PREPARE.
The Government of England never guides us long, without guiding itself
into a fearful mess. The Tories, and the Radicals, are much alike in
this; but they differ very widely in their way of getting out of it. The
former resign, or appeal to the Country; which seldom responds to their
chivalry. The latter jumble up, (instead of joining) issue; and jump
into Jack-of-the-lantern vagaries, all over any bog, where nobody can
shoot them.
This was the policy in practice now. Our foreign relations, being
anything but friendly, were to be allowed to please themselves at our
expense; while the gaze of the Country should be turned inward, and its
hands employed in tearing their own vitality. Very grand measures were
being prepared, for a fine subversion of established things; Liberal
statesmen being quite convinced by their own condition, that the
universe was wrong. Of all these projects the Country heard, with its
usual self-complacence, growing more and more accustomed to be managed,
and driven, by some half-dozen busybodies; according to the usage of
democracies.
"We must make a stand somewhere," said sensible people; but left
somebody else to make it. "I draw the line at this," or "I draw the line
at that," declared the steadfast Briton; but if he drew it anywhere, it
was only in the clouds. What could any single hand, or even a hundred
stout men, with a hundred hands apiece, avail, when things were gone so
far? The only man, who could extinguish the fire, was the very man
blowing his large bellows at it; and in the headstrong weakness of his
nature, he had shouted for a gentleman smaller than himself, but skilful
in the manufacture of malignity.
So little desire had I, to share, in the rough affray impending, and so
keenly did I feel my own helplessness, that nothing but Sir Roland's
stern resolve could have held me to the pledge of public life. All I
cared for was, to be allowed to take my Laura, who had promised to give
herself to me; and it recked me very little how the public might be
governed, if my home might boast so sweet a Queen. But, although Lady
Twentifold had given her consent, and waived all obstacles of pride and
birth, in the warmth of her good-will towards me, she made it a
condition that we must secure the concurrence of her son, as the head of
the family, and master of the race of Twentifold. And he (while as
friendly to me as ever, and faithful to his promise not to interfere)
sternly pronounced that he never would consent, until I had rendered
some good service to the Country.
"How am I to do it?" I inquired, with sound reason. "Your condition
amounts to a total forbiddance. I have no great abilities, as you are
well aware. I shall never be an orator. I cannot even put ten big words
together, without breaking down. To move the public ear now, the tongue
must thunder forth a thousand thumping words, for every hollow tooth of
meaning. And not only that, but a fellow must be able to work his words,
so as to have two kinds of meaning--one for the public, and one for
himself; when he finds it important to deny them. No, Roly, I shall
never be distinguished. No honest man has any chance of that."
"How high can you go now, with a little indignation?" he asked, instead
of answering me. "I know that you are practising; although you are so
crafty, that no one has a bit of chance of seeing you. Why should you be
shy of a power, so much rarer than the most entrancing eloquence?
Prepare; you can never prepare too much. If I could only do what you
can, Tommy, I would have a Dissolution in February, and be the Premier,
after a very little practice. Why don't you let me know, how you get
on?"
"Because you don't deserve it;" I answered with some spirit; and by this
time he knew that I had some will of my own. "If you had said to me,
about my darling Laura--'Tommy, you shall have her; and I trust to your
own good feeling, not to leave a stone unturned, for the discomfiture of
the Radicals'--you might have had me for your dog,--to sit up, or dance
round the room, or jump over your handkerchief, at order. That would
have been the wiser course for you to take."
I spoke with some emotion; and to my mind my words appeared altogether
unanswerable. But he looked at me steadily, and his face expressed no
sense of contrition. Neither did his answer.
"I considered all that; but I found it would be an entire mistake, so
to trust you. Not from any doubt of your honour, my dear fellow, or
desire to oblige me, after date. But simply because all your power would
be gone. For a twelvemonth, after you have married Laura--supposing that
such a thing ever comes to pass--there will be no possibility of
stirring up any indignation in your system. She is so confoundedly
sweet-tempered, that you (who have got too much of that already)
doubling your stock--as married people do, at first--would regard the
loss of India, or even a French invasion, with perfect equanimity; if
they let you alone with your Laura. And without indignation, you have no
wings now. I have taken the trouble to ascertain that point. And my
settled conviction is, that after you are married, you will never fly
again, until you have a good fight with Laura."
"What a very low, and coarse way you have of putting things!" I
exclaimed with--as our Poets say--a mixture of emotions. Rapture, at the
thought of ever having Laura; rage, at the base idea of ever falling out
with her; and astonishment at Sir Roland's foresight, and grasp of the
matter, in all its bearings. "Why, you look upon me, entirely as a
subject for experiments!"
"Tommy," he made answer, with a smile so like my Laura's, (whenever she
wanted to be funny) that his very worst sentiments might no more annoy
me; "you are too fond of regarding things, from a narrow point of view.
Science possesses no interest for me. I take facts, as I find them. I
care not a stiver why you fly. I find that you do so; and that is
enough. Science would wander about for years, asking everything she met,
to explain the reason. But sense is quite satisfied with the mere fact;
and proceeds at once to make it useful. Professor Megalow, who knows
everything (except the iniquities of the Rads) has told me repeatedly,
that there has not been, for some centuries, any Englishman superior
(even in his finest moments) to the power of gravitation; except a
certain Thomas Upmore. Now, I care not, two skips of a flea, for the
fact that there have been, and perhaps still are, some exceptions, among
American aboriginals, to a law supposed to be universal. The British
public cannot see those fellows; and probably has never heard of them.
But the British public can see Tommy; and though capable no longer of
amazement--after all it has been dragged through--it is capable still of
a mild surprise, and of rubbing its eyes, and of trying to think. Our
duty it is, to promote that effort--a sore, and a stiff one at first, no
doubt, after five years of Liberal surrender of that right. One rare
gift, if properly used, may restore the use of another. Thought in the
national body is as rare, as flight in the individual. Restore the
defunct power, my dear boy; or at least restore the desire for it, which
alone must prove fatal to the Radicals. And then, but not till then,
will I hail you as my brother, in the flesh, and in the spirit."
"It sounds very well, if I knew but how to do it," I answered with some
kindly marvelling at the importance attached to me. "You make it a _sine
quâ non_ of brotherhood, in the humble being before you, '_ut patriæ sit
idoneus, utilis agris_.'"
"Exactly. You could not have put it better. His country, and the
agricultural interest--very nearly dead, and with which dies England; as
her bitter enemies have long found out. I have no fear of you, when you
once get in; which this Autumn Session will enable you to do. The writ
will be issued next week, the vacancy having been declared already.
Squelch has not a chance; and you shall take your seat formally, so as
to be ready for the great fight in the Spring."
"But Chumps?" I asked; "when is Bill coming down? He will do you a great
deal more good than I can. You seem to take it easily, about getting him
in for Silverside."
"Because there is no chance of any opposition. Flanker will not resign
until February. I have had a little talk with him, and made that square.
The oddest part of all is, that I had the hardest work to get out my own
warming-pan. The others have behaved like gentlemen. There will be six
of us, with the three who still remain. All staunch fellows, and not a
fool among them, unless it is your humble servant. Come, and have a game
of pyramids, friend Tommy."
Very often, when I thought about Sir Roland Twentifold, I could not help
feeling surprised at his devotion to that dryest and dullest of all
games, at least in my opinion--politics. He was fond of field-sports, a
bold rider, a good shot, a great lover of dogs, and of outdoor life, and
a hater of town-existence. Yet all these were only light pleasures to
him; while politics, and the strife of parties, seemed to be his
passion. Handsome as he was, and a fine young man, with a rent-roll even
finer, and therefore at a high demand in the London market, he passed
among all the fair snares, uncaught, with a pleasant smile justly
distributed.
I ventured to ask Lady Twentifold once, how she, (so free from
prejudice, and so full of good-will to the world at large) could have
brought up her son, with such set convictions, and principles, perfectly
upright, but sometimes almost too unbending. She looked up, with a kind
but rather melancholy smile, from the paper, on which she was making a
pencil-sketch of a very grand oak-tree, still in its prime, but as
rugged as a ruin.
"Who brought up this tree?" she asked.
"Nature does everything now," I replied; "it used to be the Lord; but it
is Nature now. In a few years more, it will be Science. When we tire of
that, it will be Accident. And after that, Something even nobler."
"But the tree will be the tree;" she answered gently, for her fear about
me was that I might grow too scientific, if led into arguments against
it; "I prefer to say, that the Almighty made it so, though few ladies
now would agree with me. My dear Tommy, I have no more to do with the
bent of Roly's mind, than I have with the twists, and turns, of this
tree. He inherits it all from his grandfather; upon, I suppose, what the
learned people call, the system of alternation. My dear husband,
Roland's father, would never go near Westminster; although we had a
house in London then, to see our friends in the season. He sat for
Twentibury, in his own chair, or in the saddle, according to the season;
and everything went on as nicely as could be. But his father had been of
an uncomfortable nature, desiring to make speeches, and to meddle
generally, his grandfather having been a strong Jacobite; and the whole
of it comes out again in my Roly."