For though he was a Liberal in addition to being a printer, and he had
voted Liberal, and his party had won, yet the General Election had not
put sunshine in his heart. No! The tendencies of England worried him.
When he read in a paper about the heretical tendencies of Robertson
Smith's Biblical articles in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," he said to
himself that they were of a piece with the rest, and that such things
were to be expected in those modern days, and that matters must have
come to a pretty pass when even the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" was
infected. (Still, he had sold a copy of the new edition.) He was
exceedingly bitter against Ireland; and also, in secret, behind Big
James's back, against trade unions. When Edwin came home one night and
announced that he had joined the Bursley Liberal Club, Darius lost his
temper. Yet he was a member of the club himself. He gave no reason for
his fury, except that it was foolish for a tradesman to mix himself up
with politics. Edwin, however, had developed a sudden interest in
politics, and had made certain promises of clerical aid, which promises
he kept, saying nothing more to his father. Darius's hero was Sir
Robert Peel, simply because Sir Robert Peel had done away with the Corn
Laws. Darius had known England before and after the repeal of the Corn
Laws, and the difference between the two Englands was so strikingly
dramatic to him that he desired no further change. He had only one
date--1846. His cup had been filled then. Never would he forget the
scenes of anguishing joy that occurred at midnight of the day before the
new Act became operative. From that moment he had finished with
progress... If Edwin could only have seen those memories, shining in
layers deep in his father's heart, and hidden now by all sorts of
Pliocene deposits, he would have understood his father better. But
Edwin did not see into his father's heart at all, nor even into his
head. When he looked at his father he saw nothing but an ugly,
stertorous old man (old, that is, to Edwin), with a peculiar and
incalculable way of regarding things and a temper of growing
capriciousness.
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