This little group includes clever, learned,
metaphysical Mr. Haldane, one of the rising lawyers of his day;
young Sir Edward Grey, sincere, enthusiastic, with a certain gift
for oratory, and helped by a beautiful and clever wife; Mr. Sidney
Buxton, who has perhaps the most distinct genius for practical
work; and finally, though in rather loose attachment to the rest,
Mr. Asquith, brilliant, cynical, cold, clear, but with his eye on
the future. The dominant ideas of this little band tend in the
direction of moderate Collectivism--i.e., of municipal Socialism.
I met my husband for the first time in 1891, at a dinner given by
Peter Flower's brother Cyril. [Footnote: The late Lord Battersea.]
I had never heard of him in my life, which gives some indication
of how I was wasting my time on two worlds: I do not mean this and
the next, but the sporting and dramatic, Melton in the winter and
the Lyceum in the summer. My Coquelin coachings and my dancing-
lessons had led me to rehearsals both of the ballet and the drama;
and for a short time I was at the feet of Ellen Terry and Irving.
I say "short" advisedly, for then as now I found Bohemian society
duller than any English watering-place. Every one has a different
conception of Hell and few of us connect it with flames; but stage
suppers are my idea of Hell and, with the exception of Irving and
Coquelin, Ellen Terry and Sarah Bernhardt, I have never met the
hero or heroine off the stage that was not ultimately dull.
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