the year he had begun the course of medical studies which was to be his life-work.

At school his record had been good but not brilliant, nor did he come quickly to the front in London. His mind was not of the sort which can be forced to produce untimely fruit in the hot-house of examinations. But his education was both extensive and thorough; it formed an excellent general training for the mind and a good basis for the special studies in which he was later to distinguish himself. He had been at University College for two years before he gained his first medal; but by 1850 he had made his name as the best man of his year, capable of upholding the credit of his College against any rival in the metropolis. Among his fellow students the best known in later years was Sir Henry Thompson, whose portrait by Millais hangs in our National Gallery. Among his professors one stands out pre-eminent, alike for his character and for his influence on Lister's life. This was William Sharpey, Professor of Physiology, an original man with a keen eye for originality in others. In days when most English professors were content with a narrow empirical training, he had trudged with his knapsack over half Europe in quest of knowledge, had studied in France, Switzerland, Italy, and Austria, and had made himself acquainted at first hand with the best that was taught in their schools. He was a first-rate lecturer, clear and simple, and took much pains to get to know his pupils. When Lister had held for a short time the post of Acting House Surgeon at University College Hospital, and needed to make definite plans for his career, it was Sharpey who advised him to go north for a while and attend some classes in Edinburgh before deciding on his course. Thus it was Sharpey who introduced him to Scotland and to Syme.

Before we speak of the latter, a few words must be given to the year 1851, when Lister completed his studentship and became for a time an active member of the hospital staff. This year was important as introducing him to the practice of his art under the direction of Erichsen, an Anglo-Dane and one of the foremost surgeons in London. It also led to a change in his way of living, to his being thrown into closer relations with men of his own age, and to his taking a more lively part in social gatherings. What we hear of the essays that he wrote at school, what we can read of his early letters, all harmonizes with our conception of a Quaker upbringing. There is a staid primness about him, which contrasts strangely with the pictures of medical students presented to us in the pages of Dickens. Capable though he was of enjoying a holiday, or of expanding among congenial associates, Lister was not quick to make friends. He was apt to keep too much to himself; and he seems to have inspired respect and even a certain awe among men of his own age. In his youth men noticed the same grave mien, steadfast eyes, and lofty intellectual forehead which are conspicuous in his later portraits. He was steady in conduct, serious in manner, precise in his way of expressing himself; and while these qualities helped him in the mental application which was so necessary if he was to profit by his student days, he needed a little shaking up in order to adapt himself to the ways of other men in the sphere of active life. This was given him by the constant activities of the hospital, and by the demands which the various societies made upon him; but he did not allow them to interfere with his own researches, for which he could find time when others were overwhelmed by the routine of their daily tasks.

His first bit of original research is of special interest because it connects him with his father's work. He made special observations with the microscope of the muscular tissue of the iris of the eye, illustrated his paper by delicate drawings of his own, and published it in the leading microscopical journal. This and a subsequent paper on the phenomena of 'Goose-skin' attracted some attention among physiologists at home and abroad, and brought him into friendly relations with a German professor of world-wide reputation. They also gave great satisfaction to his father and to his favourite teacher Sharpey.

But Lister's development henceforth was to take place on Scottish ground, and his visit to Edinburgh in 1853 shaped the whole course of his career. James Syme, under whose influence he thus came, was the most original and brilliant surgeon then living in the British Isles, perhaps in all Europe. His merits as a lecturer were somewhat overshadowed by his extraordinary skill as an operator; but he was a remarkable man in all ways, and the fact that Lister was admitted, first to his lecture-room and operating theatre, and then to his home, was without doubt the happiest accident in his life.

The atmosphere of Edinburgh with its large enthusiastic classes in the hospitals, its cultivated and intellectual society outside, supplied just what was wanted to foster the genius of a young man on the threshold of his career. In London, centres of culture were too widely diffused, indifference and apathy too prevalent, conservatism in principles and methods too strongly entrenched. In his new home in the north Lister could watch the boldest operator in his own profession, and could daily meet men scarcely less distinguished in other sciences, and as a visitor to Syme's house he was from time to time thrown among able men following widely different lines in life. Above all, here he met one who was peculiarly qualified to be his helper; and three years later, at the age of twenty-nine, he was married to Agnes Syme, the daughter of his chief, to whom he had been attracted, as can be seen from the letters which passed between Edinburgh and Upton, soon after his arrival in the north. Before this event, he had already made his mark as Resident House Surgeon, as assistant operator to Syme, and also as an independent lecturer under the liberal system which gave an opening to all who could establish by merit a claim to be heard. He had also begun those researches into the early stages of inflammation which, ten years later, were to bear such wonderful fruit. It was a full and busy life, and the distraction of courtship must have made it impossible for him at times to meet all demands; but after 1856 his mind was set at rest and his strength doubled by the sympathy which his wife showed in his work, and by the help which she was able to render him in writing to his dictation.

For their honeymoon they took a long journey on the Continent in the summer of 1856; but half, even of this rare holiday, was given to science, and, after some weeks' enjoyment of the beauties of Italy, husband and wife made the tour of German universities, as he was desirous to see something, if possible, of the leading surgeons and the newest methods. Vienna, Dresden, Berlin, Munich, Frankfort, Heidelberg, and Stuttgart were all included in the tour. They were well received, and at Vienna the most eminent professor of Pathology in the University gave more than three hours of his time to showing his museum to Lister, and also invited the young couple to dine at his house. Though he had not yet made a name for himself, Lister's earnestness and intelligence always made a favourable impression; and as he had taken pains with foreign languages in his youth, he was able, now and later in life, to address French and German friends, and even public meetings, in their native tongue. He came back to find work waiting for him which would tax his energies to the full. In October 1856 he was elected Assistant Surgeon to the Infirmary, and now, in addition to lecturing, he had to conduct public operations himself, whereas he had hitherto only acted as Syme's assistant. This was at first a severe trial for his nerves. That it affected him differently from most experienced surgeons is shown by the fact that he used always, all his life, to perspire freely when starting to operate; but he learnt to overcome this nervousness by concentrating his attention on his work. He was not a man who had religious phrases on his lips; but in letters to his family, quoted by Sir Rickman Godlee, he gives us the secret of his confidence and his power. 'Yesterday', he says in a letter written to his father on February 26, 'I made my début at the hospital in operating before the students. I felt very nervous before beginning; but when I had got fairly to work, this feeling went off entirely, and I performed both operations with entire comfort.' A week later, in a letter to his sister, he returns to the subject. 'The theatre was again well filled; and though I again felt a good deal before the operation, yet I lost all consciousness of the presence of the spectators during its performance, and did it exactly as if no one had been looking on. Just before the operation began I recollected that there was only one Spectator whom it was important to consider, one present alike in the operating theatre and in the private room; and this consideration gave me increased firmness.' Interest in the work for its own sake, forgetfulness of himself, these were to be the key-notes of his life-work.

As yet, to a superficial observer, there were not many signs of a brilliant career ahead of him. His private practice was small and did not grow extensively for many years. The attendance at his earlier course of lectures was discouragingly meagre. This would have been more discouraging still, had not his dressers, from personal affection for him, made a point of attending regularly to swell the number of the class. Indeed, in view of the exacting demands made on him by the hospital, Lister might have been content to follow the ordinary routine of his profession. With his wife at his side and friends close at hand, he had every chance of living a useful and happy life. But he still found time to conduct experiments and to think for himself. His researches were continued along the line which he had opened up in 1855, and in 1858 he appeared before an Edinburgh Surgical Society to read a paper on Spontaneous Gangrene.

This gave Mrs. Lister an opportunity to show her value. All his life Lister was prone to unpunctuality and to being late with preparations for his addresses, not because he was indifferent to the convenience of others or careless about the quality of his teaching, but because he became so engrossed in the work of the moment that he could not tear himself away from it so long as any improvement seemed possible. This same quality made him slow over his hospital rounds and often over operations, with the result that his own meal-times were most irregular and his assistants often had trouble to stay the pangs of hunger. This handicapped him in private practice and in some measure as a lecturer. He gave plenty of thought to his subjects, but rarely began to put thoughts in writing sufficiently in advance of his engagement. When he was in time with his written matter the credit was chiefly due to his wife. On the occasion of this paper she wrote for seven hours one day and eight hours the next, and her heroic industry saved the situation.

Towards the end of 1859 Lister decided to be a candidate for the Surgical Professorship at Glasgow, which appointment was in the gift of the Crown; and in spite of some intrigues to secure the patronage for a local man, the post was offered by the Home Secretary, Sir George Lewis, to the young Edinburgh surgeon. Syme's opinion and influence no doubt counted for much. Lister's appointment dated from January 1860, but it was not till a year and a half later that his position in Glasgow was assured by his being elected Surgeon to the Royal Infirmary. Before this he could preach his principles in the lecture-room, but he had little influence on the practice of his students and colleagues. Thanks to the reputation which he brought from Edinburgh, his first lecture drew a full room, and his class grew year by year till it reached the unprecedented figure of 182, and each year the enthusiasm seemed to rise. But in the hospital he had an uphill task, as any one will know who has studied the history of these institutions in the first half of the century.

To-day the modern hospital is an object of general admiration, with its high standard of cleanliness and efficiency; and few of us would have any hesitation if a doctor advised us to go into hospital for an operation. Seventy or a hundred years ago the case was very different; and when we read the statistics of the early nineteenth century, gathered by the surgeons who had known its horrors, it is hard to believe that we are not back among the worst abuses of the Middle Ages. Such terrible scourges as pyaemia and hospital gangrene were rife in all of them. In the chief hospital of Paris, which for centuries claimed pre-eminence for its medical faculty, the latter disease raged for 200 years without intermission: 25 per cent. of those entering its doors were found to have died, and the mortality after certain operations was more than double this figure. Erichsen, who published in 1874 the statistics of deaths after operations, quoted 25 per cent. in London as satisfactory, and referred to the 60 per cent. of Paris as not surprising. In military practice the number of deaths might reach the appalling figure of 80 or 90 per cent. What was so tragic about this situation was that it was precisely hospitals, built to be the safeguard of the community, which were the most dangerous places in the case of wounds and amputations. In 1869 Sir James Simpson, the famous discoverer of chloroform, collected statistics of amputations. He took over 2,000 cases treated in hospitals, and the same number treated outside. In the former 855 patients (nearly 43 per cent.) died, as it seemed, from the effects of the operation; in the latter only 266 cases (over 13 per cent.) ended fatally. He went so far as to condemn altogether the system of big hospitals; and under his influence a movement began for breaking them up and substituting a system of small huts, which, whether tending to security or not, was in other ways inconvenient and very expensive. About the same time certain other reforms, obvious as they seem to us since the days of Florence Nightingale, were tried in various places, tending to more careful organization and to greater cleanliness; but till the cause of the mischief could be discovered, only varying results could be obtained, and no real victory could be won. Hence a radical policy like Simpson's met with considerable support. In days when many surgeons submitted despairingly to what they regarded as inevitable, it was an advantage to have any one boldly advocating a big measure; and Simpson had sufficient prestige in Edinburgh and outside to carry many along with him. But before 1869 another line of attack had been initiated from Glasgow, and Lister was already applying principles which were to win the battle with more certainty of permanent success.

Glasgow was no more free from these troubles than other great towns; in fact it suffered more than most of them. With its rapid industrial development it had already in 1860 a population of 390,000. Its streets were narrow, its houses often insanitary. In the haste to make money its citizens had little time to think of air and open spaces. The science of town-planning was unborn. Its hospital, far from having any special advantage of position, was exposed to peculiar dangers. It lay on the edge of the old cathedral graveyard, where the victims of cholera had received promiscuous pit-burial only ten years before. The uppermost tier of a multitude of coffins reached to within a few inches of the surface. These horrors have long been swept away; but, when Lister took charge of his wards in the Infirmary, they were infected by the poisonous air generated so close at hand, and in consequence they presented a gruesome appearance. The patients came from streets which often were foul with dirt, smoke, and disease, and were admitted to gloomy airless wards, where pyaemia or gangrene were firmly established. In such an environment certain death seemed to await them.

Though his heart must have sunk within him, Lister set himself bravely to the task of fighting these grim adversaries. For two years, indeed, he was chiefly occupied with routine work and practical improvements; but he continued his speculations, and in 1861 an article on amputations which he contributed to the System of Surgery, a large work in four volumes published in London, showed that he had not lost his power of surveying questions broadly and examining them with a fresh and original insight. He was not in danger of letting his mind be swamped with details, but could put them in their place and subordinate them to principles; and his article is chiefly directed to a philosophical survey which would enable his readers to go through the same process of education which he had followed out for himself. Sir Hector Cameron, the most constant of his Glasgow disciples, once illustrated this philosophic spirit from a passage in Cicero contrasting the many scientists who 'render themselves familiar with the strange' (not realizing that it is strange or needs explanation) with the few who 'render themselves strange to the familiar'—who stand away from the phenomena to which every one has become too accustomed and examine them afresh for themselves. In Lister he recognized the peculiar gift which enabled him to rise superior to his subject, and to interpret what was to his colleagues a sealed book. In these days, among the too familiar scourges of the hospital, his work was perpetually putting questions to him; to a man whose mind was open the answer might come at any moment and from any quarter.

As a fact, already, far from his own circle and for a long while out of his ken, there was working in France the most remarkable scientist of the century, Louis Pasteur, who more than once put his scientific ability at the disposal of a stricken industry, and in his quiet laboratory revived the industrial life of a teeming population. A manufacturer who was confronted with difficulties in making beetroot-alcohol and was threatened with financial ruin, appealed for his help in 1856; and Pasteur spent years on the study of fermentation, making countless experiments to test the action of the air in the processes of putrefaction, and coming to the conclusion that the oxygen of the air was not responsible for them, as was widely believed. He went further and reached a positive result. He satisfied himself that putrefaction was set up by tiny living organisms carried in the dust of the air, and that the process was due to what we now familiarly term 'germs' or 'microbes'. The existence of these infinitesimal creatures was known already to scientists, but their importance was not grasped till Pasteur, in the years 1862 to 1864, expounded the results of his long course of studies. He himself was no expert in medicine, but his discovery was to bear wonderful fruit when it was properly applied to the science of health and disease. Lister's study of open wounds, his observation of the harm done to the tissues in them when vitality was impaired, and of the value of protective scabs when they formed, enabled him to see the way and to point it out to others. When in 1865 he first read the papers which Pasteur had been publishing, he found the principle for which he had so long been searching. With what excitement he read them, with what suddenness of conviction he accepted the message, we do not know; he has left no record of his feelings at the time: but it was the most important moment in his career, and the rest of his life was spent in applying these principles to his professional work.

With his mind thus fortified by the knowledge of the true source of the mischief, realizing that he had to assist in a battle between the deadly germs carried in the air and the living tissues trying to defend themselves, Lister returned afresh to the study of methods. He knew that he had to reckon with germs in the wound itself, if the skin was broken, with germs on the hands and instruments of the operator, and with germs on the dust in the air. He must find some defensive power which was able to kill the germs, at least in the first two instances, without exercising an irritating effect on the tissues and weakening their vitality. The relative importance of these various factors in the problem only time and experience could tell him. Carbolic acid had been discovered in 1834 and had already been tried by surgeons with varying results. At Carlisle it had been used by the town authorities to cope with the foul odour of sewage, and Lister visited the town to study its operation. In its cruder form carbolic proved only too liable to irritate a wound and was difficult to dissolve in water. Lister tried solutions of different strengths, and finally arrived at a form of carbolic acid which proved to be soluble in oil and to have the 'antiseptic' force which he desired—that is, to check the process of sepsis or putrefaction inside the wound. He also set himself to devise some 'protective' which would enable Nature to do her healing work without further interference from without. Animals have the power to form quickly a natural scab over a wound, which is impermeable and at the same time elastic. The human skin, after a slight wound, in a pure atmosphere, may heal quickly; but a serious wound may continue open for a long time, discharging 'pus' at intervals, while decomposition is slowly lowering the vitality of the patient. Lister made numerous experiments with layers of chalk and carbolic oil, with a combination of shellac and gutta-percha, with everything of which he could think, to imitate the work of nature. His inexhaustible patience stood him in good stead in all these practical details. Rivals might speak contemptuously of the 'carbolic treatment' and the 'putty method' as if he were the vender of a new quack medicine; but at the back of these details was a scientific principle, firmly grasped by one man, while all others were groping in the dark.

lord lister
From a photograph by Messrs. Barraud

During 1866 and 1867 we see from his letters how he set himself to apply the new principle first to cases of compound fracture and then to abscesses, how closely and anxiously he watched the progress of his patients, and how slow he was to claim a victory before his confidence was assured. In July 1867, when he was just forty years old, he felt it to be his duty to communicate what he had learnt and to put his experience at the disposal of his fellow workers. He wrote then to The Lancet describing in detail eleven cases of compound fracture under his care, in which one patient had died, one had lost a limb, and the other nine had been successfully cured. This ratio of success to failure was far in advance of the average practice of the time; but, for all that, it is not surprising that he met with the common fate which rewards pioneers in new fields of study. It is true that other reforms were helping to reduce the number of fatal cases. Florence Nightingale had led the way, and much had been learnt about hospital management. It was possible to maintain that good results had been achieved by other methods, and that Lister's proofs were in no way decisive. But there was no need for critics to misapprehend the nature of his claims or to introduce the personal element and accuse him of plagiarism. Sir James Simpson revived the memory of a Frenchman, Lemaire, who had used carbolic acid and written about it in 1860, and refused to give Lister any credit for his discoveries. As a fact Lister had never heard of Lemaire or his work; and, besides, the Frenchman had never known the principles on which Lister based his work, nor did he succeed in converting others to his practice. How little the personal question need be raised between men of the highest character is shown by the relations of Darwin and Wallace, who arrived independently and almost simultaneously at their theory of the origin of species, Wallace put his notes, the fruit of many years of work, at the disposal of Darwin; and both continued to labour at the establishment of truth, each giving generous recognition to the other's part in the work.