The public man needs but one patron; namely, THE LUCKY MOMENT.
"At his house in Carlton Gardens, Guy Darrell, Esq., for the season."
Simple insertion in the pompous list of Fashionable Arrivals! the name
of a plain commoner embedded in the amber which glitters with so many
coronets and stars! Yet such is England, with all its veneration for
titles, that the eyes of the public passed indifferently over the rest
of that chronicle of illustrious "whereabouts," to rest with interest,
curiosity, speculation, on the unemblazoned name which but a day before
had seemed slipped out of date,--obsolete as that of an actor who figures
no more in play-bills. Unquestionably the sensation excited was due,
in much, to the "ambiguous voices" which Colonel Morley had disseminated
throughout the genial atmosphere of club-rooms. "Arrived in London for
the season!"--he, the orator, once so famous, long so forgotten, who had
been out of the London world for the space of more than half a
generation. "Why now? why for the season?" Quoth the Colonel, "He is
still in the prime of life as a public man, and--a CRISIS is at hand!"
But that which gave weight and significance to Alban Morley's hints
was the report in the newspapers of Guy Darrell's visit to his old
constituents, and of the short speech he had addressed to them, to which
he had so slightly referred in his conversation with Alban. True, the
speech was short: true, it touched but little on passing topics of
political interest; rather alluding, with modesty and terseness, to the
contests and victories of a former day. But still, in the few words
there was the swell of the old clarion, the wind of the Paladin's horn
which woke Fontarabian echoes.
It is astonishing how capricious, how sudden, are the changes in value of
a public man. All depends upon whether the public want, or believe they
want, the man; and that is a question upon which the public do not know
their own minds a week before; nor do they always keep in the same mind,
when made up, for a week together. If they do not want a man; if he do
not hit the taste, nor respond to the exigency of the time,--whatever his
eloquence, his abilities, his virtues, they push him aside or cry him
down. Is he wanted? does the mirror of the moment reflect his image?--
that mirror is an intense magnifier--his proportions swell; they become
gigantic. At that moment the public wanted some man; and the instant the
hint was given, "Why not Guy Darrell?" Guy Darrell was seized upon as
the man wanted. It was one of those times in our Parliamentary history
when the public are out of temper with all parties; when recognized
leaders have contrived to damage themselves; when a Cabinet is shaking,
and the public neither care to destroy nor to keep it,--a time too, when
the country seemed in some danger, and when, mere men of business held
unequal to the emergency, whatever name suggested associations of vigour,
eloquence, genius rose to a premium above its market price in times of
tranquillity and tape. Without effort of his own, by the mere force of
the undercurrent, Guy Darrell was thrown up from oblivion into note. He
could not form a Cabinet, certainly not; but he might help to bring a
Cabinet together, reconcile jarring elements, adjust disputed questions,
take in such government some high place, influence its councils, and
delight a public weary of the oratory of the day with the eloquence of
a former race. For the public is ever a /laudator temporis acti/, and
whatever the authors or the orators immediately before it, were those
authors and orators Homers and Ciceros, would still shake a disparaging
head, and talk of these degenerate days as Homer himself talked ages
before Leonidas stood in the pass of Thermopylae, or Miltiades routed
Asian armaments at Marathon. Guy Darrell belonged to a former race. The
fathers of those young members rising now into fame had quoted to their
sons his pithy sentences, his vivid images; and added, as Fox added when
quoting Burke, "But you should have heard and seen the man!"
Heard and seen the man! But there he was again! come up as from a
grave,--come up to the public just when such a man was wanted. Wanted
how? wanted where? Oh, somehow and somewhere! There he is! make the
most of him. The house in Carlton Gardens is prepared, the establishment
mounted. Thither flock all the Viponts, nor they alone; all the chiefs
of all parties, nor they alone; all the notabilities of our grand
metropolis. Guy Darrell might be startled at his own position; but he
comprehended its nature, and it did not discompose his nerves. He knew
public life well enough to be aware how much the popular favour is the
creature of an accident. By chance he had nicked the time; had he thus
come to town the season before, he might have continued obscure, a man
like Guy Darrell not being wanted then. Whether with or without design,
his bearing confirmed and extended the effect produced by his
reappearance. Gracious, but modestly reserved, he spoke little, listened
beautifully. Many of the questions which agitated all around him had
grown up into importance since his day of action; nor in his retirement
had he traced their progressive development, with their changeful effects
upon men and parties. But a man who has once gone deeply into practical
politics might sleep in the Cave of Trophonius for twenty years, and
find, on waking, very little to learn. Darrell regained the level of
the day, and seized upon all the strong points on which men were divided,
with the rapidity of a prompt and comprehensive intellect, his judgment
perhaps the clearer from the freshness of long repose and the composure
of dispassionate survey. When partisans wrangled as to what should have
been done, Darrell was silent; when they asked what should be done, out
came one of his terse sentences, and a knot was cut. Meanwhile it is
true this man, round whom expectations grouped and rumour buzzed, was in
neither House of Parliament; but that was rather a delay to his energies
than a detriment to his consequence.
Important constituencies, anticipating a vacancy, were already on the
look-out for him; a smaller constituency, in the interim, Carr Vipont
undertook to procure him any day. There was always a Vipont ready to
accept something, even the Chiltern Hundreds. But Darrell, not without
reason, demurred at re-entering the House of Commons after an absence of
seventeen years. He had left it with one of those rare reputations which
no wise man likes rashly to imperil. The Viponts sighed. He would
certainly be more useful in the Commons than the Lords, but still in the
Lords he would be of great use. They would want a debating lord, perhaps
a lord acquainted with law in the coming CRISIS,--if he preferred the
peerage? Darrell demurred still. The man's modesty was insufferable;
his style of speaking might not suit that august assembly: and as to law,
he could never now be a law lord; he should be but a ci-devant advocate,
affecting the part of a judicial amateur.
In short, without declining to re-enter public life, seeming, on the
contrary, to resume all his interest in it, Darrell contrived with
admirable dexterity to elude for the present all overtures pressed upon
him, and even to convince his admirers, not only of his wisdom, but of
his patriotism in that reticence. For certainly he thus managed to
exercise a very considerable influence: his advice was more sought, his
suggestions more heeded, and his power in reconciling certain rival
jealousies was perhaps greater than would have been the case if he had
actually entered either House of Parliament, and thrown himself
exclusively into the ranks, not only of one party, but of one section of
a party. Nevertheless, such suspense could not last very long; he must
decide at all events before the next session. Once he was seen in the
arena of his old triumphs, on the benches devoted to strangers
distinguished by the Speaker's order. There, recognized by the older
members, eagerly gazed at by the younger, Guy Darrell listened calmly,
throughout a long field-night, to voices that must have roused from
forgotten graves kindling and glorious memories; voices of those veterans
now--by whose side he had once struggled for some cause which he had
then, in the necessary exaggeration of all honest enthusiasm, identified
with a nation's life-blood. Voices, too of the old antagonists over
whose routed arguments he had marched triumphant amidst applauses that
the next day rang again through England from side to side. Hark! the
very man with whom, in the old battle-days, he had been the most
habitually pitted, is speaking now! His tones are embarrassed, his
argument confused. Does he know who listens yonder? Old members think
so,--smile; whisper each other, and glance significantly where Darrell
sits.
Sits, as became him, tranquil, respectful, intent, scemingly, perhaps
really, unconscious of the sensation he excites. What an eye for an
orator! how like the eye in a portrait; it seems to fix on each other eye
that seeks it,--steady, fascinating. Yon distant members, behind the
Speaker's chair, at the far distance, feel the light of that eye travel
towards them. How lofty and massive, among all those rows of human
heads, seems that forehead, bending slightly down, with the dark strong
line of the weighty eyebrow! But what is passing within that secret
mind? Is there mournfulness in the retrospect? Is there eagerness to
renew the strife? Is that interest in the hour's debate feigned or real?
Impossible for him who gazed upon that face to say. And that eye would
have seemed to the gazer to read himself through and through to the
heart's core, long ere the gazer could hazard a single guess as to the
thoughts beneath that marble forehead,--as to the emotions within the
heart over which, in old senatorial fashion, the arms were folded with so
conventional an ease.