as one with this great nation in its vital desire for the Right and the
Just. Wherever the Right appears I am its follower to the death. I hate
false things; I hate bubble reputations, empty wind-bags of policy,
dried skeletons of faith. Why not leave this dubious handling of bones
and dusty material? It is too late to set wry matters straight. They
are an obstruction, and must be cleared from the path of England. Had
you the temerity, as I know you have the will, you would speak your
thoughts more openly than you have yet done. You would say: "I refuse
to lead cowards. I will call to my side men of proved brain and honesty
and skill, with whom honour is more than pelf; I will get at the heart
of England, and move with _its_ pulsations; and of those who are not
with this heart I will have none. I will at once make some attempt to
remedy the frightful abuses of the law; I will move heaven and earth
till England, not party, is satisfied!"
And oh, my most excellent friend, what a wise thing you would do, if
you would only keep a watchful eye on the scribblers--the poor and
hungry and ambitious scribblers especially! Your party at all times of
history has been foolishly prone to neglect this sort of inky folk,
and what an error of policy is such neglect! These same inky folk, my
Lord, do cause thrones to fall and empires to tremble, wherefore you
and all whom it concerns should look after them warily. Make friends
with them; soothe their irritated nerves; take time and trouble to
explain a situation to them, and remember, never was there dusty,
crusty writing-biped yet but could not be moved to a pale, pleased
smile of response to a royal hand-shake, a royal greeting, given in
good season. It is not singers and twiddlers on musical strings that
a wise Court should patronise, but the wielders of pens--they, who, if
despised and neglected, take relentless vengeance, and, fearing neither
God nor devil, proceed to make strange bargains with both. The Press
is a plebeian creature--yes, I know; but for all that, it has stumbled
with its big, hob-nailed shoes and Argus eyes into the Royal precincts,
and stands there smacking its greasy lips and staring rudely, after the
fashion of all plebeians unaccustomed to polite society. It is vulgar,
this Press--there is no doubt of that; it dresses badly, and wears, not
a sword by its side, but a stumpy pen stuck unbecomingly behind its
ear, and it gives itself a vast amount of coarse swagger because it is
for the most part deficient in education, and picks up its knowledge
by hearsay--nevertheless it has power. And it is a power which neither
you nor any one else can afford to despise; wherefore, good friend,
when you have any grand object in view and want to attain it, let all
else go if necessary, but gather a grand muster-roll of Pens. These
shall win you your cause if you only know how to lead them, and without
their assistance you shall be lost in a sea of contradictions. Some
of these Pens are already yours to command; but others are not, and
you trouble not your head concerning these "others" which are the very
ones you should secure. As for me, I could go on advising you with the
most infinite tedium on sundry matters, but I will not now, inasmuch
as we shall have frequent opportunities for discourse in the library
at Hatfield. And so, till we meet again, accept the assurance of my
admiration and devoted service. You are one of the noblest of living
Englishmen; you have the kindest heart in the world; your foreign
policy means peace and satisfaction to Europe; and yet, with it all,
and with my ardent friendship for you, I cannot help asking myself the
question whether, if the storm breaks and the waves rise mountains
high, will you have the strength to be a pilot for the ship of England
in her dark hour? And if it should be proved that you cannot steer us,
Who shall be found that can?
VII.
CHATTETH WITH THE GRAND OLD MAN.
Dost thou remember, my dear Mr. Gladstone, a certain warm and pleasant
July afternoon when thou didst honour and oppress me with thy Grand
Old Presence for a couple or more of weary hours, regardless of the
fact that the "House" expected thee to appear and reply on some moot
point or other to Mr. Goschen? There in my modest studio thou didst
sit, rubbing that extensive ear of thine with one long forefinger,
and smiling suavely at such regular intervals as almost to suggest
the idea of there being a patent smiling-machine secreted behind thy
never-resting jaw!
Ah, that was a day! We talked--but no! 'twas thou didst talk, thou
noble old man! and I--as all poor mortals must needs do in thy
company--listened. Listened intently; helpless to remove thee from the
chair in which thou sattest; hopeless of putting any stop to thine
eloquence; while on, on, on, still on, rolled the stream of thy fluent
and wordy contradictions, till my mind like a ship broken loose from
its moorings, rocked up and down in a wild, dark sea of uncertainty
as to what thou didst mean; or whether thy meaning, if it could by
chance be discovered, should in truth be meant? Hadst thou been a
Book instead of a Man, I should have flung thee aside, walked the
room, and clutched my hair after the manner of the intense tragedian;
but with thee, thou astonishing Biped, I could do no more than stare
stonily at thy careless collar-ends and concentrate all my soul on my
powers of hearing. "Listen, fool!" I said to my inner self--"Listen!
It is Gladstone who is speaking--Gladstone the old man eloquent;
Gladstone the thinker; Gladstone the Bible scholar; Gladstone the Greek
translator; Gladstone the Scotchman, Gladstone the Irishman, Gladstone
the--the--the--Wood-cutter! Listen!"
And, as I live, I listened to thee, Gladstone; I swallowed, as it
were, thine every word, in spite of increasingly lethargic mental
indigestion. Specially did I strive to follow thee in thy wild flights
up the stairs of many religious theories, when with gray hair ruffled
and eyes aglare, thou didst solemnly rend piecemeal "Robert Elsmere,"
forgetting, O thou grand old Paradox, that if thou hadst never lifted
up that clamant voice of thine in _Nineteenth-Century-Magazine_
utterance, Robert and his oppressive religious troubles might scarcely
have attracted notice? Didst thou not "boom" Robert, and then feign
surprise at the result? Ay, venerable Splitter of Straws and Hewer of
Logs, wilt deny the truth? And shall I not advise thee in thine own
terms to retire from public life, not "now," but "at present." Or if
not "at present" then "now"? Either will serve, before thou dost make
more blows with thy hatchet-brain (somewhat dulled at the edge) at the
future honour and welfare of thy country.
Ah, what things I could have said to thee, thou Quibble, when thou
didst venture to assail me with thy converse, if thou hadst but
taken decent pause for breathing! Why, amongst other marvels, didst
thou deem it worth thy while to flatter me, or to praise the casual
sputterings of my pen? Thy unctuous insinuations carried no persuasion;
thy "nods and becks and wreathed smiles" were wasted on me; thy soft
assurances of the "certainty of my future brilliant fame" went past
my ears like the murmur of an idle wind. For a fame "assured" by thee
is nothing worth; and thy Polonius-like approbation of any piece of
work, literary or otherwise, is as a mark set on it to make it seem
ridiculous. For thou art destitute of humour save in wood-cutting;
and thou needest many a lesson from my dear friend Andrew Lang before
thou canst successfully comprehend the subtly critical art of proving
a goose to be a swan. And so, by monosyllables slipt in like frailest
wedges between thy florid bursts of ambiguity, I strove to entice thy
wandering wits back to the discussion of personal faith in matters
religious, wherein I found thee most divertingly inchoate, but my
feeble efforts were of small avail. For lo, while yet I strove to
understand whether thou wert in truth a Roman Papist, a Calvinist, a
Hindoo, a Theosophist, or a Special Advocate of the _War Cry_, the
subject of Creed, like a magic-lantern slide, disappeared from thy
mental view, and Divorce came up instead. Frightful and wonderful,
according to thee, goodman Gladstone, are the wicked ways of the
married! No sooner are they united than they move heaven and earth to
get parted--so it is at any rate very frequently in the free and happy
American Republic, where the disagreeing parties need not move heaven
and earth, but simply make a mutual assertion. Oh, of a truth here was
no smiling matter! No Deity in question, but a very positive Devil,
needing thy exhortation and exorcism; and thy jaws clacked on sternly,
strenuously, and with a resolute gravity and persistency that seemed
admirable. Not every man could be expected to find a Mrs. Gladstone,
but surely all were bound to try and discover such a paragon. If
all married society were composed of Mr. and Mrs. Gladstones, why,
married society would realise the fabled Elysium. And supposing there
continued to be only one Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone, and all the rest were
quite a different set of hopelessly different temperaments, then,
naturally, it was impossible to state what disasters might ensue.
It would be a case of Noah and his wife over again--after them the
Deluge. In the interim, Divorce was shocking, abominable, sinful,
diabolical, ungodly--an upsetting of the most sacred foundations of
morality--and it was chiefly because Gladstonian domestic tastes were
not universal. This, at least, is what I seemed to gather from thee
in thine onslaughts against the large and melancholy mass of the
Miserably Married; I say I "seemed" to gather it, because it "seemed"
thy meaning, but as thy whole mode of speech and action is only
"seems," I cannot be absolutely sure either of myself or thyself. For
thou didst set out an attractive row of various learned propositions,
gently, and with the bland solicitude of a hen-wife setting out her
choicest eggs for sale, then suddenly and incontinently, and as one in
a fit of strangest madness, thou didst sweep them up and fling them
aside into airy nothingness without concern for the havoc wrought.
Thou didst calmly state what appeared to be a Fact, reasonable and
graspable; and with all the powers of my being I seized upon it as a
grateful thing and good for consideration; when suddenly thy senile
smile obscured the intellectual horizon, and thy equably modulated
voice murmured such words as these: "Not that I desire to imply by
any means that this is so, or should be so, but that it might (under
certain circumstances, and provided certain minds were at harmony upon
the point) probably become so." Ah, thou embodied Confusion worse
Confounded! Had it not been for this constant playing of thine at thy
favourite shuffling game of cross-purposes, I should have roused my
soul from its stupor of forced attention to demand of thee more of
thy profound Bible scholarship. Whether, for example, if Divorce,
thy bugbear, were ungodly, and the Bible true, a man should not have
two, three, nay, half-a-dozen wives at his pleasure for as long or as
short a time as he chose, and find situations for them afterwards as
servants, telegraph-clerks, and bookkeepers, when their beauty was gone
and snappishness of temper had taken the place of endearing docility.
Whether English harem-life, lately set in vogue by certain great and
distinguished "Upper" people, could not be easily proved pleasing unto
the Most High Jehovah? For did not God love His servant Abraham? and
did not Abraham bestow his affections on Sarai and Hagar? and when the
hoary old reprobate was "well stricken in years" and "the Lord had
blessed him in all things" did he not again take a wife named Keturah,
who presented him in his centenarian decrepitude with six sons?--all
"fine babies," no doubt. What sayest thou to these morals of Holy
Writ, thou "many-sounding" mouthpiece of opinion? Answer me on a
postcard, for with thee, more than with any other man, should brevity
be the soul of wit!
Some of us younger and irreverent folk oft take to speculating why,
in the name of bodies politic, thy days, O Venerable, are so long in
the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee? The Lord thy God, friend
William Ewart, must have some excellent reason for allowing thee to
ruthlessly cut down so many growing oaks of English honour and walk
unscathed across the bare, disfigured country, with the wild dogs of
Democracy sneaking at thy heels. And I forgot, in speaking of the
holy Abraham, that late events have proved the high superiority of
thy tastes in morality to those of God's anciently-favoured servant.
For didst thou not disown thy sweetest nursling, thine own favourite
adopted son, Parnell, simply and solely to publicly clasp and kiss
the wrinkled, withering hand of Mrs. Grundy? And knowest thou not,
thou gray-haired Conundrum, that nothing has ever seemed more
preternaturally absurd to the impartial observer and student of social
life in all countries, than this making a public question out of
personal matter?--this desertion of a former friend, a man, too, of
immense intellectual capability, all because, as the old German ballad
goes, "he loved a, to him, temptingly-forbidden lady"? Just Heavens! I
could name dozens of men (but I will not), party men too, respectably
married likewise, who have their "temptingly-forbidden ladies" tucked
snugly away in the innermost recesses of their confidence, and who
avoid betraying themselves into such impulsiveness as might lead to a
fire-escape and political dissolution. As for Mrs. Grundy, the dear
old soul never sees anything now unless she is led up to it with her
spectacles on; she is more than half blind, and totally deaf--a poor,
frail creature very much on her last legs--and she must have been
vaguely flattered and surprised at thy voluntary Grand Old Hand-Shake,
given to her in the very face of all the staring world of intelligence
and fashion. It must have soothed her aching heart and comforted her
tottering limbs to find she still had left to her a pale vestige of
past power. Ah, it was a grand and edifying party-split!--almost as
exciting as if it had occurred on a question of Beer, which fateful
subject angrily discussed, did, I believe, on one occasion actually
effect a change of Ministry. And it is rather a notable proof of the
curious littleness of the age we live in, that of late, political
parties have seldom broken up on great questions--questions of
momentous and general interest affecting the welfare of the state and
people--but nearly always on petty, personal, nay almost vulgar and
childish disputes, such as might make Fox and Pitt turn and groan in
their graves. Is there no such thing as unadulterated patriotism left,
I wonder?--no real ardent love of the "Mother" England? or hast thou,
old Would-Be Despot, choked it all by thy pernicious gabble?
And yet, whatever may be said of thee now or in after history as a
Man-Enigma, thy bitterest enemy, unless he be an idiot born, can hardly
be blind to thy numerous and extraordinary endowments. Jumbled as
they are together with so much confusion that it is difficult to tell
which savour most of vice or most of virtue, they are nevertheless
Endowments, rare enough to find in any other living composition of
mortal mould. And the mystic gift that keeps thee powerful to grasp
and retain thy dominance over the minds of the Majority, is simple
Genius--a gift of which there are many spurious imitations, but which
in itself is given to so few as to make it seem curious and remarkable,
aye, even a thing suggestive of downright madness to the men of mere
business talent and capacity who form the largest portion of the
governing body. Misguided, captious, flighty as caprice itself, it
is nevertheless a flash of the veritable Promethean fire which works
that busy, massive brain of thine--a kindling, restless heat which is
entirely deficient in the brains of nearly all thy fellow-statesmen of
the hour. This it is that fascinates the Public--the giant Public that
above all the whisperings and squealings of the Press, reserves its
own opinion, and only utters it when called upon to do so, with sundry
roarings and vociferations as of a hungry lion roused--a convincing
manner of eloquence which doth wake to speculative timorousness the
wandering penny-a-liner. For Genius is the only quality the Public
does in absolute truth admire, without being taught or forced into
admiration--and that Genius has ever in reality been despised or
neglected by the world, is, roughly speaking, a Lie. Everything noble
that deserves to live, lives; and Homer wrote as much for the England
of to-day as for the Greece of past time. The things that die, deserve
to die; the "genius" who deems himself ill-used, does by his childish
querulousness prove himself unworthy of appreciation. For no great soul
complains, inasmuch as all complaint is cowardice.
Thus, when I bring the Public well into sympathetic view, and consider
thee in relation to it, O Grand Old Gladstone, I understand readily
enough what is meant by the feeling of the "majority" concerning thy
civic and personal qualifications for power. It is this--that the
people feel, that notwithstanding thy chameleon-like variableness,
and thy darkly cabalistic utterances on the political How, When, and
Why, thou art still the "only" man in the professed service of the
country possessing this talisman of Genius which from time immemorial
has carried its own peculiar triumph over the heads of all opposers.
For when thou shalt be gone the way of all flesh, who is left? Little
brilliancy of wit or good counsel is there now in the Commons, and the
Lords are but weary creatures, bent on maintaining their own interests
in the face of all change. Is there a man who can be truly said to
have the gift of eloquence save Thou? Wherefore the attention and
interest of the people still continue to revolve round thy charmed
pivot, thou Hawarden Thinker, with, as the Scotch say, "a bee" in thy
bonnet. And, whether Premier or Ex-Premier, all because thou _art_ a
Thinker in spite of the bee. Thy thoughts may be "long, long thoughts"
like the "thoughts of youth" in Longfellow's pretty poem--they may
be indeed without any definite end at all, but they are thoughts,
they are not mere business calculations of the State's expenses.
Only being ill-assorted and still worse defined, they are unfit to
blossom into words, which they generally do, to the perplexity and
anxiety of everybody concerned. And there is the mischief--a mischief
irremediable, for nothing will stop thy tongue, thou Grand Old Gabbler,
save a certain Grand Old Silence wearing only bones and carrying a
scythe, who is not so much interested in politics as in mould and
earthworms _à la_ Darwin.
Nevertheless I, for one, shall be exceedingly sorry when this fleshless
"reaper whose name is Death" mows thee down, poor Gladdy, and turns
thee remorselessly into one more pinch of dust for his overflowing
granary. Remember me or not as thou mayest, do me good service or
bad, I care nothing either way. Thy visits to me were of thine own
seeking, and of conversation thou didst keep the absolute monopoly; but
what matter?--I at least was privileged to gaze upon thee freely and
mentally comment upon thy collar unreproved. 'Twas but thy unctuous
flattery that vexed my soul; for Gladstonian praise is but Art's
rebuke. Otherwise I bear thee no malice, though for sundry reasons
I might well do so.... Oh, venerable Twaddler! Didst thou but know
me as I am, would not the hairs upon thy scalp, aye "each particular
hair" rise one by one in anger and astonishment, and thou for once be
rendered speechless?... Nay, good Gladstone-Grundy, have no fear! I
will not blab upon thee; I am well covered, closely masked; and thou
shalt hear no more of me as I slip by, save ... a smothered laugh
behind my domino!
VIII.
OF THE TRUE JOURNALIST AND HIS CREED.
I am very fond of journalists. I look upon them, young and old, fat and
lean, masculine and feminine, as the salt of the earth wherewith to
savour the marrow of the country. And I like to put them through their
paces. I am always devoured by an insatiable curiosity to fathom the
depths of their learning--depths which I feel are almost infinite; yet
despite this infinity I am always fain to plunge. Whenever I see a son
of the ink-pot I collar him, and demand of him information--information
on all things little and big, because he knows all things. I believe he
even knows why Shakespeare left his second-best bed to his wife, only
he won't tell. As for languages, he is everybody's own Ollendorf. He
knows French, he knows Russian, he knows Italian, he knows Spanish, he
knows Hindustani, he knows Chinese, he knows--oh divine Apollo! what
does he _not_ know! Let anybody write a book and try to introduce into
its pages one word of Cherokee, one wild unpronounceable word, and
the omniscient journalist is down upon him instantly with the bland
assertion that it is a wrong word, wrongly spelt, wrongly used. For
the journalist knows Cherokee; he spoke it when a gurgling infant in
his mother's arms, together with all the living and dead dialects of
all nations. So that when I get a journalist to dine with me, is it to
be wondered at that I am consumed by a desire to _know_? The thirst of
wisdom enters into me, and having plied my man with eatables and wine,
I hang on his lips entranced. For can he not tell me everything that
ever was, or ever shall be?--and shall I not also aspire to oracles?
Once upon a time, to my unspeakable joy, I caught a fledgling
journalist; a fluttering creature, all eagle-wings and chuckles, and I
carried him home in a cab to dinner. He was a wild fowl, with plumage
unkempt, and beak, _i.e._, a Wellingtonian nose, that spoke volumes of
knowledge already. I discovered him hopping about a club, and seeing
he was hungry, I managed to coax him along to my "den." When I had him
there safe, I could have shouted with pure ecstasy! He became gentle;
he smoothed his ruffled feathers; he dipped his beak into my burgundy
wine and pronounced in a god-like way that "behold, it was very good."
Then, when his inner man was satisfied, he spoke; and information,
information, came rolling out with every brief and slangy sentence. Of
kings and queens, of princes and commoners, of he and she and we and
they, of fire, police, law, council, parliament, and my lady's chamber,
of all that whirls in the giddy circle of our time, my fledgling had
taken notes--yea, even on the very wheels of government, he had placed
his ink-stained finger.
"O wondrous young man!" I muttered as I heard; "O marvel of the age!
Why do not the kings of the earth gather together to hear thy wisdom?
Why do not the councils of Europe wait to learn the arts of government
from thee? Wert thou at the right hand of Deity, I wonder, when worlds
were created and comets begotten?" ... Here, filled with ideas, I
poured more wine out for the moistening of the Wellingtonian beak, and
demanded feverishly--"Tell me, friend, of things that are unknown to
most men--tell me of the dark mysteries of time, which must be clear as
daylight to a brain like yours!--instruct me in faith and morals--show
me the paths of virtue--explain to me your theories of the future, of
creed--"
I stopped, choked by my own emotion; I felt I was on the point of
comprehending the incomprehensible--of grasping great facts made clear
through the astute perception of this literary Gamaliel. And he arose
in response to my adjuration; he expanded his manly chest, and stood
in an attitude of "attention"; his nose was redder than when he first
sat down to dine, and the vacuous chuckle of his laugh was music to my
soul.
"Creed!" said he. "Drop that! I'm not a church-goer. I've got one form
of faith though." And he chuckled once again.
"And that is?" I questioned eagerly.
"This!"
And with proud unction he recited the following simple formula:--
I believe in the _Times_.
And in the _Morning Post_, Maker of news fashionable and
unfashionable.
And in one _Truth_, the property of one Labby, the only-begotten
son of honesty in Journalism,
Who for us men and our salvation, socially, legally, and
politically,
Came down from Diplomacy into Bolt Court, Fleet Street,
And was there self-incarnated Destroyer of Shams. Labby of Labby,
Truth of Truth, Very Rad of Very Rad, Born not made, Being one
with himself and answerable to nobody for his opinions.
Member for Northampton, he suffered there, secured votes and was
left unburied,
And he sitteth in the House, save when he ariseth and speaketh,