ONE OF OUR CONQUERORS
By George Meredith
1897
CONTENTS:
BOOK 1.
I. ACROSS LONDON BRIDGE
II. THROUGH THE VAGUE TO THE INFINITELY LITTLE
III. OLD VEUVE
IV. THE SECOND BOTTLE
V. THE LONDON WALK WESTWARD
VI. NATALY
VII. BETWEEN A GENERAL MAN OF THE WORLD AND A PROFESSIONAL
VIII. SOME FAMILIAR GUESTS.
IX. AN INSPECTION OF LAKELANDS
X. SKEPSEY IN MOTION
XI. WHEREIN WE BEHOLD THE COUPLE JUSTIFIED OF LOVE HAVING SIGHT OF
THEIR SCOURGE
BOOK 2.
XII. TREATS OF THE DUMBNESS POSSIBLE WITH MEMBERS OF A HOUSEHOLD
HAVING ONE HEART
XIII. THE LATEST OF MRS. BURMAN
XIV. DISCLOSES A STAGE ON THE DRIVE TO PARIS
XV. A PATRIOT ABROAD
XVI. ACCOUNTS FOR SKEPSEY'S MISCONDUCT, SHOWING HOW IT AFFECTED
NATALY
XVII. CHIEFLY UPON THE THEME OF A YOUNG MAID'S IMAGININGS
XVIII. SUITORS FOR THE HAND OF NESTA VICTORIA
BOOK 3.
XIX. TREATS OF NATURE AND CIRCUMSTANCE AND THE DISSENSION BETWEEN
THEM AND OF A SATIRIST'S MALIGNITY IN THE DIRECTION OF HIS
COUNTRY
XX. THE GREAT ASSEMBLY AT LAKELAND
XXI. DARTREY FENELLAN
XXII. CONCERNS THE INTRUSION OF JARNIMAN
XXIII. TREATS OF THE LADIES' LAPDOG TASSO FOR AN INSTANCE OF MOMENTOUS
EFFECTS PRODUCED BY VERY MINOR CAUSES
XXIV. NESTA'S ENGAGEMENT
BOOK 4.
XXV. NATALY IN ACTION
XXVI. IN WHICH WE SEE A CONVENTIONAL GENTLE MAN ENDEAVOURING TO
EXAMINE A SPECTRE OF HIMSELF
XXVII. CONTAINS WHAT IS A SMALL THING OR A GREAT, AS THE SOUL OF THE
CHIEF ACTOR MAY DECIDE
XXVIII. MRS. MARSETT
XXIX. SHOWS ONE OF THE SHADOWS OF THE WORLD CROSSING A VIRGIN'S MIND
XXX. THE BURDEN UPON NESTA
XXXI. SHOWS HOW THE SQUIRES IN A CONQUEROR'S SERVICE HAVE AT TIMES TO
DO KNIGHTLY CONQUEST OF THEMSELVES
XXXII. SHOWS HOW TEMPER MAY KINDLE TEMPER AND AN INDIGNANT WOMAN GET
HER WEAPON
XXXIII. A PAIR OF WOOERS
XXXIV. CONTAINS DEEDS UNRELATED AND EXPOSITIONS OF FEELINGS
XXXV. IN WHICH AGAIN WE MAKE USE OF THE OLD LAMPS FOR LIGHTING AN
ABYSMAL DARKNESS
BOOK 5.
XXXVI. NESTA AND HER FATHER
XXXVII. THE MOTHER--THE DAUGHTER
XXXVIII. NATALY, NESTA, AND DARTREY FENELLAN
XXXIX. A CHAPTER IN THE SHADOW OF MRS. MARSETT
XL. AN EXPIATION
XLI. THE NIGHT OF THE GREAT UNDELIVERED SPEECH
XLII. THE LAST
ONE OF OUR CONQUERORS
By George Meredith
1897
BOOK 1.
I. ACROSS LONDON BRIDGE
II. THROUGH THE VAGUE TO THE INFINITELY LITTLE
III. OLD VEUVE
IV. THE SECOND BOTTLE
V. THE LONDON WALK WESTWARD
VI. NATALY
VII. BETWEEN A GENERAL MAN OF THE WORLD AND A PROFESSIONAL
VIII. SOME FAMILIAR GUESTS.
IX. AN INSPECTION OF LAKELANDS
X. SKEPSEY IN MOTION
CHAPTER I
ACROSS LONDON BRIDGE
A gentleman, noteworthy for a lively countenance and a waistcoat to match
it, crossing London Bridge at noon on a gusty April day, was almost
magically detached from his conflict with the gale by some sly strip of
slipperiness, abounding in that conduit of the markets, which had more or
less adroitly performed the trick upon preceding passengers, and now laid
this one flat amid the shuffle of feet, peaceful for the moment as the
uncomplaining who have gone to Sabrina beneath the tides. He was unhurt,
quite sound, merely astonished, he remarked, in reply to the inquiries of
the first kind helper at his elbow; and it appeared an acceptable
statement of his condition. He laughed, shook his coat-tails, smoothed
the back of his head rather thoughtfully, thankfully received his runaway
hat, nodded bright beams to right and left, and making light of the muddy
stigmas imprinted by the pavement, he scattered another shower of his
nods and smiles around, to signify, that as his good friends would wish,
he thoroughly felt his legs and could walk unaided. And he was in the
act of doing it, questioning his familiar behind the waistcoat amazedly,
to tell him how such a misadventure could have occurred to him of all
men, when a glance below his chin discomposed his outward face. 'Oh,
confound the fellow!' he said, with simple frankness, and was humorously
ruffled, having seen absurd blots of smutty knuckles distributed over the
maiden waistcoat.
His outcry was no more than the confidential communication of a genial
spirit with that distinctive article of his attire. At the same time,
for these friendly people about him to share the fun of the annoyance,
he looked hastily brightly back, seeming with the contraction of his
brows to frown, on the little band of observant Samaritans; in the centre
of whom a man who knew himself honourably unclean, perhaps consequently a
bit of a political jewel, hearing one of their number confounded for his
pains, and by the wearer of a superfine dashing-white waistcoat, was
moved to take notice of the total deficiency of gratitude in this kind of
gentleman's look and pocket. If we ask for nothing for helping gentlemen
to stand upright on their legs, and get it, we expect civility into the
bargain. Moreover, there are reasons in nature why we choose to give
sign of a particular surliness when our wealthy superiors would have us
think their condescending grins are cordials.
The gentleman's eyes were followed on a second hurried downward grimace,
the necessitated wrinkles of which could be stretched by malevolence to a
semblance of haughty disgust; reminding us, through our readings in
journals, of the wicked overblown Prince Regent and his Court, together
with the view taken of honest labour in the mind of supercilious luxury,
even if indebted to it freshly for a trifle; and the hoar-headed
nineteenth-century billow of democratic ire craved the word to be set
swelling.
'Am I the fellow you mean, sir?' the man said.
He was answered, not ungraciously: 'All right, my man.'
But the balance of our public equanimity is prone to violent antic
bobbings on occasions when, for example, an ostentatious garment shall
appear disdainful our class and ourself, and coin of the realm has not
usurped command of one of the scales: thus a fairly pleasant answer, cast
in persuasive features, provoked the retort:
'There you're wrong; nor wouldn't be.'
'What's that?' was the gentleman's musical inquiry.
'That's flat, as you was half a minute ago,' the man rejoined.
'Ah, well, don't be impudent,' the gentleman said, by way of amiable
remonstrance before a parting.
'And none of your dam punctilio,' said the man.
Their exchange rattled smartly, without a direct hostility, and the
gentleman stepped forward.
It was observed in the crowd, that after a few paces he put two fingers
on the back of his head.
They might suppose him to be condoling with his recent mishap. But,
in fact, a thing had occurred to vex him more than a descent upon the
pavement or damage to his waistcoat's whiteness: he abominated the
thought of an altercation with a member of the mob; he found that
enormous beat comprehensible only when it applauded him; and besides
he wished it warmly well; all that was good for it; plentiful dinners,
country excursions, stout menagerie bars, music, a dance, and to bed:
he was for patting, stroking, petting the mob, for tossing it sops,
never for irritating it to show an eye-tooth, much less for causing it
to exhibit the grinders: and in endeavouring to get at the grounds of his
dissension with that dirty-fisted fellow, the recollection of the word
punctilio shot a throb of pain to the spot where his mishap had rendered
him susceptible. Headache threatened--and to him of all men! But was
there ever such a word for drumming on a cranium? Puzzles are presented
to us now and then in the course of our days; and the smaller they are
the better for the purpose, it would seem; and they come in rattle-boxes,
they are actually children's toys, for what they contain, but not the
less do they buzz at our understandings and insist that they break or we,
and, in either case, to show a mere foolish idle rattle in hollowness.
Or does this happen to us only after a fall?
He tried a suspension of his mental efforts, and the word was like the
clapper of a disorderly bell, striking through him, with reverberations,
in the form of interrogations, as to how he, of all men living, could by
any chance have got into a wrangle, in a thoroughfare, on London Bridge,
of all places in the world!--he, so popular, renowned for his affability,
his amiability; having no dislike to common dirty dogs, entirely the
reverse, liking them and doing his best for them; and accustomed to
receive their applause. And in what way had he offered a hint to bring
on him the charge of punctilio?
'But I am treating it seriously!' he said, and jerked a dead laugh while
fixing a button of his coat.
That he should have treated it seriously, furnished next the subject of
cogitation; and here it was plainly suggested, that a degradation of his
physical system, owing to the shock of the fall, must be seen and
acknowledged; for it had become a perverted engine, to pull him down
among the puerilities, and very soon he was worrying at punctilio anew,
attempting to read the riddle of the application of it to himself, angry
that he had allowed it to be the final word, and admitting it a famous
word for the closing of a controversy:--it banged the door and rolled
drum-notes; it deafened reason. And was it a London cockney crow-word of
the day, or a word that had stuck in the fellow's head from the perusal
of his pothouse newspaper columns?
Furthermore, the plea of a fall, and the plea of a shock from a fall,
required to account for the triviality of the mind, were humiliating to
him who had never hitherto missed a step, or owned to the shortest of
collapses. This confession of deficiency in explosive repartee--using a
friend's term for the ready gift--was an old and a rueful one with Victor
Radnor. His godmother Fortune denied him that. She bestowed it on his
friend Fenellan, and little else. Simeon Fenellan could clap the halter
on a coltish mob; he had positively caught the roar of cries and stilled
it, by capping the cries in turn, until the people cheered him; and the
effect of the scene upon Victor Radnor disposed him to rank the gift of
repartee higher than a certain rosily oratorical that he was permitted to
tell himself he possessed, in bottle if not on draught. Let it only be
explosive repartee: the well-fused bomb, the bubble to the stone, echo
round the horn. Fenellan, would have discharged an extinguisher on
punctilio in emission. Victor Radnor was unable to cope with it
reflectively.
No, but one doesn't like being beaten by anything! he replied to an
admonishment of his better mind, as he touched his two fingers, more
significantly dubious than the whole hand, at the back of his head, and
checked or stemmed the current of a fear. For he was utterly unlike
himself; he was dwelling on a trifle, on a matter discernibly the
smallest, an incident of the streets; and although he refused to feel a
bump or any responsive notification of a bruise, he made a sacrifice of
his native pride to his intellectual, in granting that he must have been
shaken, so childishly did he continue thinking.
Yes, well, and if a tumble distorts our ideas of life, and an odd word
engrosses our speculations, we are poor creatures, he addressed another
friend, from whom he stood constitutionally in dissent naming him Colney;
and under pressure of the name, reviving old wrangles between them upon
man's present achievements and his probable destinies: especially upon
England's grandeur, vitality, stability, her intelligent appreciation of
her place in the universe; not to speak of the historic dignity of London
City. Colney had to be overcome afresh, and he fled, but managed, with
two or three of his bitter phrases, to make a cuttle-fish fight of it,
that oppressively shadowed his vanquisher:
The Daniel Lambert of Cities: the Female Annuitant of Nations:--and such
like, wretched stuff, proper to Colney Durance, easily dispersed and out-
laughed when we have our vigour. We have as much as we need of it in
summoning a contemptuous Pooh to our lips, with a shrug at venomous
dyspepsia.
Nevertheless, a malignant sketch of Colney's, in the which Hengist and
Horsa, our fishy Saxon originals, in modern garb of liveryman and
gaitered squire, flat-headed, paunchy, assiduously servile, are shown
blacking Ben-Israel's boots and grooming the princely stud of the Jew,
had come so near to Victor Radnor's apprehensions of a possible, if not
an impending, consummation, that the ghastly vision of the Jew Dominant
in London City, over England, over Europe, America, the world (a picture
drawn in literary sepia by Colney: with our poor hang neck population
uncertain about making a bell-rope of the forelock to the Satyr-snouty
master; and the Norman Lord de Warenne handing him for a lump sum son and
daughter, both to be Hebraized in their different ways), fastened on the
most mercurial of patriotic men, and gave him a whole-length plunge into
despondency.
It lasted nearly a minute. His recovery was not in this instance due to
the calling on himself for the rescue of an ancient and glorious country;
nor altogether to the spectacle of the shipping, over the parapet, to his
right: the hundreds of masts rising out of the merchant river; London's
unrivalled mezzotint and the City' rhetorician's inexhaustible argument:
he gained it rather from the imperious demand of an animated and thirsty
frame for novel impressions. Commonly he was too hot with his business,
and airy fancies above it when crossing the bridge, to reflect in
freshness on its wonders; though a phrase could spring him alive to them;
a suggestion of the Foreigner, jealous, condemned to admire in despair of
outstripping, like Satan worsted; or when a Premier's fine inflation
magnified the scene at City banquets--exciting while audible, if a
waggery in memory; or when England's cherished Bard, the Leading Article,
blew bellows, and wind primed the lieges.
That a phrase on any other subject was of much the same effect, in
relation to it, may be owned; he was lightly kindled. The scene,
however, had a sharp sparkle of attractiveness at the instant. Down went
the twirling horizontal pillars of a strong tide from the arches of the
bridge, breaking to wild water at a remove; and a reddish Northern cheek
of curdling pipeing East, at shrilly puffs between the Tower and the
Custom House, encountered it to whip and ridge the flood against
descending tug and long tail of stern-ajerk empty barges; with a steamer
slowly noseing round off the wharf-cranes, preparing to swirl the screw;
and half-bottom-upward boats dancing harpooner beside their whale; along
an avenue, not fabulously golden, of the deputy masts of all nations, a
wintry woodland, every rag aloft curling to volume; and here the spouts
and the mounds of steam, and rolls of brown smoke there, variously
undulated, curved to vanish; cold blue sky ashift with the whirl and dash
of a very Tartar cavalry of cloud overhead.
Surely a scene pretending to sublimity?
Gazeing along that grand highway of the voyageing forest, your London
citizen of good estate has reproached his country's poets for not pouring
out, succinctly and melodiously, his multitudinous larvae of notions
begotten by the scene. For there are times when he would, pay to have
them sung; and he feels them big; he thinks them human in their bulk;
they are Londinensian; they want but form and fire to get them scored on
the tablets of the quotable at festive boards. This he can promise to
his poets. As for otherwhere than at the festive, Commerce invoked is a
Goddess that will have the reek of those boards to fill her nostrils, and
poet and alderman alike may be dedicate to the sublime, she leads them,
after two sniffs of an idea concerning her, for the dive into the turtle-
tureen. Heels up they go, poet first--a plummet he!
And besides it is barely possible for our rounded citizen, in the mood of
meditation, to direct his gaze off the bridge along the waterway North-
eastward without beholding as an eye the glow of whitebait's bow-window
by the riverside, to the front of the summer sunset, a league or so down
stream; where he sees, in memory savours, the Elysian end of Commerce:
frontispiece of a tale to fetch us up the out-wearied spectre of old
Apicius; yea, and urge Crispinus to wheel his purse into the market for
the purchase of a costlier mullet!
But is the Jew of the usury gold becoming our despot-king of Commerce?
In that case, we do not ask our country's poets to compose a single
stanza of eulogy's rhymes--far from it. Far to the contrary, we bid
ourselves remember the sons of whom we are; instead of revelling in the
fruits of Commerce, we shoot scornfully past those blazing bellied
windows of the aromatic dinners, and beyond Thames, away to the
fishermen's deeps, Old England's native element, where the strenuous
ancestry of a race yet and ever manful at the stress of trial are heard
around and aloft whistling us back to the splendid strain of muscle, and
spray fringes cloud, and strong heart rides the briny scoops and
hillocks, and Death and Man are at grip for the haul.
There we find our nationality, our poetry, no Hebrew competing.
We do: or there at least we left it. Whether to recover it when wanted,
is not so certain. Humpy Hengist and dumpy Horsa, quitting ledger and
coronet, might recur to their sea bowlegs and red-stubble chins, might
take to their tarpaulins again; they might renew their manhood on the
capture of cod; headed by Harald and Hardiknut, they might roll surges to
whelm a Dominant Jew clean gone to the fleshpots and effeminacy.
Aldermen of our ancient conception, they may teach him that he has been
backsliding once more, and must repent in ashes, as those who are for
jewels, titles, essences, banquets, for wallowing in slimy spawn of
lucre, have ever to do. They dispossess him of his greedy gettings.
And how of the Law?
But the Law is always, and must ever be, the Law of the stronger.
--Ay, but brain beats muscle, and what if the Jew should prove to have
superior power of brain? A dreaded hypothesis! Why, then you see the
insurgent Saxon seamen (of the names in two syllables with accent on the
first), and their Danish captains, and it may be but a remnant of high-
nosed old Norman Lord de Warenne beside them, in the criminal box: and
presently the Jew smoking a giant regalia cigar on a balcony giving view
of a gallows-tree. But we will try that: on our side, to back a native
pugnacity, is morality, humanity, fraternity--nature's rights, aha! and
who withstands them? on his, a troop of mercenaries!
And that lands me in Red Republicanism, a hop and a skip from Socialism!
said Mr. Radnor, and chuckled ironically at the natural declivity he had
come to. Still, there was an idea in it . . . .
A short run or attempt at running after the idea, ended in pain to his
head near the spot where the haunting word punctilio caught at any excuse
for clamouring.
Yet we cannot relinquish an idea that was ours; we are vowed to the
pursuit of it. Mr. Radnor lighted on the tracks, by dint of a thought
flung at his partner Mr. Inchling's dread of the Jews. Inchling dreaded
Scotchmen as well, and Americans, and Armenians, and Greeks: latterly
Germans hardly less; but his dread of absorption in Jewry, signifying
subjection, had often precipitated a deplorable shrug, in which Victor
Radnor now perceived the skirts of his idea, even to a fancy that
something of the idea must have struck Inchling when he shrugged: the
idea being . . . he had lost it again. Definition seemed to be an
extirpation enemy of this idea, or she was by nature shy. She was very
feminine; coming when she willed and flying when wanted. Not until nigh
upon the close of his history did she return, full-statured and
embraceable, to Victor Radnor.