Notwithstanding the fatigues of the morning, the evening was passed with
great gaiety at the Castle. The gentlemen all vowed that, far from being
inconvenienced by their mishaps, they felt, on the whole, rather better
for them. Mr. Guy Flouncey, indeed, did not seem quite so limber
and flexible as usual; and the young guardsman, who had previously
discoursed in an almost alarming style of the perils and feats of the
Kildare country, had subsided into a remarkable reserve. The Provincials
were delighted with Sidonia’s riding, and even the Leicestershire
gentlemen admitted that he was a ‘customer.’
Lord Monmouth beckoned to Coningsby to sit by him on the sofa, and spoke
of his approaching University life. He gave his grandson a great deal of
good advice: told him to avoid drinking, especially if he ever chanced
to play cards, which he hoped he never would; urged the expediency of
never borrowing money, and of confining his loans to small sums, and
then only to friends of whom he wished to get rid; most particularly
impressed on him never to permit his feelings to be engaged by any
woman; nobody, he assured Coningsby, despised that weakness more than
women themselves. Indeed, feeling of any kind did not suit the present
age: it was not _bon ton_; and in some degree always made a man
ridiculous. Coningsby was always to have before him the possible
catastrophe of becoming ridiculous. It was the test of conduct, Lord
Monmouth said; a fear of becoming ridiculous is the best guide in life,
and will save a man from all sorts of scrapes. For the rest, Coningsby
was to appear at Cambridge as became Lord Monmouth’s favourite grandson.
His grandfather had opened an account for him with Drummonds’, on whom
he was to draw for his considerable allowance; and if by any chance he
found himself in a scrape, no matter of what kind, he was to be sure to
write to his grandfather, who would certainly get him out of it.
‘Your departure is sudden,’ said the Princess Lucretia, in a low deep
tone to Sidonia, who was sitting by her side and screened from general
observation by the waltzers who whirled by.
‘Departures should be sudden.’
‘I do not like departures,’ said the Princess.
‘Nor did the Queen of Sheba when she quitted Solomon. You know what she
did?’
‘Tell me.’
‘She wept very much, and let one of the King’s birds fly into the
garden. “You are freed from your cage,” she said; “but I am going back
to mine.”’
‘But you never weep?’ said the Princess.
‘Never.’
‘And are always free?’
‘So are men in the Desert.’
‘But your life is not a Desert?’
‘It at least resembles the Desert in one respect: it is useless.’
‘The only useless life is woman’s.’
‘Yet there have been heroines,’ said Sidonia.
‘The Queen of Sheba,’ said the Princess, smiling.
‘A favourite of mine,’ said Sidonia.
‘And why was she a favourite of yours?’ rather eagerly inquired
Lucretia.
‘Because she thought deeply, talked finely, and moved gracefully.’
‘And yet might be a very unfeeling dame at the same time,’ said the
Princess.
‘I never thought of that,’ said Sidonia.
‘The heart, apparently, does not reckon in your philosophy.’
‘What we call the heart,’ said Sidonia, ‘is a nervous sensation, like
shyness, which gradually disappears in society. It is fervent in the
nursery, strong in the domestic circle, tumultuous at school. The
affections are the children of ignorance; when the horizon of
our experience expands, and models multiply, love and admiration
imperceptibly vanish.’
‘I fear the horizon of your experience has very greatly expanded. With
your opinions, what charm can there be in life?’
‘The sense of existence.’
‘So Sidonia is off to-morrow, Monmouth,’ said Lord Eskdale.
‘Hah!’ said the Marquess. ‘I must get him to breakfast with me before he
goes.’
The party broke up. Coningsby, who had heard Lord Eskdale announce
Sidonia’s departure, lingered to express his regret, and say farewell.
‘I cannot sleep,’ said Sidonia, ‘and I never smoke in Europe. If you are
not stiff with your wounds, come to my rooms.’
This invitation was willingly accepted.
‘I am going to Cambridge in a week,’ said Coningsby. I was almost in
hopes you might have remained as long.’
‘I also; but my letters of this morning demand me. If it had not been
for our chase, I should have quitted immediately. The minister
cannot pay the interest on the national debt; not an unprecedented
circumstance, and has applied to us. I never permit any business of
State to be transacted without my personal interposition; and so I must
go up to town immediately.’
‘Suppose you don’t pay it,’ said Coningsby, smiling.
‘If I followed my own impulse, I would remain here,’ said Sidonia. ‘Can
anything be more absurd than that a nation should apply to an individual
to maintain its credit, and, with its credit, its existence as an
empire, and its comfort as a people; and that individual one to whom its
laws deny the proudest rights of citizenship, the privilege of sitting
in its senate and of holding land? for though I have been rash enough
to buy several estates, my own opinion is, that, by the existing law of
England, an Englishman of Hebrew faith cannot possess the soil.’
‘But surely it would be easy to repeal a law so illiberal--’
‘Oh! as for illiberality, I have no objection to it if it be an element
of power. Eschew political sentimentalism. What I contend is, that if
you permit men to accumulate property, and they use that permission to a
great extent, power is inseparable from that property, and it is in the
last degree impolitic to make it the interest of any powerful class to
oppose the institutions under which they live. The Jews, for example,
independently of the capital qualities for citizenship which they
possess in their industry, temperance, and energy and vivacity of mind,
are a race essentially monarchical, deeply religious, and shrinking
themselves from converts as from a calamity, are ever anxious to see
the religious systems of the countries in which they live flourish;
yet, since your society has become agitated in England, and powerful
combinations menace your institutions, you find the once loyal
Hebrew invariably arrayed in the same ranks as the leveller, and the
latitudinarian, and prepared to support the policy which may even
endanger his life and property, rather than tamely continue under a
system which seeks to degrade him. The Tories lose an important election
at a critical moment; ‘tis the Jews come forward to vote against them.
The Church is alarmed at the scheme of a latitudinarian university, and
learns with relief that funds are not forthcoming for its establishment;
a Jew immediately advances and endows it. Yet the Jews, Coningsby,
are essentially Tories. Toryism, indeed, is but copied from the mighty
prototype which has fashioned Europe. And every generation they must
become more powerful and more dangerous to the society which is hostile
to them. Do you think that the quiet humdrum persecution of a decorous
representative of an English university can crush those who have
successively baffled the Pharaohs, Nebuchadnezzar, Rome, and the Feudal
ages? The fact is, you cannot destroy a pure race of the Caucasian
organisation. It is a physiological fact; a simple law of nature, which
has baffled Egyptian and Assyrian Kings, Roman Emperors, and Christian
Inquisitors. No penal laws, no physical tortures, can effect that a
superior race should be absorbed in an inferior, or be destroyed by it.
The mixed persecuting races disappear; the pure persecuted race remains.
And at this moment, in spite of centuries, of tens of centuries, of
degradation, the Jewish mind exercises a vast influence on the affairs
of Europe. I speak not of their laws, which you still obey; of their
literature, with which your minds are saturated; but of the living
Hebrew intellect.
‘You never observe a great intellectual movement in Europe in which
the Jews do not greatly participate. The first Jesuits were Jews; that
mysterious Russian Diplomacy which so alarms Western Europe is organised
and principally carried on by Jews; that mighty revolution which is at
this moment preparing in Germany, and which will be, in fact, a second
and greater Reformation, and of which so little is as yet known in
England, is entirely developing under the auspices of Jews, who almost
monopolise the professorial chairs of Germany. Neander, the founder of
Spiritual Christianity, and who is Regius Professor of Divinity in the
University of Berlin, is a Jew. Benary, equally famous, and in the same
University, is a Jew. Wehl, the Arabic Professor of Heidelberg, is a
Jew. Years ago, when I was In Palestine, I met a German student who was
accumulating materials for the History of Christianity, and studying
the genius of the place; a modest and learned man. It was Wehl; then
unknown, since become the first Arabic scholar of the day, and the
author of the life of Mahomet. But for the German professors of this
race, their name is Legion. I think there are more than ten at Berlin
alone.
‘I told you just now that I was going up to town tomorrow, because I
always made it a rule to interpose when affairs of State were on
the carpet. Otherwise, I never interfere. I hear of peace and war in
newspapers, but I am never alarmed, except when I am informed that the
Sovereigns want treasure; then I know that monarchs are serious.
‘A few years back we were applied, to by Russia. Now, there has been
no friendship between the Court of St. Petersburg and my family. It
has Dutch connections, which have generally supplied it; and our
representations in favour of the Polish Hebrews, a numerous race, but
the most suffering and degraded of all the tribes, have not been very
agreeable to the Czar. However, circumstances drew to an approximation
between the Romanoffs and the Sidonias. I resolved to go myself to St.
Petersburg. I had, on my arrival, an interview with the Russian Minister
of Finance, Count Cancrin; I beheld the son of a Lithuanian Jew. The
loan was connected with the affairs of Spain; I resolved on repairing to
Spain from Russia. I travelled without intermission. I had an audience
immediately on my arrival with the Spanish Minister, Senor Mendizabel; I
beheld one like myself, the son of a Nuevo Christiano, a Jew of Arragon.
In consequence of what transpired at Madrid, I went straight to Paris
to consult the President of the French Council; I beheld the son of a
French Jew, a hero, an imperial marshal, and very properly so, for who
should be military heroes if not those who worship the Lord of Hosts?’
‘And is Soult a Hebrew?’
‘Yes, and others of the French marshals, and the most famous; Massena,
for example; his real name was Manasseh: but to my anecdote. The
consequence of our consultations was, that some Northern power should
be applied to in a friendly and mediative capacity. We fixed on Prussia;
and the President of the Council made an application to the Prussian
Minister, who attended a few days after our conference. Count Arnim
entered the cabinet, and I beheld a Prussian Jew. So you see, my dear
Coningsby, that the world is governed by very different personages from
what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.’
‘You startle, and deeply interest me.’
‘You must study physiology, my dear child. Pure races of Caucasus may be
persecuted, but they cannot be despised, except by the brutal ignorance
of some mongrel breed, that brandishes fagots and howls extermination,
but is itself exterminated without persecution, by that irresistible law
of Nature which is fatal to curs.’
‘But I come also from Caucasus,’ said Coningsby.
‘Verily; and thank your Creator for such a destiny: and your race is
sufficiently pure. You come from the shores of the Northern Sea, land
of the blue eye, and the golden hair, and the frank brow: ‘tis a
famous breed, with whom we Arabs have contended long; from whom we have
suffered much: but these Goths, and Saxons, and Normans were doubtless
great men.’
‘But so favoured by Nature, why has not your race produced great poets,
great orators, great writers?’
‘Favoured by Nature and by Nature’s God, we produced the lyre of David;
we gave you Isaiah and Ezekiel; they are our Olynthians, our Philippics.
Favoured by Nature we still remain: but in exact proportion as we have
been favoured by Nature we have been persecuted by Man. After a thousand
struggles; after acts of heroic courage that Rome has never equalled;
deeds of divine patriotism that Athens, and Sparta, and Carthage have
never excelled; we have endured fifteen hundred years of supernatural
slavery, during which, every device that can degrade or destroy man has
been the destiny that we have sustained and baffled. The Hebrew child
has entered adolescence only to learn that he was the Pariah of that
ungrateful Europe that owes to him the best part of its laws, a fine
portion of its literature, all its religion. Great poets require a
public; we have been content with the immortal melodies that we sung
more than two thousand years ago by the waters of Babylon and wept. They
record our triumphs; they solace our affliction. Great orators are the
creatures of popular assemblies; we were permitted only by stealth to
meet even in our temples. And as for great writers, the catalogue is not
blank. What are all the schoolmen, Aquinas himself, to Maimonides? And
as for modern philosophy, all springs from Spinoza.
‘But the passionate and creative genius, that is the nearest link to
Divinity, and which no human tyranny can destroy, though it can divert
it; that should have stirred the hearts of nations by its inspired
sympathy, or governed senates by its burning eloquence; has found a
medium for its expression, to which, in spite of your prejudices and
your evil passions, you have been obliged to bow. The ear, the voice,
the fancy teeming with combinations, the imagination fervent with
picture and emotion, that came from Caucasus, and which we have
preserved unpolluted, have endowed us with almost the exclusive
privilege of Music; that science of harmonious sounds, which the
ancients recognised as most divine, and deified in the person of their
most beautiful creation. I speak not of the past; though, were I to
enter into the history of the lords of melody, you would find it the
annals of Hebrew genius. But at this moment even, musical Europe is
ours. There is not a company of singers, not an orchestra in a single
capital, that is not crowded with our children under the feigned names
which they adopt to conciliate the dark aversion which your posterity
will some day disclaim with shame and disgust. Almost every great
composer, skilled musician, almost every voice that ravishes you with
its transporting strains, springs from our tribes. The catalogue is too
vast to enumerate; too illustrious to dwell for a moment on secondary
names, however eminent. Enough for us that the three great creative
minds to whose exquisite inventions all nations at this moment yield,
Rossini, Meyerbeer, Mendelssohn, are of Hebrew race; and little do your
men of fashion, your muscadins of Paris, and your dandies of London, as
they thrill into raptures at the notes of a Pasta or a Grisi, little do
they suspect that they are offering their homage to “the sweet singers
of Israel!”’