... I’ve just got here from Cheshire, where for days running I’ve had Paradise. 3 lovely girls in the house, a _splendid_ ball room and music always on hand! 3 young Guardsmen there, but I held my own! Dancing till 4 a.m. took it out of me a bit, but it revivified me and I renewed my strength like the Eagle!... I hope the King talked politics with McKenna, who is very acute and would sacrifice himself for the King. Didn’t you think McKenna excellent, the night he dined with me, as to the course the King should pursue? You see he knows so exactly how the Cabinet will be actuated.... There are great risks. Both political sides unscrupulous.... P.S.--Wasn’t it the Emperor Diocletian who doffed the Imperial Purple to plant cabbages? and d--d fine cabbages, no doubt! So don’t blackguard me for leaving the Admiralty of my own free will, to plant roses! * * * * * 1910. _Feb. 18th._ ... Things look ugly.... However, I’m a pure outsider! There will be desperate efforts to supplant Wilson, so I hear from trustworthy quarters. But McKenna will be the real loss to the Navy. The sacred fire of efficiency burns brightly in him! and he’s a born fighter and a good hater, which I love (as Dr. Johnson did) with all my heart. You really _must_ come here when the weather is nicer--it’s lovely! I’ve never known till now what joy there is in Nature. Even beauteous woman fades in the comparison! I’ve just seen the wild swans flying over the Lake! “The world forgetting--By the world forgot!” is appropriate to me now!... I’ve just thought of a lovely Preamble for my approaching “Midshipman’s Vade-Mecum” ... I rather think it’s Blackie, though perhaps not his words: “Four Things for a Big Life I. A great Inspiration II. A great Cause III. A great Battle IV. A great Victory Having got those 4 things then you can preach the Gospel of Rest and Build an Altar to Repose.” * * * * * 1910. _March 14th._ ... I lunched with Asquith, he was _more than cordial!_ How funny it is that I did _infinitely more_ for the Conservatives than for the _Radicals_, and yet the Radicals have given me all I have got and the Conservatives have only given me abuse and calumny! The Radicals gave me my Pension and a Peerage, and yet I increased the Radical estimates nearly ten millions! I decreased the estimates 9 millions and reduced prospective charges by nineteen millions sterling for the Conservatives, and they never lifted even a little finger to help me, _but on the contrary_ have heaped dunghill abuse on me! _How do you explain this?_