MOUNT OLYMPUS
Wretched in spirit, groaning under the feeling of insult,
self-condemning, and ill-satisfied in every way, Bold returned to
his London lodgings. Ill as he had fared in his interview with the
archdeacon, he was not the less under the necessity of carrying out
his pledge to Eleanor; and he went about his ungracious task with a
heavy heart.
The attorneys whom he had employed in London received his instructions
with surprise and evident misgiving; however, they could only obey,
and mutter something of their sorrow that such heavy costs should
only fall upon their own employer,--especially as nothing was wanting
but perseverance to throw them on the opposite party. Bold left the
office which he had latterly so much frequented, shaking the dust from
off his feet; and before he was down the stairs, an edict had already
gone forth for the preparation of the bill.
He next thought of the newspapers. The case had been taken up by more
than one; and he was well aware that the keynote had been sounded by
_The Jupiter_. He had been very intimate with Tom Towers, and had
often discussed with him the affairs of the hospital. Bold could
not say that the articles in that paper had been written at his own
instigation. He did not even know, as a fact, that they had been
written by his friend. Tom Towers had never said that such a view of
the case, or such a side in the dispute, would be taken by the paper
with which he was connected. Very discreet in such matters was Tom
Towers, and altogether indisposed to talk loosely of the concerns
of that mighty engine of which it was his high privilege to move
in secret some portion. Nevertheless Bold believed that to him
were owing those dreadful words which had caused such panic at
Barchester,--and he conceived himself bound to prevent their
repetition. With this view he betook himself from the attorneys'
office to that laboratory where, with amazing chemistry, Tom Towers
compounded thunderbolts for the destruction of all that is evil, and
for the furtherance of all that is good, in this and other
hemispheres.
Who has not heard of Mount Olympus,--that high abode of all the powers
of type, that favoured seat of the great goddess Pica, that wondrous
habitation of gods and devils, from whence, with ceaseless hum of
steam and never-ending flow of Castalian ink, issue forth fifty
thousand nightly edicts for the governance of a subject nation?
Velvet and gilding do not make a throne, nor gold and jewels a
sceptre. It is a throne because the most exalted one sits there,--and
a sceptre because the most mighty one wields it. So it is with Mount
Olympus. Should a stranger make his way thither at dull noonday, or
during the sleepy hours of the silent afternoon, he would find no
acknowledged temple of power and beauty, no fitting fane for the
great Thunderer, no proud façades and pillared roofs to support
the dignity of this greatest of earthly potentates. To the
outward and uninitiated eye, Mount Olympus is a somewhat humble
spot,--undistinguished, unadorned,--nay, almost mean. It stands
alone, as it were, in a mighty city, close to the densest throng
of men, but partaking neither of the noise nor the crowd; a small
secluded, dreary spot, tenanted, one would say, by quite unambitious
people at the easiest rents. "Is this Mount Olympus?" asks the
unbelieving stranger. "Is it from these small, dark, dingy buildings
that those infallible laws proceed which cabinets are called upon to
obey; by which bishops are to be guided, lords and commons controlled,
judges instructed in law, generals in strategy, admirals in naval
tactics, and orange-women in the management of their barrows?"
"Yes, my friend--from these walls. From here issue the only known
infallible bulls for the guidance of British souls and bodies.
This little court is the Vatican of England. Here reigns a
pope, self-nominated, self-consecrated,--ay, and much stranger
too,--self-believing!--a pope whom, if you cannot obey him, I would
advise you to disobey as silently as possible; a pope hitherto afraid
of no Luther; a pope who manages his own inquisition, who punishes
unbelievers as no most skilful inquisitor of Spain ever dreamt of
doing;--one who can excommunicate thoroughly, fearfully, radically;
put you beyond the pale of men's charity; make you odious to your
dearest friends, and turn you into a monster to be pointed at by the
finger!" Oh heavens! and this is Mount Olympus!
It is a fact amazing to ordinary mortals that _The Jupiter_ is never
wrong. With what endless care, with what unsparing labour, do we not
strive to get together for our great national council the men most
fitting to compose it. And how we fail! Parliament is always wrong:
look at _The Jupiter_, and see how futile are their meetings, how vain
their council, how needless all their trouble! With what pride do we
regard our chief ministers, the great servants of state, the oligarchs
of the nation on whose wisdom we lean, to whom we look for guidance in
our difficulties! But what are they to the writers of _The Jupiter_?
They hold council together and with anxious thought painfully
elaborate their country's good; but when all is done, _The Jupiter_
declares that all is naught. Why should we look to Lord John
Russell;--why should we regard Palmerston and Gladstone, when Tom
Towers without a struggle can put us right? Look at our generals,
what faults they make; at our admirals, how inactive they are. What
money, honesty, and science can do, is done; and yet how badly are our
troops brought together, fed, conveyed, clothed, armed, and managed.
The most excellent of our good men do their best to man our ships,
with the assistance of all possible external appliances; but in vain.
All, all is wrong--alas! alas! Tom Towers, and he alone, knows all
about it. Why, oh why, ye earthly ministers, why have ye not followed
more closely this heaven-sent messenger that is among us?
Were it not well for us in our ignorance that we confided all things
to _The Jupiter_? Would it not be wise in us to abandon useless
talking, idle thinking, and profitless labour? Away with majorities
in the House of Commons, with verdicts from judicial bench given after
much delay, with doubtful laws, and the fallible attempts of humanity!
Does not _The Jupiter_, coming forth daily with fifty thousand
impressions full of unerring decision on every mortal subject, set all
matters sufficiently at rest? Is not Tom Towers here, able to guide
us and willing?
Yes indeed, able and willing to guide all men in all things, so
long as he is obeyed as autocrat should be obeyed,--with undoubting
submission: only let not ungrateful ministers seek other colleagues
than those whom Tom Towers may approve; let church and state, law and
physic, commerce and agriculture, the arts of war, and the arts of
peace, all listen and obey, and all will be made perfect. Has not Tom
Towers an all-seeing eye? From the diggings of Australia to those of
California, right round the habitable globe, does he not know, watch,
and chronicle the doings of everyone? From a bishopric in New Zealand
to an unfortunate director of a North-west passage, is he not the only
fit judge of capability? From the sewers of London to the Central
Railway of India,--from the palaces of St Petersburg to the cabins of
Connaught, nothing can escape him. Britons have but to read, to obey,
and be blessed. None but the fools doubt the wisdom of _The Jupiter_;
none but the mad dispute its facts.
No established religion has ever been without its unbelievers, even
in the country where it is the most firmly fixed; no creed has been
without scoffers; no church has so prospered as to free itself
entirely from dissent. There are those who doubt _The Jupiter_!
They live and breathe the upper air, walking here unscathed, though
scorned,--men, born of British mothers and nursed on English milk, who
scruple not to say that Mount Olympus has its price, that Tom Towers
can be bought for gold!
Such is Mount Olympus, the mouthpiece of all the wisdom of this great
country. It may probably be said that no place in this 19th century
is more worthy of notice. No treasury mandate armed with the
signatures of all the government has half the power of one of those
broad sheets, which fly forth from hence so abundantly, armed with no
signature at all.
Some great man, some mighty peer,--we'll say a noble duke,--retires to
rest feared and honoured by all his countrymen,--fearless himself; if
not a good man, at any rate a mighty man,--too mighty to care much
what men may say about his want of virtue. He rises in the morning
degraded, mean, and miserable; an object of men's scorn, anxious only
to retire as quickly as may be to some German obscurity, some unseen
Italian privacy, or indeed, anywhere out of sight. What has made this
awful change? what has so afflicted him? An article has appeared in
_The Jupiter_; some fifty lines of a narrow column have destroyed all
his grace's equanimity, and banished him for ever from the world.
No man knows who wrote the bitter words; the clubs talk confusedly of
the matter, whispering to each other this and that name; while Tom
Towers walks quietly along Pall Mall, with his coat buttoned close
against the east wind, as though he were a mortal man, and not a god
dispensing thunderbolts from Mount Olympus.
It was not to Mount Olympus that our friend Bold betook himself. He
had before now wandered round that lonely spot, thinking how grand a
thing it was to write articles for _The Jupiter_; considering within
himself whether by any stretch of the powers within him he could ever
come to such distinction; wondering how Tom Towers would take any
little humble offering of his talents; calculating that Tom Towers
himself must have once had a beginning, have once doubted as to
his own success. Towers could not have been born a writer in _The
Jupiter_. With such ideas, half ambitious and half awe-struck, had
Bold regarded the silent-looking workshop of the gods; but he had
never yet by word or sign attempted to influence the slightest word
of his unerring friend. On such a course was he now intent; and not
without much inward palpitation did he betake himself to the quiet
abode of wisdom, where Tom Towers was to be found o' mornings inhaling
ambrosia and sipping nectar in the shape of toast and tea.
Not far removed from Mount Olympus, but somewhat nearer to the blessed
regions of the West, is the most favoured abode of Themis. Washed by
the rich tide which now passes from the towers of Cæsar to Barry's
halls of eloquence; and again back, with new offerings of a city's
tribute, from the palaces of peers to the mart of merchants, stand
those quiet walls which Law has delighted to honour by its presence.
What a world within a world is the Temple! how quiet are its
"entangled walks," as someone lately has called them, and yet how
close to the densest concourse of humanity! how gravely respectable
its sober alleys, though removed but by a single step from the
profanity of the Strand and the low iniquity of Fleet Street! Old
St Dunstan, with its bell-smiting bludgeoners, has been removed; the
ancient shops with their faces full of pleasant history are passing
away one by one; the bar itself is to go--its doom has been pronounced
by _The Jupiter_; rumour tells us of some huge building that is to
appear in these latitudes dedicated to law, subversive of the courts
of Westminster, and antagonistic to the Rolls and Lincoln's Inn; but
nothing yet threatens the silent beauty of the Temple: it is the
mediæval court of the metropolis.
Here, on the choicest spot of this choice ground, stands a lofty row
of chambers, looking obliquely upon the sullied Thames; before the
windows, the lawn of the Temple Gardens stretches with that dim yet
delicious verdure so refreshing to the eyes of Londoners. If doomed
to live within the thickest of London smoke you would surely say that
that would be your chosen spot. Yes, you, you whom I now address, my
dear, middle-aged bachelor friend, can nowhere be so well domiciled
as here. No one here will ask whether you are out or at home; alone
or with friends; here no Sabbatarian will investigate your Sundays,
no censorious landlady will scrutinise your empty bottle, no
valetudinarian neighbour will complain of late hours. If you love
books, to what place are books so suitable? The whole spot is
redolent of typography. Would you worship the Paphian goddess, the
groves of Cyprus are not more taciturn than those of the Temple.
Wit and wine are always here, and always together; the revels of the
Temple are as those of polished Greece, where the wildest worshipper
of Bacchus never forgot the dignity of the god whom he adored. Where
can retirement be so complete as here? where can you be so sure of all
the pleasures of society?
It was here that Tom Towers lived, and cultivated with eminent success
the tenth Muse who now governs the periodical press. But let it not
be supposed that his chambers were such, or so comfortless, as are
frequently the gaunt abodes of legal aspirants. Four chairs, a
half-filled deal book-case with hangings of dingy green baize, an old
office table covered with dusty papers, which are not moved once in
six months, and an older Pembroke brother with rickety legs, for all
daily uses; a despatcher for the preparation of lobsters and coffee,
and an apparatus for the cooking of toast and mutton chops; such
utensils and luxuries as these did not suffice for the well-being of
Tom Towers. He indulged in four rooms on the first floor, each of
which was furnished, if not with the splendour, with probably more
than the comfort of Stafford House. Every addition that science
and art have lately made to the luxuries of modern life was to be
found there. The room in which he usually sat was surrounded by
book-shelves carefully filled; nor was there a volume there which was
not entitled to its place in such a collection, both by its intrinsic
worth and exterior splendour: a pretty portable set of steps in one
corner of the room showed that those even on the higher shelves were
intended for use. The chamber contained but two works of art:--the
one, an admirable bust of Sir Robert Peel, by Power, declared the
individual politics of our friend; and the other, a singularly long
figure of a female devotee, by Millais, told equally plainly the
school of art to which he was addicted. This picture was not hung,
as pictures usually are, against the wall; there was no inch of wall
vacant for such a purpose: it had a stand or desk erected for its own
accommodation; and there on her pedestal, framed and glazed, stood
the devotional lady looking intently at a lily as no lady ever looked
before.
Our modern artists, whom we style Pre-Raphaelites, have delighted
to go back, not only to the finish and peculiar manner, but also to
the subjects of the early painters. It is impossible to give them
too much praise for the elaborate perseverance with which they have
equalled the minute perfections of the masters from whom they take
their inspiration: nothing probably can exceed the painting of some of
these latter-day pictures. It is, however, singular into what faults
they fall as regards their subjects: they are not quite content to
take the old stock groups,--a Sebastian with his arrows, a Lucia with
her eyes in a dish, a Lorenzo with a gridiron, or the Virgin with two
children. But they are anything but happy in their change. As a
rule, no figure should be drawn in a position which it is impossible
to suppose any figure should maintain. The patient endurance of St
Sebastian, the wild ecstasy of St John in the Wilderness, the maternal
love of the Virgin, are feelings naturally portrayed by a fixed
posture; but the lady with the stiff back and bent neck, who looks at
her flower, and is still looking from hour to hour, gives us an idea
of pain without grace, and abstraction without a cause.
It was easy, from his rooms, to see that Tom Towers was a Sybarite,
though by no means an idle one. He was lingering over his last cup of
tea, surrounded by an ocean of newspapers, through which he had been
swimming, when John Bold's card was brought in by his tiger. This
tiger never knew that his master was at home, though he often knew
that he was not, and thus Tom Towers was never invaded but by his
own consent. On this occasion, after twisting the card twice in his
fingers, he signified to his attendant imp that he was visible; and
the inner door was unbolted, and our friend announced.
I have before said that he of _The Jupiter_ and John Bold were
intimate. There was no very great difference in their ages, for
Towers was still considerably under forty; and when Bold had been
attending the London hospitals, Towers, who was not then the great man
that he had since become, had been much with him. Then they had often
discussed together the objects of their ambition and future prospects;
then Tom Towers was struggling hard to maintain himself, as a
briefless barrister, by shorthand reporting for any of the papers that
would engage him; then he had not dared to dream of writing leaders
for _The Jupiter_, or canvassing the conduct of Cabinet ministers.
Things had altered since that time: the briefless barrister was still
briefless, but he now despised briefs: could he have been sure of a
judge's seat, he would hardly have left his present career. It is
true he wore no ermine, bore no outward marks of a world's respect;
but with what a load of inward importance was he charged! It is true
his name appeared in no large capitals; on no wall was chalked up "Tom
Towers for ever;"--"Freedom of the Press and Tom Towers;" but what
member of Parliament had half his power? It is true that in far-off
provinces men did not talk daily of Tom Towers but they read _The
Jupiter_, and acknowledged that without _The Jupiter_ life was not
worth having. This kind of hidden but still conscious glory suited
the nature of the man. He loved to sit silent in a corner of his club
and listen to the loud chattering of politicians, and to think how
they all were in his power;--how he could smite the loudest of them,
were it worth his while to raise his pen for such a purpose. He loved
to watch the great men of whom he daily wrote, and flatter himself
that he was greater than any of them. Each of them was responsible to
his country, each of them must answer if inquired into, each of them
must endure abuse with good humour, and insolence without anger. But
to whom was he, Tom Towers, responsible? No one could insult him;
no one could inquire into him. He could speak out withering words,
and no one could answer him: ministers courted him, though perhaps
they knew not his name; bishops feared him; judges doubted their own
verdicts unless he confirmed them; and generals, in their councils of
war, did not consider more deeply what the enemy would do, than what
_The Jupiter_ would say. Tom Towers never boasted of _The Jupiter_;
he scarcely ever named the paper even to the most intimate of his
friends; he did not even wish to be spoken of as connected with it;
but he did not the less value his privileges, or think the less of his
own importance. It is probable that Tom Towers considered himself
the most powerful man in Europe; and so he walked on from day to day,
studiously striving to look a man, but knowing within his breast that
he was a god.