15Mar1882, Defending Gladstone

LONDON, March 15th, 1882.
—We dined with Ly. Ashburton. I sat by Mr. Froude, and tho' I can't bear him (his writing proving to me that he doesn't know right from wrong), I expected to find him agreeable. But we unluckily got upon Uncle W., and speaking of his oratory, he praised it, qua oratory alone; saying, "I never read anything of his that was not essentially ordinary! "Well," I said, "Mr. F., I should think you were unique in that opinion among friends and foes," and I asked if he really thought this country could be governed for so many years, off and on, by nothing but the music of eloquence — especially in the line of Budgets. He stuck to his assertion that there was nothing else about him which was not commonplace; and I was that disgusted, that I took refuge with my other neighbour, Lord Something, tho' a sad goose I found him.